If in America why not in Guyana? 

Oct 24, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Some stark truths must be faced because the record is there, and sometimes it can be ugly.  America’s oil supergiant, ExxonMobil, is not a clean operator, a presence that measures up well, when the thinking is about leadership honour.

In the shortest, bluntest description, ExxonMobil is not, and can never, be, considered to be a trusted partner. Look at what it has tried ever, so often in America, its domestic operating grounds, where its own is involved, and harm following in some way or the other.  If this superrich, superstar of an American oil superpower can even think of, and then actually put inaction, what is wrong and consequential in America itself, then what would ExxonMobil not dream up, cook-up, and dig up to put into motion that messes up an unknowing, unexposed, and unseeing country like Guyana?

Guyana is neither New Jersey nor Rhode Island nor Massachusetts nor California. Each of those States in America is far more equipped to deal with ExxonMobil.  In this poor, backward, and ignorant land, we are not, and by a long mile.  In all those four American States, from little Rhode Island to sprawling California, ExxonMobil has been a constant in what is negative and destructive.  The record is of necessary company information concealed or corrupted, and with great financial damage resulting from the cost to fix things left behind by ExxonMobil.

The company has been a denier for the longest while about what devastates the world, and still plays clever games with what it acknowledges, where it refuses to go, and how it puts up a wall against acting in the best balance of people and profits.  The mindset of the corporate captains at ExxonMobil has always paid lip service to what benefits people, while it did everything possible, including the underhanded, to make its numbers flourish.  Profits are what ExxonMobil is all about, and by means.  New Jersey is the latest in a line of American States that came to the realization of the corporate snake in its bosom.

ExxonMobil ducks it records, and when it doesn’t do that, it dumps phony details on the temporary unwary.  In Guyana, leading Politicians are so much in bed with ExxonMobil’s locally based rip-off artists, that the ignorance of this country about what the company really does is permanent.  When the PPPC Government and other major domestic political forces should be in the forefront of the fight to put a stop to the financial and environmental injuries that ExxonMobil delivers on this country, they shrink from doing their patriotic duty, and leave that dirty and heavy job to private citizens.

Gas flared into the atmosphere-do we really know how much?  Sewage dumped into our waters-it would be revealing to gain clear insights on what the records of ExxonMobil have to say.  The real books with the real story and numbers, that is.  ExxonMobil has its powerful influence peddlers and defenders in American, yet the lawsuits keep piling up, and even some of its staunchest allies are having second thoughts.  In Guyana, ExxonMobil doesn’t have a worry in the world, for it has the PPPC Government and Bharat Jagdeo to jump to its bidding, with many Guyanese wondering if the same cannot be said of the major APNU+AFC Opposition also.  Because as much as it has the power of all the influence peddlers and defenders in America, there are none the equal of Vice President Bharat Jagdeo, none that is so completely obedient to its commands, if not the company’s merest wish.

America can lookout for itself and correct its missteps.  Guyana needs as many eyes and ears and minds looking out for it. But even with those, this country is still impotent before the might of ExxonMobil, because there is still so little political will, such an absence of leadership drive, to correct the numerous wrongs that ExxonMobil has inflicted on the citizens of this country.  America can manage and overcome ExxonMobil.  The same cannot be said for Guyana. Not with the PPPC Government, not with a Leader possessing the feeble spirit of Bharat Jagdeo. And, not with a political Opposition that is nearly similar to the Government and the Vice President.