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August 12, 2017, http://citizensreportgy.com

Jordan contradicts Trotman in relation to oil contract

Politics 278 Views

At a recent press conference held by Minister Winston Jordan, he argued, inter alia: “… when you put all together, it is not whether we got a good deal or bad deal or whatever… we got a deal”.

The Minister further went on to state that the current Administration had nothing to do with the contract and the negotiations. “With all this issue about good deal and so on, you are making an assumption that we renegotiated the contract. That contract was already in place, we inherited that contract,” said Jordan.

However, addressing the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GEITI) capacity building symposium, which was held at the Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, on Wednesday, May 31, 2017, Minister Raphael Trotman, in his opening remarks, stated that the coalition government had undertaken a review of the contract, which dates back to 1999. He disclosed at that forum that government would pronounce on the matter within the next few weeks.

Subsequently, at a media breakfast jointly hosted by his Ministry and Exxon Mobil, Minister Trotman revealed that ‘minor’ changes had been made to the 1999 agreement reached between the then PPP/C Government and ExxonMobil in the wake of the huge offshore oil discovery in 2015,

Countering the implications of Trotman’s revelations, the Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, at a press conference said, “If you are going to snipe at us, make the contract public, so we can defend ourselves.” Dr. Jagdeo was addressing the attempts made by coalition government ministers to politicize the issue.

He further stated, “We have a bi-partisan approach to the industry, particularly because of what it means to Guyana’s future.” The Opposition Leader also noted that comments aimed at comparing the former PPP/C Administration with the coalition Administration, as it relates to this particular issue, are merely attempts to place the latter in a more positive light, thus politicizing the issue.

Also commenting on the subject was former Attorney General, Mr. Mohabir Anil Nandlall, who reiterated the call of the Leader of the Opposition for the current Administration to release the contract. He adumbrated: “They have a new contract, the contents of which no one knows; even the GRA officers who are to be tasked with calculating taxes under the contract have written publicly that they are unaware of the contents of the contract.”

Public queries in various media, especially the social media, are questioning the relativity of ‘minor’ to the actuality of the changes made to the original contract.

This matter came to light after questions arose as to the cause and need for five senior Ministers of the Government to travel to Texas for meetings with officials of ExxonMobil. Those on the trip were Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge; Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan; Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson and Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin, none of whom are experts on the oil and gas industries.

 

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