The passage of time has seen our oil discoveries exceed six billion barrels. Our commentators, with great zest and zeal, protested the unconscionable contract’s plunder and robbery of our oil resources by ExxonMobil and their minions, with a 2% contract that has now withered down to appeals for Local Content, Ring Fencing, Tax Stabilisation Removals, and Environmental Protection.
The slave masters in the room wax proudly and poetically about their enormous oil discovery in Guyana with no mention of the slavish whip of the 2% royalty.
This royalty is more exploitative than the other atrocities in the contract between ExxonMobil Corporation, Hess Corporation, Nexen/China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), and the Government of Guyana. The contract is called a Production-Sharing Agreement (PSA).
The Chief Executive Officers of the oil companies, namely Darren Woods of ExxonMobil, John Hess of Hess Corporation, and Yang Hua of Nexen/CNOOC, indulge in contractual infamy by suffocating Guyanese with this 2% contract, while they, their subordinates, and shell companies commit cruel crimes against humanity.
It is timely to note that there were regulations and contracts for people that were enslaved. We Guyanese, survivors of slavery and indentured labour, are now being colonised by two European corporations and a Chinese corporation.
As illustrated time and time again in Kaieteur News, Guyana is supposed to receive a royalty of 2% under the PSA, the lowest royalty for oil in this universe, as shown when compared to royalties of 35 other oil-producing nations.
The so-called leaders – I prefer to call them misleaders – have been provided by God with a gateway to deliver enormous prosperity to Guyanese alive today and future generations, yet they are squandering this prosperity in exchange for selfish gain and servile power.
Our overseers in Guyana are no longer White, but instead Black and Brown acquiescent misleaders in the form of politicians from the ruling and opposition parties: invariably lackeys and acolytes for ExxonMobil et al. who have sold their souls to maintain or acquire political, economic and social power, at the expense of the Guyanese people. What a shame!
We often preach about historical oppression suffered for over 400 years, and now our leaders embrace this oppression by accepting 2% garbage royalty that sinks our prospects for vibrant economic development. Such a deal stinks across the continents of the world.
Let me be clear, a fair royalty is 15% for the preeminent oil find of the 21st century: light crude oil with high porosity and permeability in the offshore waters of Guyana, which are prime easily marketable locations.
The contract does not need any local content policy, does not need any ring fencing or tax stabilisation policy; the 15% royalty will allow for local content development in the oil industry and the development of other major industries in Guyana, such as sugar, rice, forestry, fishing, mining, bauxite and Social Services.
The 15% royalty will neutralise and de-risk the tax stabilisation clause and lack of ring fencing in the 2016 PSA.
The pre-contract costs that I referenced in an earlier letter in Kaieteur News – “Pre-contract cost… US$460M seem to have been pulled from an alternate universe” – and dated February 10, 2018 is another heavy yoke on the backs of Guyanese.
These costs are open-ended and should be fully absorbed by the oil companies, as is the general practice in the industry, which was illustrated in the Pre-contract cost letter.
Foisting this immeasurable and unaccountable pre-contract cost on Guyanese is akin to the enslaved having to pay for their journey across the Middle Passage.
How absolutely callous are these greedy masters of industry, their major shareholders, and the power-drunk local cabal for pretending not to perceive the evil of this witless oil contract.
The local political faction will act subserviently in any renegotiation, as the political misleaders care not for the broad prosperity of the Guyanese people, but instead for political power and pats and praise from their masters at ExxonMobil et al.
The rush-stumbling of our misleaders to not offend any one of America’s cornerstone corporations is disgraceful.
Surely, we can find the mental acuity and strength to do what is best for Guyanese and not subjugate Guyanese to another form of subservience. To be courageous is not to be fearless; it is to take action in spite of fear. We have the power to do what is right for Guyana.
Let me paraphrase the trials of Cato, the Roman soldier, as an example of the courage needed: Cato was not terrified of the foreign contractors and put the Republic first; he refused to play along to the two major parties, Caesar and Pompey.
He uttered words fraught with freedom, encouraging the people not to fail in their struggle for freedom but to try by all means necessary, to act in a manner that is in the best interest of the Republic.
What a pleasure it is to have Guyanese who will fight unflinchingly and heroically against the evil and abominable 2% contract for the better of all Guyanese. As paralleled with the words of Virgil, “…march with a spirited step…and heart abounding in courage…”
Are we Guyanese not human beings too, entitled to humane and fair treatment? Our politicians are carping about the abuse, misuse, and adherence or non-adherence to the Guyana constitution, filing court actions, appealing court findings, disregarding court rulings, and emphasising the importance of the constitution and court rulings, all for power of one racial party or another racial party.
Both parties ignore the fact that the sole purpose of Guyana’s constitution is to have a system of governance that mandates equal opportunity and fair treatment for all Guyanese; this purpose takes precedence over the partisan scramble for political power.
As our misleaders pander for the hubris of ministerial office and executive duty-free lifestyle, they can only see 2 trees to salvage, when the entire forest belongs to us; our misleaders commit and palaver away 98 trees to the foreign corporations. How idiotic!
Nigel Hinds