The horrible oil contract is no longer a secret, 18 months after the fact and only after the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) desperately tried to keep the details secret. Absolutely, Guyana was sold out by APNU/AFC. Whereas, Brazil, our next-door neighbour, got a US$700 c signing bonus from EXXON, Guyana got US$18 million. This US$18 million was kept a secret for 18 months in a secret bank account out of the reach of the Consolidated Fund. While many thought this secret US$18 million bonus was the reason why APNU/AFC wanted to hide the contract, several other egregious reasons are now apparent why APNU/AFC was desperate to keep the whole contract a big secret.
Among the many reasons why APNU/AFC wanted to hide the details of the contract was that they agreed EXXON will not pay any Value Added Tax (VAT). This is the same APNU/AFC Cabinet that in 2017 forced the Guyanese people to pay VAT on electricity, water and Internet and introduced VAT on education. It is true they removed VAT on education for 2018, but they have kept VAT on so many other everyday living necessities for the Guyanese people. Yet one of the richest corporations in the world is being exempted from paying VAT. This is unfathomable, insulting, and one wonders who are these genius negotiators who allowed EXXON to bamboozle them so easily.
The small signing bonus and the VAT exemption are egregious enough for us the demand that the responsible Minister be fired and to indict APNU/AFC for malfeasance, but the contract has even more egregious giveaways. EXXON will not pay any Corporation Tax. The small businesses in Guyana struggle to pay their Corporation Tax, but one of the largest corporations in the world is being exempted from Corporation Tax. They pay billions in corporate taxes in the USA and in Europe and other rich countries, but is being given a pass in Guyana, one of the poorest countries. This is surely a sweetheart deal for EXXON and Guyana is left holding worthless husk.
The contract provides for Guyana to receive a paltry two per cent of the profits, but only after allowing EXXON to recoup all of its investment first before any provision is made for profit-sharing. But get this – our Government has agreed that EXXON will also be exempted from Income Tax. The ordinary Guyanese workers, many working for less than US$500 per month, must pay Income Tax, but EXXON’s management will not pay any Income Tax. Incredibly, the Government will pay the Income Tax for EXXON, a company that will earn billions of US dollars from Guyana will have its Income Tax paid for by the poor Guyanese people.
If these truths make your blood boil, the giveaways are for the lifetime of the contract. They even inserted a clause that the contract cannot be re-negotiated. That the Guyanese people are angry is an understatement. Clearly, EXXON took total advantage of us. Trotman and his team were unequivocally overwhelmed by EXXON. We were sold out. Trotman, in typical APNU/AFC haughtiness and arrogance, is now bragging that he is a well-qualified negotiator with Harvard credentials, but that he left the negotiation to his GGMC team. Recognising the Guyanese people have caught on to the scandal, the incompetence and malfeasance, he is distancing himself from the fiasco and throwing his GGMC colleagues under the bus. Even if the negotiation was conducted by GGMC staff, Trotman has responsibility to approve and the buck stops with him, APNU/AFC Cabinet and ultimately, the President. They are all guilty.
The APNU/AFC promised people a change. In May 2015, they took control of the Government. Now the change is apparent to all Guyanese. The change that APNU/AFC promised people turned out to be nothing but a platform of lies, fabrication, misrepresentation, misdirection, obfuscation. The examples of their lies and obfuscation are many and, in fact, it is at least one per day. At the heart of a pathological allergy to the truth is the dark underbelly of corruption. Nothing in their behaviour in the last 31 months effectively demonstrate this reckless governance model than the handling of the oil contract. Guyana was sold out, even as our Government abandons our sugar workers.
