Change Guyana promises national oil company if elected

Change Guyana has promised that once elected to the National Assembly at the upcoming General and Regional Elections, its members would establish a National Oil Company and make every Guyanese shareholders of that company.

The political party intends on ensuring that all unassigned and assigned oil blocks are vested in a state-owned National Oil Company, which will be directly owned by all Guyanese.

“Every citizen of Guyana will be assigned shares in the National Oil Company from birth…such shares will appreciate in value with every action including signing bonuses and so forth,” said Presidential Candidate of Change Guyana, Robert Badal, during a press briefing at Pegasus, on Tuesday.

He said the shares will only be disposed to families of the shareholders or back to the oil company. The party’s intent through the initiative is, however, to ensure that every Guyanese gets a stake in the oil sector. Change Guyana’s plan is to ensure that every Guyanese receives a fair share of Guyana’s oil and gas resources. According to Badal, his party’s plan is to also propel Guyana into the league of progressive countries.

While he believes the oil and gas resources are important for that process, he said those resources would not have been possible without the input and efforts of ExxonMobil and its partners.

The presidential candidate applauded ExxonMobil for its work here, saying: “we applaud the success of ExxonMobil and its partners in discovering and bringing this world class resource to production and I would like to encourage their leaders to continue partnership with the people of Guyana.” Badal said Guyana’s oil and gas reserves are world class and must be exploited for the benefit of every Guyanese.

And, although he believes that the local leaders could have negotiated a better deal for the people of Guyana, the commencement of oil production has put the country on the map and will bring enormous benefits to Guyanese.

In that regard, he said if his party is given the opportunity to govern, it will engage ExxonMobil and its partners and all oil majors to enhance the benefits accruing to Guyana.