German non-profit environmental and human rights organisation Urgewald has criticised the World Bank’s decision to fund technical assistance for Guyana’s preparation for the oil and gas sector using a contractor whose clientele includes United States oil major ExxonMobil, the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper has reported.
“The World Bank claims to be striving for ‘good governance’ in revising Guyana’s legal framework for oil development,” Heike Mainhardt, senior advisor on multilateral financial institutions at Urgewald, was quoted as saying in the report. “However, they are hiring the law firm who counts among their major clients ExxonMobil – the company leading the oilfield development in Guyana. This is ‘good governance’ for the oil companies, not for the people of Guyana or the global climate. The World Bank is causing a conflict of interest, in effect undermining good governance,” he added in reference to law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, which has been retained to advise on the oil and gas industry.
