Jagdeo shocked that monthly oil production reports still not being released
Jagdeo shocked that monthly oil production reports still not being released
By Davina Bagot
Kaieteur News – More than a year ago, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo promised that monthly oil production reports would be published to keep citizens in the loop on the offshore activities, but to date he has not kept his word.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo
At a Press Conference hosted on Friday, the VP seemed surprised that the data has not been made public yet. It was the Kaieteur News boss, Mr. Glenn Lall who followed up with him on his promise made since February 8, 2021, when he said he is not sure why the reports have not been made public.
Jagdeo fumbled, “Oh the production reports, yeah they come out, I told them at least every week and stuff like that we can put that (out) that’s not secret data or anything like that so let me find out again.”
He went on to enquire what the Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat said in response to the request for such data. Jagdeo insisted, “He’s the Minister you need to ask him, don’t wait until you come to my press conference to ask. Give him a call…”
The former Head of State was also informed by Lall that the agencies responsible for the gold, bauxite and timber operations were reluctant to disclose these contracts. To this end, the VP explained, “I don’t think these agreements should be secret. Right, because the concessions are standard…many people don’t remember this but the Minister of Finance used to sign every duty free letter that was when I was there and we changed it when I became President and even before that we started moving to change it where all of that, the administering of duty-free concessions would be done by the GRA and not by a political individual and secondly they would be based on legislation.”
He therefore indicated, “I don’t see the reason why many of these are not in the public domain already. I’ll find out about it.”
Since making the first commitment to publish the oil production reports, 18 months have gone by without a single update on the offshore production.
This publication reported that Opposition Member, David Patterson said the Government cannot offer any excuse which can absolve it from this grave sin against the nation.
The Shadow Minister for the Oil and Gas sector in an invited comment to Kaieteur News said, “No one buys a bottle of water that is not full, because you can see through the container. No one buys fruits from our local vendors if the product is visibly damaged. However, if you buy a bottle of cooking gas, you cannot see if you are getting value unless the bottle is weighed on a standard scale, or unless you believe the seal has been properly set and has not been tampered with. This is what the Government is asking our nation to accept, a product from a supplier without verification.”
Patterson added, “There have been repeated public requests for the Ministry of Natural Resources to provide the daily production information for the oil we are paying Exxon to explore for, to drill for, to store and mostly to sell for us. To date, there is still no information. There are no figures to perform analysis on, no production data which can be tabulated with the corresponding oil prices to ensure that we are receiving value for our oil.”
Patterson said Guyanese, the main stakeholder in all of this, remain in ignorance and cannot check or verify the sporadic information, which they receive about oil production offshore from Exxon and its partners.
He opined that this lack of transparency dominates the PPP/C’s activities in the oil and gas sector, where the oil production licences are also shrouded in secrecy and quite frankly characterises its activities in general. Patterson said this state of affairs should be concerning for all stakeholders wherever they may be.
