I watched with chagrin and grave disappointment, the hurling of puerile insults at the young brilliant PNCR Chairman and Member of Parliament (MP) Shurwaye Holder, by veteran PPPC MP Sanjeev Datadin, so as to deceive and confuse people on the life and death matter of providing Full Liability Coverage in the event of an oil spill. I always respected Mr. Datadin as a man of reason and professionalism, but sadly, he now appears to be imbibing more than his fair dose of the PPPC cool-aid of full-throated complicity with Exxon against the people of Guyana.
Mr. Datadin’s condescending and self-righteous barrage of insults levelled at Chairman Holder, started with “let me offer some kind words of advice…don’t speak of things you don’t know….don’t interpret something if you can’t read…a necessary qualification to understand and interpret laws requires reading”. Surprise! Surprise! Mr. Datadin has failed miserably on all counts to honor his own “kind words of advice”.
First, though Mr. Datadin didn’t care to “read” about Chairman Holder’s background, he snootily ranted that he can’t read. Well Mr. Datadin, please read now that the Chairman and Honorable MP earned a BSc degree with distinction in Mechanical Engineering, and an MS degree in Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency; thus, arming him with the “necessary qualification to read, understand, and interpret” anything that you can, Sir. And please note, Sir, that none of the Chairman’s degrees are of the honorary kind, the holder of which you idolize.
Second, I won’t behave in kind to insult Mr. Datadin that he can’t “interpret the law if he can’t read”, because I have no doubt that the learned Attorney can read, indeed; but I will offer my “kind words of advice” to the Honorable MP, to please “don’t speak” on the Parent Company Guarantee (the Guarantee) until he “reads and understands” the Petroleum Agreement, the EPA Act; the Guarantee clauses enshrined in the EPA Permit when I headed the EPA, and the Honorable Judge Kissoon’s ruling (a thesis) which overwhelmingly upheld the language in the Permit.
Third, Mr. Datadin seems to revel in an annual habit of exposing his unfamiliarity with the Guarantee, starting with his 2022 budget speech when he cluelessly posited that the premium for the Guarantee would be cost prohibitive. Well, I will, for the umpteenth time educate the Honorable MP that the Guarantee costs nothing. It is merely a paper Guaranteeing that parent company Exxon and its partners Hess and CNOOC will provide Full Liability Coverage to cover all costs above the insurance coverage, regardless of the amount of insurance. Simply put:
Full Liability Coverage = Insurance + Parent Company Guarantee
Fourth, Mr. Datadin smugly castigates Mr. Holder that “if you are going to refer to an order at least know what the order says.” I offer Mr. Datadin’s own “kind words of advice” that if he is “going to refer” to the Polluter Pays Principle in the EPA Act, he should at least read and understand what it means. He obviously didn’t, and so, brings to light his unknowingness that in the case of a spill without the Guarantee, the polluter required to pay, will be Exxon’s subsidiary, EMGL, and NOT parent company Exxon or any of its partners Hess or CNOOC. Astoundingly, the problem that Mr. Datadin doesn’t grasp is that EMGL does not have any assets to cover a spill, which is the very reason why the Guarantee was first crafted and imposed by the Coalition Government in the 2nd project – the Liza 2 Permit (Liza 1 Permit was already signed without it) signed by Exxon in 2019, with the condition for them to provide the Guarantee before startup of operations in 2022. That notwithstanding, the EPA had also laid down that no future permits, nor pending startup of the Liza 2 operations will be approved until the Guarantee is signed; and that upon its expiration in 2022, the Liza 1 Permit will be modified to include Full Liability Coverage.
At the time of change in Government, the only remaining step to finalize the Guarantee and all of the conditions as described above, was to complete the agreement amongst Exxon and its partners as to how the liabilities will be shared among them. This step was managed by an outstanding EPA Attorney who held regular meetings with the partners and was about to finalize the document at turnover of the Government in August, 2020, when I was sent on leave, the process was scrapped, the EPA Attorney was let go, and a clause was added to the Permits in an attempt to negate the already enshrined Guarantee clauses. Those are the unadulterated facts that led to the lawsuit which resulted in Judge Kissoon’s ruling resoundingly in favor of the plaintiffs that uncloaked the Government’s betrayal of its own people when it joined with Exxon to appeal the case. Unfortunately, Mr. Datadin is now barefacedly attempting to cover-up this immoral betrayal of our people, preferring to be in bed with Exxon as, according to VP Jagdeo’s own words, “we are being robbed of our patrimony”. Thank goodness, we are not a foolish people.
As in this particular case, subsidiaries like EMGL (the child) are mainly set up to insulate its parent companies like Exxon from liabilities such an oil spill. Exxon (the parent) has no contractual arrangement with the Government; and so, if a spill occurs, they are in no way on the hook and can walk away scotch free, and EMGL could declare bankruptcy and also walk away, leaving Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean holding the bag of health, environmental and financial bankruptcies. Exxon’s fish story for not having the Guarantee, is that a large spill will bankrupt Exxon, meaning, that with the Government’s devoutly inhuman backing, it is quite alright for Guyana and the Caribbean to face bankruptcy, instead of Exxon. Does anyone need any more convincing why Exxon, cheered on and joined at the hip with the Government, is so emboldened not sign the Guarantee!
Fifth, MP Datadin, in no uncertain terms, parrots Exxon’s cock and bull story that they will never walk away from their responsibility to clean up a spill. If that is the case to be believed, why won’t it be very easy to just sign the Guarantee that costs not even a single dime! By the way, Exxon tried pedaling that same insulting “never walk away” line with us, but was promptly stomped down with a retort to “put it in writing”; hence, the birth of Full Liability Coverage. Plainly, as if it’s not enough for him to throw insults at Chairman Holder alone, Mr. Datadin also seems to think that he could insult the intelligence of 800,000 Guyanese into believing that he and the Government believe this bunk, and we do not see through this callous display of disloyalty to the nation.
Sixth, Mr. Datadin admonishes all to go to the EPA where proof of the supposed Exxon’s $2 Billion deposit will readily be made available to anyone seeking it. His bombast has certainly caught up with him, bringing into view that he doesn’t know anything about the EPA for which he claims to speak; because, unluckily for him, Kaieteur News called his bluff and showed up at the EPA, only to prove how dysfunctional the Agency has become, and at total odds with Mr. Datadin’s direction, forcing a shameful EPA public statement that any release of the purported document has to come through the courts – so much for the shameless hoax of transparency by this Government! I hope that Mr. Datadin now knows before his next utterances, that Exxon’s files are given special top-secret treatment by being separately hidden away in the Executive Director’s office, with not even the Filing Room Clerk having access. We tirelessly ask what is there to hide? But now getting the answer, piece by piece. I once again offer to Mr. Datadin, his own kind words of advice, “don’t speak of things you don’t know”, Sir.
All of the above notwithstanding, this yet to be seen $2 Billion is a hoax and distraction from the full liability coverage. $2 Billion USD is a drop in the ocean compared to the Macondo spill in our neighbourhood which costed $145 Billion USD.
Lastly, my final kind words of advice for my friend the Honorable MP Datadin, is if he cares to avoid such embarrassments in the future, maybe he should adopt the tricks of the trade from his boss, the Honorable VP Jagdeo who takes over, and talks like an expert on, everything under the sun, but when stuff hits the fan, he takes cover and pleads innocent non-interference while throwing others under the bus as he has done in this case with the EPA, and with the GRA as related to the $214 Million Audit scandal.
