IN a letter to the editor carried in sections of the media authored by Dr. Vincent Adams, chief oil and gas advisor to the Alliance For Change (AFC), he spewed a series of bold assertions, describing the incumbent PPP/C government as spineless in relation the lopsided 2016 Petroleum Agreement that his party had negotiated in 2016.
Dr. Adams went on to question why the PPP/C government hasn’t taken the first step, which is to write ExxonMobil requesting renegotiations.
While I have great respect for Dr. Vincent Adams, I must point out that he usually has these momentary outbursts only when he is instructed by his political superiors to address certain controversial issues that he is otherwise uncomfortable with. In so doing, he often pretends to be a rottweiler when it comes to oil and gas matters and ExxonMobil, but barks like a “rice eater”.
Truth be told, the real spineless political party that was in government in respect of dealing with ExxonMobil, is the very political party he belongs to―that is, the AFC. Perhaps not just spineless; more so opportunistic.
In these respects, I would like to pose the following questions to Dr. Adams and, by extension, the political party he is associated with, namely the AFC.
It was the AFC faction of the APNU+AFC Government that held the ministerial portfolio for the oil and gas sector. According to the Global Witness Report, ExxonMobil sponsored a glamourous visit for the former AFC minister of Natural Resources, Rafael Trotman, to their headquarters in Houston Texas. Why did the AFC allow such a brazen display of ethical misconduct by one of its most senior public officials in government?
Was it appropriate for a sitting minister to visit the headquarters of an oil giant touching and concerning the negotiations of a contract between that company and the people of Guyana through the Government of Guyana? Was it not more appropriate for the company’s official (s) to have visited the Government of Guyana, in Guyana, as opposed to an unethically lavish, corporate-sponsored trip to their headquarters?
After the successful passage of the December 2018 No-Confidence Motion (NCM), Nigel Hughes, who is now the presidential candidate of the AFC, on behalf of ExxonMobil Guyana, and who also served twice as the former Chairman of the AFC, did he effectively buy more time for ExxonMobil that enabled them to move in record time into production (December 2019) before the holding of the general and regional elections? This move by ExxonMobil Guyana was clever, which sought to lock in the 2016 Agreement having moved into production before the election was held. Thus, making it difficult for any new government to renegotiate those terms, because by then, the stability clause kicks in.
Nigel Hughes was unarguably the architect of the delay in the holding of the general and regional elections, vis-à-vis, his legal ploy that he manufactured, wherein he contended that 33 was not the majority of 65, therefore, the NCM was not carried. Following the sequence of the events that ensued therefrom, particularly the ruling handed down by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in that regard, the responsibility for the outcome thereto naturally ought to be borne by him. Is he prepared to do so? Absolutely not. He has already confirmed in no uncertain terms, that he is not.
Why did former President Granger subsequently remove the oil and gas portfolio from the AFC, to the Office of the President? Did he lose confidence in the AFC’s management of that portfolio or were there too much corruption and/or conflicts of interest in that sector by the AFC faction at that time?
Why the AFC sided with Exxon when it came to the local content legislation and the gas-to-energy project, which were effectively against the country’s national interest? If the APNU+AFC was still in government, the local content legislation and the GtE would never have been implemented, because initially, ExxonMobil was against both. To date, the AFC is still campaigning against the GtE, while its agent (s) and/or affiliates, chiefly the sister of the AFC/Exxon’s presidential candidate, Elizabeth-Dean Hughes, is actively seeking to legally challenge/block the GtE.
Dr. Vincent Adams is someone who prides himself as a rottweiler-like personality when it comes to dealing with ExxonMobil. As such, he is subject to a greater degree of scrutiny when he speaks publicly on these matters. With this in mind, how come he has never stated whether he endorsed or objected to the incestuous conflict of interest relationship that exist between his party’s leader, Nigel Hughes and ExxonMobil? How come he has nothing to say about the fact that Nigel Hughes was on public record stating that he will place Exxon’s interest above that of the national interest?
Unfortunately, Dr. Adams has found himself in a moral dilemma herein and luckily for him, the media has given him a free pass. No one has ever questioned him on his position or views on these matters to date, yet he is allowed to run his mouth freely without being held accountable for his irrational utterances.
In a subsequent missive, I will deal separately with the questionable credibility issues surrounding the AFC leader, the AFC’s role in the 2020 election debacle, and I will explore the reasons why Nigel Hughes stated that he will never apologize for the wrongs committed by his political party upon the people of Guyana. He has in fact endorsed them and was certainly the architect of some of it, if not most of it, or all of it.