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Sacred duty
Kaieteur News – The media has a duty to call things as they are, as the facts support. Newspaper, radio, television, and cyber audiences can agree or criticise, use for honest purposes, or make what they want out of what is presented.
The sacred duty of the media remains unchanged, and its practitioners are bound to what is accurate, what is balanced, and what speaks for itself. Guyana’s oil wealth and its stewardship come under sharp scrutiny because of what it means for the welfare of Guyanese. This is regardless of the discomfort, the pushback of governments, when their lapses are disclosed.
Whether the previous APNU+AFC government, or the incumbent PPPC Government, their management of the oil wealth stands as a test case of where the media should be. The facts on both the plus side and the minus must be presented, so that the interests of the Guyanese people are protected, so that they know what is being done with their hopes.
The fact that Venezuela, which has longstanding designs on Guyana’s territory and its riches, may use what is dug up locally should not serve as a deterrent to the media. The duty to pursue the real stories of Guyana’s oil remains. ExxonMobil has been most unfair to this country, its public relations gimmicks notwithstanding. Such stories must be brought to light to expose the banditry that is now so deeply woven into Guyana’s oil sector. The costly excesses and accounting schemes of the company, as revealed in audit findings. Surely, there is benefit to Guyanese knowing how far ExxonMobil would go, and has, with past projects. The web of impenetrable secrets surrounding billions of US dollars in expenses, as submitted by ExxonMobil, must be what any government, any president, any Guyanese political figure of integrity would insist that the Guyanese people know. Apparently, the PPPC Government does not want the Guyanese people to be privy to what ExxonMobil is really doing with their oil wealth, and for Guyanese media contributors to go along with the games of leaders.
How much oil has been found, as evidenced in updated data. How much oil is really being pumped daily, as measured by the installation of meters by Guyana, and overseen by Guyanese, and not what ExxonMobil feeds to Guyana. How much gas is being flared into the atmosphere, and what is the relationship between offshore oil activities, and declining fish catch, all form the big book of questions and issues that is part of the media’s portfolio, and which demand straight answers. This is what should be encouraged by any government that has the interests of its people first. Any government that is not in bed with the oil companies, that does not prioritize the visions of those entities, would be welcoming of a vigilant media cohort. Media that keeps tabs on what foreign oil companies do, and how such is damaging to Guyana.
We do not believe that any media house, any media contributor, in this country starts out with the objective of their oil articles, or their commentaries, to be to the benefit of Venezuela. The media entity, or media commentator, may be pushing the government line on oil, but we are confident that it is what supports their paymasters’ positions, and does not have anything to do with how Venezuela uses such presentations. Similarly, whatever the government finds fault with in this publication or elsewhere, its leaders know full well that whatever we do is for the exclusive benefit of Guyanese. Whatever Venezuelan politicians do with such (exposés commentaries, criticisms, cartoons), cannot be controlled. The facts still must be made public, and from that duty there can be no backing away.
This government should know that anyone, local or foreign, can twist any story to give muscle to their positions. It is part of the territory, and one that gets tricky when there is a border controversy/dispute raging such as ours. What the government should be fully and honestly focused on is how to manage this oil cleanly, and how to monitor ExxonMobil closely, so that it does right by Guyana. These two areas are under its control, not what Venezuela does with what is written and spoken here.
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