Spinning nonsense…

 

…in oil

With each passing day, Raphael Trotman’s seeming determination to prove Jagdeo’s dubbing him as “incompetent” to run the Natural Resources Ministry, was spot on. That prescient prediction was made after Trotman dropped the ball at the Paris COP and blithely sequestered another 2 million acres of forests when Guyana has one of the lowest deforestation rates in the world. Most ridiculously, he didn’t even bargain for us to get a dime!! He wanted to “play big” with our money!

But the faux pas kept coming fast and furious – especially in the incipient oil sector. First, he was bitch-slapped by ExxonMobil about his wild-eyed claims on jobs to be provided by the industry. At MOST, he was told, there will be about 300 jobs. Then, he talked fat about ExxonMobil bailing out his profligate Governmental spending by giving us cash from “future revenues”!! Was he COMPLETELY oblivious about the oil industry’s travails with volatile prices? He was slapped down again.

He was then steered into being tutored by Uganda on bringing oil to market – even though that country is yet to produce a barrel more than a decade after its oil discovery! But what was most peculiar was at least Uganda had a reasonable position on revenues for their government. Having the opportunity to renegotiate contracts, they insisted and obtained ROYALTIES in addition to 40 per cent of the profits. Boasting that he would RENEGOTIATE our contract with Exxon, Trotman’s now revealed he didn’t follow the Ugandan example and settled for the old 50/50 split of profits, the PPP had accepted back in 1999.

Can you believe this? Back in 1999, our oil was still speculative… the PPP had to encourage Exxon to conduct exploration. At this time, the massive find had been confirmed – and was the new Jewel in Exxon’s Crown, after their retreat from Arctic hopes. Trotman could’ve called the shots!! But no… he “negotiated” going back to the 1999 split! The point of the matter is Royalties – as Trotman should know from our gold contracts – comes off the GROSS. And Uganda’s 15 per cent Royalty is thus both fattened and guaranteed!

By the time Exxon deducts its exploration and operational costs in a market that’ll at best be at US$60/barrel, we’ll get 50 per cent of zilch! And now comes the biggest zinger! He’s just hired a $10 million consultant to advise him as to whether we should build a refinery here!! Has he worked out why Trinidad loses its shirt every year on its refinery? Or why Hess closed the largest refinery in the Caribbean? Or that Uganda’s minuscule 30,000bbl/d refinery will cost US$4.3 billion?

Is Trotman determined to make Jagdeo look like a prophet?

…in sugar

Hot on the heels of his blunders in oil, comes Trotman attempting to paper over his Government’s shenanigans in the sugar industry. He says the MoU with the T&T front company wasn’t “secret”. All of this against the background of their closure of Wales which WAS a secret – until this newspaper blew their cover!! Which it did again on Skeldon!

Sure the MoU was shown to the Opposition. But when? It had already been signed two weeks before!! So wasn’t it secret until the Opposition asked?? Making arrangements to hive off Skeldon – like closing Wales – are matters for the Guyanese people (the owners of those national assets) to be apprised of BEFORE signing on the dotted line. And no one’s gonna buy this BS about a MoU not being “binding”.

Point of the matter, these schemers have a leg up on whoever may be interested in the sugar assets. Especially when the Government never advertised GuySuCo was up for sale.

Now we know why Trotman’s deep-sixing that Code of Conduct!!

…on Judges

Prezzie insists the GECOM Chair must have “impartiality, integrity and intelligence”. But who’ll decide whether only judges are seized of these qualities?

Who was it who said, “Judge not, or you too will be judged.”?