Rollovers and leftovers define Guyana

Dear Editor,

Exxon along with Hess & CNOOC came to Guyana as partners with Guyana’s government to produce oil which is currently ongoing under an agreement where Guyanese who owns the oil are getting just leftovers confirmed by the high and increasing poverty rate.

Under Guyana’s constitution one company is only entitled to 60 oil blocks, yet Exxon & Partners now controls more than 600. Not one MP has explained why this is so, whether the constitution was violated or amended to facilitate this betrayal of the Guyanese people’s patrimony. It is very evident, it was Exxon & Partners who drafted the oil blocks, and production sharing agreements then presented them to the Guyana’s government.

Instead of having an experienced oil professional reviewing the contracts, Guyana’s government rolled over and affixed their signature of approval for these oil companies’ contracts. This confirmation came from the horses’ mouths themselves, as the ones who signed the oil blocks, and production sharing agreements admitted they signed the contracts without reading them.

Exxon & Partners was even so bewildered on how easy Guyana’s government rolled over, that Exxon & Partners themselves made a mistake by not including tax exemption, and unlimited insurance liability exemption in the original agreements. So, Exxon & Partners requested Guyana’s government called parliament to pass tax exemptions, and unlimited insurance liability exemptions, and once gain Guyana’s government rolled over complying leaving Guyanese with leftovers.

The finance minister under the Coalition Government is now on social media accusing the current Government of collecting nothing from the oil companies and being hailed as a financial genius even as he waived taxes via parliament for the oil companies, for the highest income earner in Guyana.

His counterpart in the current government recently called on rich nations to make credit financing available to the Caribbean, in the land producing plenty of riches, all this man talks about are loans, mortgages, credit financing, borrowing, debt, IOU’s etc., seems this man expertise in financing are bondage, and indebtedness. No wonder under his tenure Guyana’s debt has increased from under 2 billion US$, to now over 10 billion US$ and counting, Guyanese, this is the main reason for your current stifling unaffordable cost of living.

Exxon & Partners have come to Guyana learned, and now practising a well known Guyanese slogan “ketch a pacoo buss e back”, so much so, Exxon now have Guyanese on a “need to know” basis on production, monitoring, profit share, clean-up costs, and general operations procedures. Exxon will now tell Guyana what it feels like, whenever it feels like, give Guyana what it likes with no insurance protection, and the entire Guyana rolls over and accept. Exxon has now made it clear, there will also be no discussion about windfall profit sharing due to unexpected spike in oil prices due to global factors even as countries like Canada will be collecting their windfall profits due to the current Gulf Conflict, and once again Guyana rolls over to accept leftovers instead. This is what the Vice-President, and Minister of Natural Resources calls the best management model for other oil producing countries to follow.

Guyana is past due to collect back 20% of it all blocks, yet this is not an issue for those in government nor opposition, whether it’s indoor or outdoor parliament no one asks about this nor speak of it. This entire country has rolled over staying silent on whatever foreign companies are allowed to do in Guyana, unfortunately for Guyanese this is going to be very costly more than Guyanese can handle. Guyana had unresolved border issues with all 3 of its neighbours prior getting into oil with a memorandum of understanding of co-existing, however, the rolling over by Guyana’s government to the oil companies have caused their neighbouring countries dearly, so border issues are now resurrecting, and all the president do is filing complaints.

The US Ambassador said American companies are double taxed in Guyana, US companies get a tax receipt showing they paid taxes to Guyana, yet Guyana gets not one cent, and the whole country rolls over and accepts this. The PPP now have parliamentary majority, they can rescind Exxon’s tax exemption, they can demand unlimited liability for oil, spills, they can demand more benefits for every new oil project, they can impose environmental regulations on foreign companies operating in Guyana, the PPP would never do these things, instead they will lambast Forbes Burnham who died decades ago.

The opposition has been recently barraging Guyanese with videos of government corruption, yet this would do little for the government change since they have no shame or conscience, remember there was a Vice-News undercover video with a Chinese foreign national openly saying you can get anything in Guyana once you pay off the right persons one of whom was featured in the video making the deal, yet this had no effect on Guyanese who rolls for their political parties especially at elections.

The deal is very clear in Guyana being, the government will allow foreign companies to take from, and do whatever they like to Guyana, in return the government gets to do whatever they want to the citizens of Guyana who rolls over gleefully accepting this, the evidence of this stems from incidents happening all across the country. Now the government has an excuse for the way things work in Guyana being the new Gulf War, I don’t know what they will blame for the last three decades. None of the politicians’ campaign to stop the foreign plundering of Guyana, it’s only the blame game so elections will just be one set of roll overs trying to replace another set. The biggest set of roll overs yet are the Guyanese population to political parties, and their foreign counterparts, so much so they are willing to just collect leftovers. This is a bitter taste for Guyanese as they complain everyday of hardship, and government intimidation, so what else do Guyanese expect being roll overs accepting leftovers?