Let us first be reminded of President Ali and 2nd VP Jagdeo boisterous pre-2020 election promise and utterings that “We will renegotiate those contracts. The Coalition sold us out to the foreigners and every time there is an oil find out there, our people should be sad because nothing comes our way. They gave up zero royalty, no taxes, no ring fencing. They are the biggest crooks who signed the Contract.”
Obviously heeding Jadgeo’s maxim that Guyanese are “stupid” and not paying attention, Ali is desperately begging voters to “only vote for those who look out for you and kept their promises”; so, let’s hold Ali to his word and judge his PPPC’s record of keeping their promises and how well they looked out for us in protecting our birthright oil & gas patrimony that holds Guyana’s future wellbeing.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they betrayed us in backing down on their promise to “renegotiate the contract”, surrendering to Exxon and now the only party vowing to never renegotiate, going against 94% of the nation and against Clause 32.1 of the Contract authorizing renegotiations if requested by the Government; but they cannot even grow a little back bone to request renegotiations.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they are robbing the country of Billions of US$ per year without renegotiations, leaving half of Guyana in poverty and with the highest malnutrition rate in the region, while the 5% of families, friends and cronies of the PPPC get filthy rich.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when in “submissiveness” to Exxon, they put Guyana and the Caribbean at dire risk of financial bankruptcy and environmental catastrophe, in cancelling the full liability coverage instituted by the APNU/AFC Coalition for Exxon to cover the full cost of an oil spill.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they abused their 1-seat parliamentary majority to override the Court’s ruling to reinstate the liability coverage, leaving us without resources to cover an oil spill that will tank our economy, for the Macondo spill costed $145 Billion US, close to 30 times Guyana’s budget.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they are full-throatedly enabling Exxon’s greedy illegal exceedance of safe oil production rates, thus amplifying the risk of an oil spill without liability coverage, putting Guyana and the Caribbean in grave danger of financial bankruptcy and environmental catastrophe.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when, instead of adhering to the international standard of reinjecting unlimited amounts of produced gas with over 200 pollutants back into the oil reservoir as enacted by the Coalition, they are callously flaring this gas into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change, acid rain, and respiratory illnesses and other health effects.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when, instead of complying with the international standard of reinjecting unlimited amounts of extremely hot, toxic, radioactive and oil laced produced water back into the oil reservoir, as enacted by the Coalition, they are callously dumping this water into our clean ocean, destroying tourism and ocean ecology, and killing millions of fish eggs and fishing industry.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they cancelled the Coalition’s World Bank/EPA program, and the UG Petroleum Engineering program partnering with the Universities of the West Indies and Trinidad & Tobago, to build capacity for competent oversight of the oil & gas sector. Had they not recklessly ditched those programs, Guyana would have now been well equipped with highly competent oil & gas professionals to ensure proper management of this critical industry, instead of the status quo leaving us to the mercy of the oil companies taking full advantage of this troubling skills deficit.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they afford Exxon special treatment over local companies, separating and hiding Exxon’s files in the EPA Director’s office, and hiding information from the public, including reserve estimates, tax rates, quarterly reports and field development plans (FDPs), despite persistent public protests by the likes of prominent Attorneys led by Chris Ram and Nigel Hughes. Jagdeo even barefacedly lied that they had released the FDPs. Getting caught redhandedly, they are trying to fool us again at election time, with another empty promise to comply with the law and release the information after elections, though nothing stopped them from release for five years.
The PPPC did not look out for Guyana when they broke their promise to cut electricity cost by half by 2023 with the Gas-to-Energy project which is 3 years behind schedule and cost tripling from $800 Million to $2.4 Billion, not to mention the pending cost of a lawsuit – all because they lawlessly breached the oil contract requiring a feasibility study, confirming again that the PPPC does not plan their projects, so wastes humongous amounts of citizens monies that could be spent to alleviate poverty.
Fellow Guyanese, the above evidence speaks for itself! The PPPC failed miserably to earn your vote based upon President Ali’s own criteria to “only vote for those who looked out for you and who kept their promises”. As the proverb goes “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.
Respectfully,
Dr. Vincent Adams
