Latest update November 8th, 2024 1:00 AM
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Jagdeo making lame excuses to avoid release of Gas-to-Energy contracts – Opposition
Kaieteur News – Vice President, (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo is being called out for making excuses to avoid the release of the Gas-To-Energy contracts.
Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo
In a press statement issued on Saturday, the Office of Leader of the Opposition (OLO) said the Guyanese people should note Jagdeo’s response to the question of when the reports will be made public.
Alluding to the fact that Jagdeo declared bluntly: “I don’t know,” in response to the question, the OLO statement pointed out that the VP has offered several lame excuses as to why he still refuses to release the documents despite long-standing demands from the media and the Opposition.
“We and others have repeatedly commented on this unacceptable situation as PPP’s disregard for transparency and accountability and its disrespect for the people of Guyana,” the OLO statement added.
Additionally, the OLO noted that Jagdeo displays two particularly irksome attitudes as he continues to hide and hoard information.
“One, his attitude is to take credit for the release of sporadic bits of information when, in fact, it is the relentless pressure from the media and the Opposition that forced him to do so. He, for example, praised himself for the release last week of the two audit reports on the operations of Exxon Guyana when the media and the Opposition have been demanding these since last year,” the OLO’s missive continued.
Describing the behaviour as ‘juvenile’, the Opposition noted that in keeping the documents as secrets, Jagdeo takes pleasure in criticizing others for not being properly informed about the matters covered in the very documents.
“This is a typical ploy of persons who like to pretend to be the brightest person in the room. They deliberately withhold information from others so that they can ridicule and belittle them.
It is time that Mr. Jagdeo stops this juvenile behavior. Our oil industry is too pivotal to Guyana’s present and future prosperity for one man to be playing games with vital information that should be available to all Guyanese, including the media, civil society, and the parliamentary Opposition,” the OLO stated.
The Opposition once again called for the document to be tabled in the National Assembly.
In response to a question posed by Kaieteur News as to when the Gas-to-Energy contracts will be laid in the National Assembly, VP Jagdeo said he could not answer the question.
“Maybe; maybe soon, I don’t know; I don’t know that is a matter for Gail Teixeira and the others to … but we’ve tabled a lot of things, it’s almost everything that you see in the agreement you know,” he stated.
The Vice President nevertheless suggests that there is enough information on the project in the public domain.
He said “…We told you the price of $759 million; we told you the timeline for implementation, you know how many turbines and what’s the size of the turbines, almost every component of the agreement, and you what the liquidating damages are…”
The VP then proceeded to criticize the Opposition for failing to read the agreements once they are tabled in the House.
Jagdeo lamented, “Do you know how many agreements we tabled routinely? And nothing comes out of them. It‘s the same gaffe the opposition has because when you don’t have anything to say. You just say oh we don’t have enough information. This is a lazy set of people lazy!!! They didn’t have enough information on ring-fencing; they don’t have enough information on contracts that they sign.”
He suggested that the exercise is a total waste of time since the Opposition will not read the documents.
“You recall Ramotar tabling all the agreements relating to Amaila. A big set of documents showing the environmental, feasibility, and design studies everything and what came out of it. They didn’t read a single bit of it,” the Vice President said.
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