The opposition PPP/C believes that the Guyana Office for Investment and Department of Energy sponsorship of the second annual Guyana International Petroleum Business Summit & Exhibition (GIPEX) is a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and is mulling protesting the event.
“Maybe we will protest this event. Protest the waste of money… that is taking place this. I am putting the sponsors on notice, so you can very well see a protest. This is the abuse of state resources,” Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday told a press conference.
Jagdeo said that he will also use the instance of the sponsorship to complain to the international community because the APNU+AFC has a caretaker status and should not be spending state resources on what he feels is “pseudo campaigning.”
With VALIANT Business Media once again as its facilitator, the 2019 GIPEX will be held from November 20 to November 22 at the Marriott Hotel.
Jagdeo pointed to the US$2000 participation fee as he bemoaned sponsorship from government agencies for an event that the average Guyanese business person will be unable to afford.
“You have to pay a lot of money to be a participant here… this group from abroad will come and try to define the oil and gas sector for us too. That is what is happening now. The government has farmed this out to foreigners. So you will have Granger go and give a speech…,” he said.
“…I want to put the Department of Energy and Go-Invest on notice. This activity will receive our attention, if it goes again,” he added.
Jagdeo said that while GIPEX is being marketed as a forum that will see the attendance of the United States Secretary of Energy, this is contrary to information he has. “We have greeting remarks from the U.S Energy Secretary. The US Secretary of Energy is not coming here. We have confirmed that. This is part of their marketing tool to get people to pay the fees for the conference and the highlight is that people will want to listen to the U.S Energy Secretary,” he said.
The opposition leader lamented that when it comes to the oil and gas sector, it seems that the APNU+AFC government seeks mostly foreign opinion in management of the sector and bypasses local skills and expertise.
He pointed to a safety forum held by the Trinidad and Tobago Energy Chamber at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
“We can’t get the convention centre and it was built under the PPP but they give it to a Trinidadian firm to host an activity here to lecture Guyanese. The sector and its opportunities are being defined now by foreigners from in the Department of Energy to everywhere else.
“The foreigners we have to capitalise on their experience both in terms of self-provision of services and advice but it must be advisory to a unit in government… and what is good for our people that must be the primary concern. Right now all these things are being defined out of there,” he added.
The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has expressed disappointment at not being invited to the safety forum, with some executives saying that it is tantamount to disrespect.
However, their Trinidadian counterparts said that while individual invitations were not sent out to private sector bodies, they placed advertisements inviting the public to the paid event, and that its hosts have much to share in both the oil and gas sector and building of a robust safety culture with its CARICOM sister nation.
