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Govt. holds exclusive press conference for State Media, News Room
– refuses questions on oil industry
President Irfaan Ali during his address to the nation, yesterday.
Kaieteur News – In their first press conference of the year, the Irfaan Ali-led administration excluded most media houses from attending the same engagement. Instead, it held an exclusive engagement for the state media and the private news agency, News Room.
In the advisory sent to the media for his address to the nation yesterday, the Office of the President did not state what would be the issues addressed in the President’s speech, but only that it would be live streamed.
What came as a surprise, however, was that shortly after the President’s address; the independent media found out that Ali had set out to host a press conference, but only with the state media, namely the Guyana Chronicle and other media house, the News Room.
Excluded media houses like the Prime News, News Source, Stabroek News and this publication took their displeasure to a media group managed by former reporter, Edward Layne, in a bid to seek an explanation for their exclusion. At the time, Layne could not offer justification, but indicated that media houses could send their questions to the group and that he would relate them to the President.
However, when it came to Kaieteur News’ turn to send questions, which were focused on Guyana’s oil and gas industry, Layne refused to relate the questions to the President, stating that the press engagement was only focused on the Guyana-Venezuela controversy as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to this notice, Kaieteur News was not aware that the questions were only focused on the two aforementioned topics.
Notwithstanding, Kaieteur News’ questions, which were environmental-related, focused on recent news that ExxonMobil had increased flaring at their Liza Destiny operations – the US oil giant’s first petroleum development project offshore Guyana. The company’s flaring comes after their gas compressor had malfunctioned for the second time in one year, and like last 2020, the company is expected to release billions of cubic feet of toxic, natural gas into the atmosphere.
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