Giveaway of Canje, Kaieteur Oil Blocks mirrors controversial Senegal gas deals – Glenn Lall 

Mar 31, 2024 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

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Kaieteur News – The controversial giveaway of the Canje and Kaieteur oil blocks under the Donald Ramotar presidency has striking similarities of several gas deals signed by the West African country of Senegal under its former leader, Macky Sall, anti-corruption campaigner, Glenn Lall has said.

Lall made the comments during his radio programme – The Glenn Lall Show last Wednesday where he revisited the issue of the giveaway of the Canje and Kaieteur blocks which were handed to persons during the dying days of Ramotar’s presidency.

Lall told his audience that he had visited Senegal under the presidency of Sall. Lall noted that Sall took two of that country’s richest gas fields, which he could have sold and repay that country’s US$5B debt and lifted its 17 million people out of poverty, but instead of selling them, he handed both of them to an Australian, Frank Timmis for free.  Lall noted that Timmis had no experience in the oil and gas business.  “Now hear what went on in Senegal –Timmis sold a portion of the two gas fields to an oil company and collected over US$900M. He then tied up a deal the British oil Giant BP for the remainder, and is set to collect US$12B more over a 40-year period.”  He continued: “Hear that, one foreigner sitting with US$900M and is set to pocket US$12B more over the next 40 years, and the whole country still sitting with US$5B debt and the people starving.”  “Hear more of what happened, later on, the country found out that the President’s brother ended up being part of the company that received the sale money from that transaction.”

Sall served 12 years as president and elections were held last week where he lost to Senegal’s anti-establishment leader, Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Prior to the elections he had jailed Faye, but the young man came out of prison to defeat him at the polls. Asking whether Sall’s behavior mirrors that of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, Mr. Lall said: “Yes it does, he served 12 years too and wanted a third term, put up billboards all over for a third term, even moved to the courts and when he lost the case, he run till to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to see if the judges would give him a third term, instead he get a sledge hammer…”

Turning his attention to the Kaieteur and Canje oil blocks, Lall said had the PPP government sold them in the open market, “by now no one would have had to be barking in their yards or in the streets, to get a livable wage, Guyana would have done paid out the US$3B debt we had at the time, and still have enough money for all Guyanese to eat comfortably.” Lall argued on his show that the value of the country’s oil blocks could have played a major role in the livelihoods of citizens today, “but they have disappeared in the wee hours into the hands of people that have left many questions unanswered, about who got them, how they got them, who are benefitting from them, where these people come from, and what expertise they have in the industry as to being in possession of these oil blocks. “ Lall believes had these blocks been sold on the open market, Guyana would have paid off the entire region’s debt; salaries could have been five times more than what they are getting now and money would have been rolling in like sand. “No Guyanese would have to go to bed hungry in this country – that’s the kind of money we already lost out on, just on the oil blocks,” the businessman stated.

Giveaway

The Canje Block for instance was awarded by the Donald Ramotar administration on March 4, 2015, days before that year’s General and Regional Elections, to a local company, Mid-Atlantic Oil and Gas. Similarly, the Kaieteur Block was awarded on April 28, 2015, just two weeks before the elections, and like the Canje Block, it was done based on the advice of former Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud, Ramotar had said. Two companies received the blocks with 50-50 stakes – Ratio Energy Limited (now Cataleya Energy Limited) and Ratio Guyana Limited. The award of the oil blocks to the companies was especially concerning since the ultra-deep drilling is required for those blocks, a technique which only a handful of companies in the world have the technology, track record, and capability to execute. The red flags which have manifested in both situations include that the awards were given to unqualified companies, that the initial owners quickly flipped the blocks without doing any work, that they are incorporated in ‘secrecy’ jurisdictions, and that Guyana likely lost revenue due to the avoidance of an open, competitive bidding process.

Lall told his audience that Ramotar had said that hundreds of files came to his desk every day to sign off, “and when the then Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud brought the files of the Kaieteur and Canje oil blocks to his desk for his signature, he asked Robert if everything is okay with them, and Robert told him yes sir, so he signed off the files. Ramotar also said very clearly, he never met, know or see the people who received the oil blocks because Robert Persaud was the minister who signed off the deal with the people.”  Lall said when Persaud was asked, who received both of the oil blocks he said, “he never meet, see or know the owners, he only met the lawyers who signed on behalf of the owners, and when he was asked to provide the names of the lawyers who signed on behalf of the owners, he said he can’t remember them or where their offices are located.”

It has been close to five years since the PPP/C Government has failed to honour its promise to release the beneficial owners of the oil blocks offshore which include but are not limited to the Kaieteur, Canje, Orinduik, Kanuku, Demerara, Corentyne, and Berbice concessions. The issue was first raised in November 2020 by the Vice President, Jagdeo, who holds an oversight responsibility for the oil and gas industry.

Back then, he said that the government would seek to determine the beneficial owners of Guyana’s resources, with first priority being given to the owners of the nation’s oil blocks. Jagdeo had said that the government intends to have a greater understanding of the ownership structure of the companies with the said licenses while adding that this is important for transparency and taxation purposes.

Jagdeo said too that while a number of the companies which are operating Guyana’s oil blocks are registered in tax havens, including Barbados and the Cayman Islands, the government will ensure it goes after their information to ensure they pay their fair share of taxes. The Vice President had also given a commitment to ensure that this was completed before the end of 2020. That was the same deadline given to Guyana and other members of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to have such information made public.

The international body, EITI, had said it decided to crack down on this global problem since hidden identities in the extractive sectors only help to feed corruption and tax evasion. It also added that people who live in resource-rich countries are at particular risk of losing out when facing this problem as extractive assets are too often misallocated for corrupt reasons.

The EITI further noted that its standard requires public officials, also known as Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), to be transparent about their ownership in oil, gas and mining companies.

The international watchdog said that this information, once provided by its members, will be publicly available and will be published in EITI Reports and/or public registries.

Once published, EITI said, law enforcers, civil society and others have a responsibility to scrutinize the information, and take action to hold to account those who misuse anonymous companies. It should be noted that countries which fail to honour the requirements of the international body could face expulsion.

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• Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Dr. Glenn Lall, Former President, Kaieteur News Publisher, now Vice President of Guyana

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