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VP Jagdeo pussyfooting around to release of Wales Gas project agreements
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is reluctant to tell the nation when the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) agreements will be tabled in the National Assembly.
He was asked by this newspaper on Thursday during his weekly press conference when the agreements would be made public when he said “maybe soon”. In fact, the Chief Policymaker for the oil and gas sector noted that the details of the agreement are already public knowledge. According to him, “Everything that you see in the agreement you know…we told you the price- US$750 million; we told you the timeline for implementation; you know how many turbines and what’s the size of the turbines…you know what the liquidating damages are.”
Jagdeo therefore said, “Maybe soon, I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s for Gail Teixeira and the others” when asked when the agreements would be laid in Parliament. He argued that the Opposition has been calling for the release of the documents as part of its normal “gyaff”. “When you don’t have anything to say, you just say oh we don’t have enough information,” the VP reasoned.
Jagdeo then pointed out that the former President, Donald Ramotar had tabled the agreements relating to the Amaila Falls Hydro power project, including the environmental studies, feasibility study, design study and others but this was not analysed by the Opposition, which has mixed up the facts of the project.
He accused the group of lying about the project which is then published by newspapers. As such the Vice President argued, “I am done with helping this Opposition and some of the people; you have to sort these things out yourself.”
The Opposition has been calling on the government to table all agreements, relative to the massive US$2 billion GTE project, in Parliament however none of the documents have been presented to the nation. Since 2022, the government signed a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with the Stabroek Co-ventures, ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC, that outlines the principles and conditions for the commercial and technical arrangements of the deal. The GTE project includes a pipeline, to be built and financed by the Stabroek Block operator, ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), while the other two components, a 300 megawatt power plant and a natural gas liquid (NGL) facility is being constructed by the government of Guyana.
Former Minister of Public Infrastructure and Member of Parliament (MP), David Patterson recently raised concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the project. He explained that Budget 2024 reveals that Guyana has already spent US$400M on the initiative but the country remains in the dark on the deals struck with government and its contractors.
To date however, Patterson said no agreements have been supplied to the House on the project. The former Minister believes that the government is reluctant to table the agreements as these would expose the beneficiaries of the arrangements. He said, “Obviously they don’t wanna lay it because that would unravel where the feed troughs are and how unviable this entire thing is. It would show how corrupt this thing is.” The government has been reluctant to release documents relative to this project and numerous attempts by the Opposition to seek clarity in the National Assembly have been defeated. MP Catherine Hughes had complained last year that questions submitted by her were not allowed by Speaker of the House, Manzoor Nadir since these issues were addressed by Head of the GTE Taskforce, Winston Brassington when Guyana hosted its Energy Conference in 2023. This was the fourth attempt by the Opposition seeking details surrounding the controversial GTE project.
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