US oil company ExxonMobil did pay a signing bonus following the new agreement it clinched with the government on June 27, 2016 and why this was kept secret will pile pressure on the Granger administration over its claims to transparency particularly given concerns over accounting for revenue from the petroleum sector.
Stabroek News has seen correspondence (reproduced on this page) dated September 20, 2016 from the Ministry of Finance to the Bank of Guyana (BoG) pertaining to arrangements for the signing bonus. The letter did not specify the quantum of the bonus but commentator Christopher Ram said in October that he was told that US$20M was paid. This
statement was not contradicted by the government. Pressed for answers, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman would only say that that Cabinet would deliberate on the question of making the June 27 contract available to the public. On November 30, Minister of State Joseph Harmon said that the contract and presumably any information on the signing bonus would be made available sometime this month.
