Dear Editor,
In Stabroek News dated November 4, 2018; Minister Winston Jordan exposed the oil experts, who were invited to Guyana via funding unknown, to pronounce on the Green Paper, Sovereign Wealth Fund/ National Resources Fund and suchlike. Except for the disgraceful 2% royalty, the comments by Minister Jordan, conflated with remarks I made as an invitee; during floor discussions; one at the Pegasus Hotel on October 22, 2018 and the other at Herdmanston Lodge on October 23, 2018.
The first discussion, which seemed to be a part of or a follow-up on the Green Guyana Expo and International Business Summit, was chaired by Mr. Suresh Narine, Executive Chairman of CGX Energy Inc. with the company being one of the lead sponsors of the October 19-22, 2018, Summit.
At the head table were Suresh Narine; Eric Phillips, President of African Business Roundtable; Rawle Lucas, Director of Foreign Trade; Gabriel de Alba, Managing Director and Partner, Catalyst Capital Group Incorporated; and Dr. Herman Tribukait, Economist and Harvard-trained specialist in energy innovation and technology development.
The investment reception was held under the theme “The Green Indus-trial Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities”.
After listening keenly to presentations from the Panel, with one of the foreign experts speaking extensively on the use of alternative energy in California; a state with a GDP of US$42,000 per capita vs Guyana’s GDP US$3,600 per capita. I was not surprised when questioning the expert panel, that they were unable to justify the reference to a developed economy like California using alternative energy or explain why the biggest polluters on the planet, are oil companies using fossil fuel that accounts for over 90% of energy consumption in the world. After some quibbling answers from the local and international expert/s; the moderator/chairman Suresh Narine was most unchairmanlike in stating that I had reached the two questions limit; a condition/limit not mentioned to previous participants.
The hoodwinking of the Guyanese public by their fellow Guyanese allows fakery and misdirection of the Guyanese public to be normalized.
I understand that my questions were deleted, as were the responses to my questions from the video recordings at the Pegasus Hotel. Open Forum Indeed!
The second session was at the Herdmanston Lodge and was referenced as a Roundtable Dialogue on the Sovereign Wealth Fund: Revenue Management in the Oil & Gas Sector and held on October 23, 2018; to discuss the Natural Resource Governance Institute’s official recommendations and comments on the Green Paper with Mr. Andrew Bauer.
The invitation was extended by the “Interim Working Group on Oil and Gas”; a Group supported by Conservation International and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA).
A dated power point presentation was shown by Mr. Andrew Bauer, which focused heavily on Sovereign Wealth Funds of New Zealand and Norway; no methodology was shown on how these countries with GDP per capita of US$38,000 for New Zealand and US$69,000 for Norway could be reconciled with Guyana having a Natural Wealth Fund relative to the social and economic needs of Guyana. The presenter was honest enough to say that he didn’t have enough information to provide a framework for Guyana’s Natural Resources Fund. Intellectual incuriosity you say?
Minister Jordan was rightfully critical of the pronouncements of “experts” who seemed unable to move beyond their aged transcripts and power point presentations and seemed to have done negligible research on Guyana’s economic, social, political, demographic, or cultural challenges.
The Minister correctly noted that Guyana’s economic circumstances and logistics, require a different model for its Sovereign Wealth Fund/Natural Resources Fund. The Minister was critical of Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), economics and oil and gas consultant, Andrew Bauer; saying that his recommendations were not suited to this country… “All you hear is this is being done in Norway, Oh! This is being done in Chile…”. Mr. Bauer failed to inform on what is best for Guyana in the context of the Natural Resources Fund; which was expected to be the purpose of his presentation.
The reality is that we have a number of uninformed international oil experts, as it relates to Guyana, who are being used to bamboozle and fool Guyanese, hoping that we will kowtow to the packaged nonsense from afar. Aside from our very own bamboozlers; we seem to have a penchant to swallow wholesale, most of the utterances from international based experts and organizations, merely because the individuals or organizations are based in the USA, Canada, United Kingdom or some other “developed” country.
I look forward to our government and corporate lobbyists engaging and hiring learned foreign experts who can answer questions on Exxon’s Esso Contract with the Government of Guyana; who are able to answer how a 2% royalty, a nebulous 50/50 profit share after 75% costs, and the billowing pre-contract costs, is normal or has any parallel worldwide.
Conflict Diamonds in Africa; and a 2016 Conflicted Petroleum Agreement between Exxon’s Esso and the Government of Guyana. What do they have in common? What could go wrong? Our inability to have a wealth fund proportionate to the hundreds of billions of barrels of high-quality oil fund in Guyana’s offshore is synonymous with the heist of natural resources from underdeveloped countries.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Hinds
