The Story within the Story… The responsibilities of our executives at state-owned companies

Apr 01, 2018 News

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By Leonard Gildarie

Guyana is moving rapidly into another stratosphere of the business world.

Yes, whether we like it or not, the oil and gas sector will change, in a very rapid way, the DNA of this country. Whether it is for the good or worse, that remains to be seen.

Personally, with the intense scrutiny and recorded examples of best practices, I believe that public pressure will compel our administrators to push for an even better deal.

That is, if they are wary and appreciative of public pressure.

We have to. We have made so many errors in the past that it is almost sinful and can and should be described as criminal. ExxonMobil and its partners are experienced. The US wants to partner with Guyana. And rightfully so. The last thing they want is accusations

This is high quality oil in an area that is said to contain one of the biggest finds in the last decade. Between Suriname and Guyana, the deposits in this part of the hemisphere, where there is no unrest, represent an extremely lucrative prospect.

We have our problems, but there are so many things going for Guyana. Our geographical importance cannot be underscored enough for what it would mean for region’s development. Our largely untapped resources have been under-exploited.

Oil and gas is expected to bring the spotlight on Guyana. In fact, ExxonMobil is reporting that by 2025 it is confident of doubling its profits. The US company is, of course, basing that largely on the Guyana find. It should underline the critical importance of Guyana to ExxonMobil.

As a journalist, I can say that at Kaieteur News, I have seen, over the years, first hand evidence of some giveaway deals. It raises a deeply worrying question about our administrators. One for me would be the most troubling: whose interests were they looking out for?

I hear the excuse so often that in order to attract investments we had to bend over backwards. Fair enough, in the ‘90s and maybe up to the mid-2000s, that might have been the case.

The entire idea of managing the country is for the administrators to come up with ideas that will place the benefits for the people of Guyana. We should not only benefit from jobs, but taxes and royalties too, for the exploitation of our precious natural resources. The knock-on benefits like transportation, food supplies and tolls, are all added bonus.

In the past, not so long ago, tax concessions and lands were literally given away, without any clear regard or evidence what exactly Guyana was benefitting.

One Asian company received tax breaks and unlimited containers of hardware for its factories, but instead went to the local market and started selling. In other words, we give away our resources, without any clear thought, with little benefits for our people.

Let us try to put this into perspective.

It is like having a shop and using the profits to help the poor. The best idea is to use a part of the profits to do so. If you tap into the capital used to buy groceries and other supplies, it will be a foregone conclusion that you will be out of business in a short while.

I was up at the Aurora Mine Site of Guyana Goldfields last Sunday. I am impressed on hearing the figures that this Canadian company has been impacting Guyana with.

From food to royalties to local contractors, it would be a good study of where we should be. The fact is the resources in Guyana belong to the people. They have to be managed prudently.

The people, as the shareholders, also need to be told and updated, in a timely manner about what we are doing with their assets. In recent years, the performance of our public officials was beyond scandalous. It is tantamount to fraud. From poorly-kept records to missing records, it was difficult to rebuild to get a true picture of what transpired.

Yet despite the past, we still see executives and even our accounting officers appear before Parliamentary oversight committees and, year after year, report of unresolved issues or repeating fundamental mistakes.

The deliberations have started now on the performance of our executives. Recently, the debate on GuySuCo’s pay to executives has raised some questions. We have to tie performances of our executives to production and other benchmarks. We can’t be paying good money to create little kingdoms where we as shareholders have no idea what we are getting.

I need…you need…to be updated regularly on the status of our assets and investments.

The Aurora project should be seen as an investment where we are getting returns.

The Berbice Bridge, the Marriott Hotel, the oil and gas sector, our royalties and taxes – everything should have our undivided attention.

As the employer…if our executives don’t perform, there is nothing preventing them from being shown the door. After all, the taxes, jobs and royalties are all what pay us as the shareholders.

 

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