Neither the 1999 PSA, nor any subsequent PSA, was negotiated or signed by me
I refer to page 11 of Kaieteur News (Friday the 24th June) which carries a feature entitled, “Exxon’s contract on 2% royalty misleading as Guyana bears the burden – Chris Ram”. Chris Ram’s name appears next to the headline but the actual authorship is not clear because at points the writing is in the third person as will be seen from an extract below.
My name appears in the said piece as being responsible for inappropriate, if not illegal, ‘generosity’ including, remitting or waiving royalty payments ExxonMobil was due to make to the state. The writer/s of the article, points out that the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) is the framework in which the petroleum companies, namely ExxonMobil et al, are being taxed. Complementing the contention about the significance of the PSA is a picture of Mrs Jagan with the caption, “under whose tenure the original agreement with ExxonMobil was signed”, and one of former Minister Raphael Trotman, with the comment, “under whose tenure as Minister with responsibility for the sector, the 2016 PSA was inked”.
I have (and have had) nothing to do with the legislation or the waiver of these payments, if indeed they have been waived, and call on KN and Mr Ram therefore to publish a correction or retraction of this false accusation.
This allegation has been made even though elsewhere in the paper writers and persons interviewed are uncertain whether the royalty was ever paid, remitted or treated by the GRA as an expense. In spite of all of this and indeed, without missing a beat, the writer informs readers that, “According to Ram, ‘this is the inheritance which (Raphael) Trotman, (Carl) Greenidge and David Granger have bestowed on Guyana. What a shame. All that is left for them to do to complete their generosity is to waive the Royalty as they are permitted to do under section 49 of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Act”.
The article generously credits Mr Ram with having warned readers since 2019 about the agreement’s offending clauses on stabilisation, meaning the pledge not to unfavourably change the companies’ terms after signing the agreement. The writer missed the irony of this praise (or self praise) for a warning which was issued, by the writer’s own admission, no less than two decades after the signing of the PSA!
The paper’s editor and Mr Ram are aware that the decisions informing treatment of the royalty were taken by the PPP Administration which signed the PSA. I was not the Minister responsible for such matters in 1999 nor was I either the Minister of Finance or Energy between 2015 and 2020. I had no Ministerial responsibility for the Petroleum Exploration and Production Act and was therefore not in a position to be ‘generous’, irresponsibly or otherwise, as alleged or implied by the paper. Yet, the paper and Mr Ram single me out for special mention and indeed notoriety.
Neither that 1999 PSA, nor any subsequent PSA, was negotiated or signed by me and unless Mr Ram has discovered my signature on one of the agreements, he and the editor should withdraw the allegation. In 2020, as a result of a similarly unfounded and defamatory allegation, Kaieteur News was the recipient of a lawyer’s letter. The paper and its editor are therefore not unaware that these allegations are not only false but have been challenged so I am left to conclude that its repetition is the product of malice and is again intended to cause mischief.