Dear Editor,
Leading up to the AFC’s congress, I posted a brief reminder on my Facebook page of the history of conflicts of interest that the AFC leader, Mr. Nigel Hughes was embroiled in, in the not-so-distant past. Subsequent to that post, he disclosed publicly that ExxonMobil is a client of his firm, thinking perhaps, that such disclosure would have sufficed. This was just before he was elected as the party’s leader. Readers would recall that following this disclosure, I wrote a letter to the media highlighting some of the implications of the “conflict of interest” between him and ExxonMobil.
At the Vice President’s press conference held on July 4th, 2024, some appalling revelations surfaced on this subject, which I don’t need to regurgitate wholesale here, but would like to expand on the implications thereof, and emphasise a few notable unanswered questions to date. In this regard, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo did an excellent job at “connecting the dots” where he compellingly demonstrated that the relationship between ExxonMobil and Nigel Hughes extends far beyond the traditional client-firm relationship.
As was confirmed by the Vice President, Mr. Hughes misled the public about his resignation from the AFC in 2016. The reasons given were vague, as was reported by the local media, that his tenure as Chairman of the AFC did not overlap with former Minister and AFC Executive, Mr. Raphael Trotman, when the oil contract was negotiated. But according to the Vice President, Exxon’s own documents showed that the negotiation of the contract commenced in May 2015, which was signed on the 27th day of June, 2016. Reportedly, Mr. Hughes resigned from the AFC in April 2016.
Indeed, the Vice President made a valid observation. Obviously, the contract negotiation period would have lasted for some time before it was finalised and signed by the parties in 2016. In this regard, according to the “Global Witness Report”, the following are questions that remained unanswered by Mr. Nigel Hughes and former AFC Minister, Raphael Trotman, on whether: (i) there was a conflict of interest at that time between him (former Minister Trotman), Mr. Hughes, and ExxonMobil in relation to the negotiation; and (ii) whether Mr. Hughes was part of that negotiation as Exxon’s Attorney.
In light of the aforementioned coupled with this new development whereby Mr. Hughes is now the AFC’s leader and has signaled his interest to contest the next general and regional elections for the Presidential Office; the Vice President stated that this may necessitate a formal investigation into these issues of conflicts of interest involving ExxonMobil and Mr. Nigel Hughes. In my view, this may very well be warranted for the reasons stated hereunder.
At the time of writing, the conflicted AFC leader offered a preliminary response to the Vice President, stating that he welcomes any investigation into his relationship with ExxonMobil. In his apparent defense, he goes onto to state that his law firm has a complex structure, that there are multiple partners, that he was never personally responsible for ExxonMobil’s portfolio (meaning that he never did any work for Exxon), and that different clients are managed by different partners. In other words, the AFC leader tried to explain that his firm is structured in a way to “ring-fence” client relationships, which is a methodology commonly utilised by large professional services firm to manage “conflicts of interest” internally. But here’s an interesting observation; it would appear that in his haste to nervously respond to the Vice President, Mr. Hughes may have inadvertently implicated himself—suggesting that he’s being disingenuous.
Now, if he is saying that he is not the partner with responsibility for ExxonMobil, that he has never done any work for ExxonMobil, then his latest statement is a total contradiction of his first statement where he said publicly that ExxonMobil is a client of his firm and he cannot comment on any oil and gas policy for the AFC, the party he leads. Further, he went onto state that if there is a dispute between Guyana and his client, ExxonMobil, he will be representing Exxon’s interest, although he would be the Presidential candidate of a political party in Guyana. If that’s the case, then why did he gag himself from speaking on the oil and gas sector? Why didn’t he provide this explanation in the first place? Clearly, his failure to do so, has now led him into becoming a victim of the deadly, bone crushing wrap by an anaconda, proverbially.
Notwithstanding the explanation provided by Mr Hughes about the structure of his firm, and ring fencing of clients, that is totally unapplicable since he remains an active managing partner/part owner of the firm.
I shudder to think what the explanation for this marvelous contradiction might be, which essentially exposed the profound indisputable presence of dishonesty that has characterised this peculiar case of conflict of interest herein, on the part of the AFC Leader.
ExxonMobil Guyana (EMGL) is bound by its internal anti-corruption policy pursuant to the US “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” (FCPA); whereunder, EMGL is prohibited from conducting business with foreign/government officials, which is equally applied to candidates of political parties. According to the FCPA, the basic prohibitions also apply to any non-US political party, party official, or candidate for political office.
With respect to the political activities policy, in the United States, ExxonMobil is “authorised to make lawful political contributions to political parties, political associations, candidate committees, and other political organisations, provided that such contributions are approved by the Chairman of the Corporation or his designees…” As regards other nations, the policy states that “the Corporation refrains from making political contributions in any nation other than the United States”. Of note, in accordance with the US laws, the Corporation is legally required to publish its corporate political contributions. (See link here for ease of reference https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/who-we-are/policy/political-contributions/corporate-political-contributions).
Considering that Mr. Nigel Hughes is now a duly elected Presidential candidate of a political party in Guyana, if EMGL fails to terminate the contract with his firm, then EMGL is likely to be in violation of its own anti-corruption policy, and by extension the FCPA. Additionally, in respect of the political activities policy, it is stated unambiguously that political contributions are prohibited to nations other than the United States.
Should EMGL fail to take any action to mitigate the foregoing risks, it is likely to be in violation of two of its major internal anti-corruption policies in accordance with US laws. Moreover, it can be argued that presumably, EMGL is meddling in Guyana’s domestic politics, viz-à-viz, funding of a political candidate through a pretextual retainership with the political candidate’s firm. This is contrary to the practice as per US laws in the United States where political contributions are required to be publicly disclosed, thus a lack of transparency in this case.
Therefore, in my duly considered professional view, EMGL has found itself in a perplexing dilemma, such that EMGL may have no other alternative, but to terminate the contract with the law firm in question. Otherwise, the Guyanese people will be well placed to reasonably question whether EMGL is orchestrating a covert political project in Guyana.
Yours sincerely,
Joel Bhagwandin
