On Friday, October 18th, Professor Janette Bulkan published a letter in the Stabroek News titled, `These wild presidential and DPI exaggerations, minus verifiable sources, ought to seriously be fact-checked by Stabroek News’. In the letter, the professor questioned how there could be 18,000 Guyanese working on the offshore oil rigs, as stated by President Irfaan Ali. She logically reasoned that Ali’s claim was overstated by 17 times.
On October 14th, the Department of Public Information (DPI) published an article quoting President Ali stating: “We now have 18,000 Guyanese working on the offshore oil rig.” Professor Bulkan’s letter, published a few days later, referenced the DPI article (see https://www.stabroeknews.com/2024/10/18/opinion/letters/these-wild-presidential-and-dpi-exaggerations-minus-verifiable-sources-ought-to-seriously-be-fact-checked-by-stabroek-new/ ). After her letter was published in the October 18th edition of Stabroek News, the DPI simply updated its article, keeping the October 14th date but removing the reference to the 18,000 quote. This would make it appear as if Professor Bulkan was living in an alternative universe and pulling figures out of the air.
However, an alert Stabroek News blogger pointed out that Caribbean American Weekly (see https://caribbeanamericanweekly.com/local-content-raked-in-over-us2-billion-in-businesses-to-date-president-ali/) had copied the original DPI publication containing the 18,000 figure quote.
The DPI’s alteration of the article’s contents (https://dpi.gov.gy/local-content-raked-in-over-us2-billion-in-businesses-to-date-president-ali/, after Professor Bulkan’s letter was published in Stabroek News, while retaining the October the 14th publication date, is reprehensible. The DPI must be living in an alternative universe if they assumed folks would not catch their deception – even a Google search, a few days later after the DPI altercation, showed President Ali’s original statement about 18,000 Guyanese, see image below.
It is more likely, as Professor Bulkan stated, that we may only have about a thousand folks working offshore in oil production. This is paltry for an industry that generated US$7.8 billion in profits in 2023. We at OGGN call on the parliamentarians in opposition to check the Hansard report to ensure what President Ali illogically stated – ‘We now have 18,000 Guyanese working on the offshore oil rig.’ – is recorded and has not been altered.
Yours faithfully,
Darsh Khusial on behalf of OGGN (www.oggn.org/about)
