Where are the Cabinet records?

Jul 26, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – Each weekday a group of private citizens can be seen holding placards demanding a better oil deal for the country. They are to be commended for waging a heroic struggle.

But instead of calling for renegotiation of the contract, they should first be fighting for the records relating to the oil contract to be made public. Among those records are the Cabinet records.

It is hoped that those records are still available. In 1992, a great many records were destroyed by the outgoing 28-year-old PNC government. By the morning of October 6^th, 1992, the day after the historic general and regional elections, it became clear that the PPP/C was going to win the elections.

This was the first time that the ballots were being counted at the place of polls in almost 25 years. In previous elections, the army had commandeered the ballot boxes and taken them to a central counting station where fake results generated.

After the initial declared results showed that the PPP/C heading for victory, riots broke out when it became clear that the country would have a new government. A Quick Test – a statistical sample of results at polling stations – confirmed that the PPP/C was on the path to victory.

Immediately, public records began to be destroyed. Fires were lit in receptacles at both parliament and the Office of the President. A pandit was believed to be behind the destruction of most of the records which related to financial transactions.

Up to now no journalist or media house has asked the present PPP/C government whether it inherited the Cabinet records of the APNU+AFC government. Those records would determine whether Cabinet ever deliberated on the Production Sharing Agreement signed with Esso, Hess and CNOOC. For such an important matter not to be discussed by the Cabinet would be unthinkable.

But with the APNU+AFC, the unthinkable happened. The APNU+AFC attempted to benefit from rigged elections; it fired almost 7,000 sugar workers, many of whom had to wait months for their terminal benefits.

The Cabinet records into the signing of the oil contract should be made public if they are in the possession of the PPP/C. This would confirm the basis, if any of the decision to sign the contract.
One person has said that he was instructed to sign the agreement. Cabinet is merely an advisory body to the President and but it does make decisions which Ministers are then instructed to implement.

A former petroleum advisor to President Granger has publicly said that when he told the President about the oil agreement, the President seemed surprised. So it is quite possible that President Granger may not have known about the agreement.

So from whence did the instruction to sign originate? Was it made when President Granger was out of the country? These are important questions because they have a bearing on the legality of the contract.

The PPP/C therefore should confirm whether it has seen any Cabinet record indicating that the contract was discussed. There is supposed to be a Secretary to the Cabinet. This is mandatory under the Constitution. The person holding that position is supposed to be a public officer and not an elected official. Given the sensitivity of the records, the Secretary to the Cabinet should be a citizen of Guyana. The Secretary to the Cabinet is responsible for preparing the minutes of Cabinet. Those records are public records.

If there is a record that the APNU+AFC Cabinet approved of the signing of the oil contract, then the PPP/C should so indicate that such a record exists. This is all the more so since the deliberations of Cabinet are considered as exempt from being made public under the Access to Information Act. However, the Commissioner of Information can allow for an exempt document to be made accessible to the public if it is considered to be in the public interest to do so.

If on the other hand, the PPP/C has not seen any record of the Cabinet minutes indicating that the Production Sharing Agreement was considered by Cabinet, then the PPP/C is duty bound, legally and morally, to launch a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the signing of the contract.

This should be the first demand of the placard bearers. It is a tactical maneuver which places the onus on the government to come clean about the contract and to test its commitment to public transparency.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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