Local transparency body ‘sick of secrecy’ in oil and gas sector

Jan 16, 2023 News

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By: Davina Bagot

Kaieteur News – For decades, successive Governments have kept quiet on Guyana’s petroleum sector, an issue which the present ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration must take responsibility for.

This is according to Mr. Fredrick Collins, Head of the Transparency Institute Guyana Inc (TIGI), a local watchdog body that advocates for good governance especially in the area of the nation’s natural resources.

In an exclusive interview with this newspaper yesterday, Collins argued that the PPP promised to make changes, however, there have no improvements to the “sickening cloud of secrecy” hovering over the oil and gas sector.

He made reference to an article published in the Sunday edition of Kaieteur News, where it was reported that Guyanese are yet to see US$1.8 billion in oil sales agreement, stemming from the first barrel of crude sold in 2019 to date.

“What we have is a well-tendered garden of secrecy over the decades because in the first place the Guyanese people didn’t even know that we were exploring for petroleum,” he said.

Collins told this newspaper that the secrecy hovering over the industry is sickening, especially since no progress is being made in this direction.

He said he recently saw a TikTok video in which the Publisher of Kaieteur News, Mr. Glenn Lall said that the country is still in the dark on the production figures and no business should be managed in that manner.

According to him, “Since 2019 we have been writing articles to say that the stage was set for this kind of nonsense to happen, but no one was taking it seriously. We are seeing now that people are saying that this agreement should have been brought before Parliament. We wrote an essay before on the missing Parliamentary oversight, where we were saying that these contracts should have been brought before Parliament.”

According to the International Secretariat for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Guyana is yet to declare consistently, information pertaining to the volumes of oil collected in accordance with the profit-sharing split, alongside the identity of the buyer for each oil cargo.  Furthermore, EITI said Guyana does not appear to have yet made progress on publishing descriptions of the process for selecting the buying companies, the technical and financial criteria used to make the selection, the list of selected buying companies, any material deviations from the applicable legal and regulatory framework governing the selection of buying companies, and the related sales agreements.

The local Transparency Institute said it is not a question of Guyana being able to adhere to the standards, but rather a question of Guyana being willing to execute its obligations. “These are political decisions and it goes very deep as to why it is the way our Governments are operating in a way which treats the owners, the real owners of the assets that they are administering so shabbily.”

As the real owners of the assets of Guyana, TIGI said the people are not being shared requisite information as it regards the management of the resources. Instead, he contended that Government is holding these cards close to their chest so as to not disclose relevant data.

Collins explained, “You can go to other countries and you can see the citizens demanding their information and the Government has to listen to them. The only information that a Government does not have to disclose is information that has to do with national security, because you would be telling your enemy how you are preparing for war. Everything else practically has to be or should be disclosed, because it is our business and what we have is a well-tendered garden of secrecy.”

The Transparency advocate warned that under the culture of secrecy maintained by successive Governments, the environment is created for corruption to thrive.

EITI’s Requirement 4.2 speaks to sale of the State’s share of production or other revenues collected in kind.  It states, “Where the sale of the State’s share of production of oil, gas and/or mineral resources or other revenues collected in kind is material, the Government, including state-owned enterprises, are required to disclose the volumes received and sold by the State (or third parties appointed by the State to sell on their behalf), the revenues received from the sale, and the revenues transferred to the State from the proceeds of oil, gas and minerals sold. Where applicable, this should include payments (in cash or in kind) related to swap agreements and resource-backed loans.”

The published data must be disaggregated by individual buying company and to levels commensurate with the reporting of other payments and revenue streams (4.7).

 

 

 

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• EITI, oil, production, secrecy, Transparency

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