Unjust Exxon deal represents a massive loss to each woman, man and child in Guyana

Dear Editor,

Two days after the highly regarded London-based international NGO Global Witness received a tongue-lashing from Foreign Secretary Carl Greenidge at an APNU+AFC rally, the NGO has noted that Guyana stands to lose US$55 billion on the oil deal with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, EEPGL.

Political strategists will be wondering whether Greenidge knew in advance about the announcement and more ominously, about the source of the information. The Stabroek News reported that Global Witness had written to Exxon asking questions about its operations here, answers to which would have likely embarrassed both the Government and Exxon. That Greenidge’s attack might have been designed as a pre-emptive strike on Global Witness to prejudice public opinion against the NGO is in the wider scheme of things less troubling than the fact that ExxonMobil and the Government of Guyana might be consorting on matters prejudicial to Guyana’s interest.

I will address the more arcane points associated with the announcement in my next column in the series Road to First Oil this coming Friday but here is a sober statistic: because of the deal the APNU+AFC cut with ExxonMobil, if the Contract is not renegotiated every man, woman and child in Guyana stands to lose $15,559,666 at today’s exchange rate. And that was before the sixteenth oil find announced this month by Exxon which carries up the figure even higher, and assuming that there is no further find.

To put that figure into some context, it means that at the national minimum public service pay of G$70,000 per month, this Government has given away 222 months’ or roughly 18 years and six months’ worth of earnings for every single man, woman and child in Guyana.

That Raphael Trotman has the gall to go around the country asking people to vote his Government back into power shows such a lack of pride and decency that one must wonder about his capacity to understand the grave and embarrassing injustice he has done to those very voters. But what compounds Trotman’s monumental mistake is the aloofness and detachment with which President Granger treats the sector. What kind of President of which country would place a multi-trillion dollar industry in the hands of one man. A man who knows nothing of the industry or its regulatory framework. A man who admitted to the national media that he did not do the elementary act of reading and familiarizing himself with the law and the contracts with the companies he is supposed to be overseeing.

This entire APNU+AFC Government needs to apologise publicly for its colossal mistakes, particularly in the petroleum sector. Granger should recall his banality of the sanctifying of an improper Agreement signed under the strangest of circumstances. He has a duty to this country to show leadership, commonsense, strength, patriotism – a duty to restore the advantage Guyana had over Exxon as it sought to restore a lapsed 1999 contract, and our patrimony which his Government meekly surrendered.

Yours faithfully,

Christopher Ram