Dear Editor,
I wish to state clearly – without any ambiguity, and to advice Hon. former Minister David Patterson – that ExxonMobil is “no pimper” of our nation!
Please allow me to highlight the fact that the contract with ExxonMobil was originally signed by the previous Government and political parties to which Hon. David Patterson was a senior minister.
Former Minister Patterson constantly, in a most disrespectful manner, tries to humiliate the people’s Government of His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, when it was the parties in which he was a senior minister that signed the oil contract with ExxonMobil and created the fiasco that we are in.
Their signing of that contract without consultation with the people set a precedent that ExxonMobil and any oil investor would want to hold on to. It also displays a lack of wisdom and maturity that Mr. Patterson never condemned his own political party, the Alliance for Change (AFC), and his executive leadership party and owner of the AFC, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R), for them signing blindly such a poor Exxon deal. Therefore, I expect him to show respect to the present Government of Dr. Ali, and the fact that they are trying to make the best of the ‘poor deal’ that the Coalition signed and established as policy.
Your colleague, Mr. Patterson, former Minister Raphael Trotman, signed the contract on behalf of your combined Government, and His Excellency President David Arthur Granger. It was reported in the various media that Mr. Trotman had not read the contract, and only later signed, he claimed, because he was instructed to sign. For an attorney-at-law to sign anything, whether instructed or not, displays a very dictatorial policy, and even a lack of legal skills as an attorney-at-law.
After having disappeared from Guyana for a number of years, Mr Raphael Trotman re-emerged, and was trying to make himself a kind of superstar, offering to renegotiate the lopsided oil deal that he had signed. Even trying to market his book on the matter, and expecting the current Government of Guyana to appoint him to renegotiate the oil deal which he and the previous Government he belonged to, the APNU Coalition, signed. It is here, Mr. Patterson, where the “pimping” commenced.
Therefore, the present Government is not allowing ‘pimping’ of our resources by Exxon. It was the previous Government, of which you are a member, The APNU Coalition, your former bosses, which truly created the fiasco of the poor Exxon oil deal for the generation of funds for political reasons and ‘whatever else!’ I leave that “whatever else” to the imagination and minds of the Guyanese people and the World at large.
ExxonMobil is an international powerhouse corporation, ‘like a Super power’, Mr. Patterson! (nickname “Patto”,”Patto”), as President Ali explained. Exxon provided the terms of the contract with careful attention to the interests of their shareholders, as a business entity should do. It was the then Guyana Government, of which Mr. Patterson was a senior minister, that failed, in my opinion, to attend to the interests of the Guyanese people. They were more interested in getting funds for political reasons and “looking good.”
Notwithstanding, ExxonMobil is assisting us to extract our resources, which we can never hope to extract ourselves. A process which is highly technological and scientific. All in an effort for the creation of job opportunities, business opportunities, and upliftment of the economic status and power of Guyana and the Guyanese people.
Mr Patterson, as a former minister of Government, in league with other ministers of the combined Government, I had considered then to possess a high level of intelligence, more was expected of you, “Patto” (nickname), and your political parties.
It is my opinion that if fingers are to be pointed for the poor oil deal with Exxon, it would be pointed at your political parties.
Sincerely,
Hajji Dr Roshan Khan
