A blazing headline in the Kaieteur News on Sunday told the unsuspecting public that the Government paid a hotel $75 million to house a few trainee health workers, when, in fact, the Government paid only about $16 million. But such brazen lies are captured in blazing headlines every single day in our country.
Times like this force us to remember Mark Twain’s concerns about the media that “there are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.” In this regard, Clay Shirky’s words are also relevant: “The great tension of the media has always been that freedom and quality are conflicting goals”. These reflections about media freedom are important today because sections of the media are hiding behind freedom of speech as they bombard the public with false news, deliberately misinforming people, lying to people, spreading propaganda. Daily, sections of the media publish headlines, stories and letters that are totally fabrications.
Twain’s concerns that constitutions eloquently protect the media while simultaneously offering no protection for people from lies that are deliberately disseminated by the media are relevant today. Sharky’s words remind us that while media enjoys the freedom to inform people, in Guyana today, that freedom is being abused as sections of the media serve as the propaganda arm of existing political parties or as political entities themselves.
One newspaper and one radio station consistently and daily tell Guyanese that Exxon and its partners outside Guyana gets 87.5% of oil revenues and poor Guyana gets only 12.5%. It does not tell people that 75% of gross revenues from oil presently goes to pay for investments and operations. Oil and gas that are under the sea are not available to us for free; somebody pays to get it from under the sea. In this case, international investors are paying the total cost. Those who pay for it gets to be repaid. Exxon and partners take all the risk; Guyana has taken no risk and will not have to pay back the investments, if there are no profits. The question is what happens when there are profits.
Guyana gets 50 per cent of the profits. Because Guyana’s PSA limits Exxon and its partners to only claim investment and operations costs up to a maximum of 75 per cent of the gross revenue generated by oil in the early years, 25 per cent of gross revenues are available as profits. Guyana gets to keep 12.5 per cent of that 25 per cent (that is 50 per cent of the profits). There will come a time when investments, plus operations cost, are reduced and deduction of this total will be less than 75 per cent of the gross revenues generated by oil. For example, if in 2030, the cost of investment plus operation costs account for only 60 per cent of the gross revenues, then profits become 40 per cent of gross revenues and Guyana and Exxon and partners get 20% each. When investments are totally recovered, and operational costs drop further, Guyana’s share of the gross revenues that become profits grow larger.
This is all simple math, too onerous for those trained in voodoo mathematics to understand, but simple for most ordinary Guyanese to understand. Yet this particular newspaper and a small cadre of dishonest people bombard Guyanese citizens every single day to complain that Exxon and partners get 87.5 per cent and we get only 12.5 per cent of gross revenues, knowing full well they are misinforming people. Their intention is clear – they want to stop oil production in Guyana, because with the revenues, the PPP government is developing our country at dizzying speed.
This same newspaper and the same cadre of dishonest politicians and commentators were around when the PNC and David Granger signed the PSA to give us 50 per cent of profit oil and 2 two per cent royalty. Because the PPP was in opposition and the Government was led by the PNC, the group that has always tried rigging Guyana’s elections, these commentators had no problem with the PSA. The PPP is working with the same, exact PSA these commentators had no problem with. No one was troubled by the 2 per cent royalty, or the 50 per cent profit or the various conditions in the PSA.
The same newspaper and the same set of commentators, each and every single day, tell us that Guyana is not getting its two per cent royalty. They utilise all kinds of voodoo mathematics to misinform the Guyanese public. They tell the Guyanese public that Exxon and partners include the two per cent gross revenues which is our royalty in the 75 per cent operations and investment costs. In fact, they know that the two per cent which is our royalty comes from Exxon and its partners’ 12.5 per cent profits. They know that once the operations and investment costs are taken out, Guyana gets 12.5 per cent, plus two per cent royalty, which equals 14.5 per cent gross oil revenues, and, that Exxon and partners get 12.5 per cent, minus two per cent, which equals 10.5 per cent.
The truth is that the bold headlines are absolutely false. This is what Mark Twain was complaining about. The press in Guyana has freedom to say what they want, even if it is absolute propaganda. That freedom is protected by our Constitution and honoured by a democratically-elected government today. But the same constitution does not protect the public from the nasty propaganda disseminated by the media. Ordinary Guyanese citizens must be aware of this nasty, ugly result of press freedom, which, nasty or not, we must preserve.
Fortunately, there are many of us who every single day take on the responsibility of telling people the truth, which is irrefutable. We may call propaganda alternative truths. But truths are truths and propaganda eventually are refutable. The media has a responsibility to always tell the truth, nothing else. Freedom of the press should never be in conflict with quality or truth. This is an example why people say we need democracy, but that democracy can be messy.
