Speeding oil production, key to rebuffing Venezuela claim
Accelerating production of oil from Guyana’s first offshore well is important to rebuff any claims Venezuela may make in court in relation to the area, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman said yesterday. Trotman told an Oil and Gas Law Training and Development Seminar at the Ramada Georgetown Princess Hotel, “We wanted economic benefits and rents, but more importantly because of the redrawing of the lines by Venezuela it was important for Guyana to move to production as quickly as possible so that we can assert when we got to court, that production was taking place within the territorial waters of Guyana.” This, he said, will become an indisputable fact before a court of law. According to Trotman, if there were no oil production, it would be disputed where the well stood. As a result, he said that getting to production was strategic because it had to do with the country’s sovereignty.
Jamaican lotteries company in deal for operations here
The Gaming Authority has signed an agreement with Jamaican lotteries company Supreme Ventures Limited (SVL) that is expected to see it setting up gaming operations in Guyana. The Jamaica Observer revealed the deal yesterday in a report, ‘SVL to take bet on Guyana market,’ which said the lotteries company, in a statement to shareholders on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, informed them that the agreement with Guyana Gaming Authority is subject to a confidentiality clause and as a result it would make full disclosure of its plans for the market as soon as it permitted to do so. The report suggested that the agreement should see SVL opening up gaming operations in Guyana. However, when asked about the deal yesterday, Chairman of the Gaming Authority Roysdale Forde told Stabroek News that it is an “ongoing” process, while noting that the agreement has not been finalised.
Chronicle Board for emergency meeting on termination of Hinds, Lewis
Chair of the Guyana Chronicle board, Geeta Chandan-Edmond last night said that there will be an emergency meeting today on a decision by Editor-inChief of the state newspaper Nigel Williams to discontinue columns from political scientist Dr. David Hinds and trade unionist Lincoln Lewis. “The board did not sanction this decision,” Chandan-Edmond told Stabroek News, before adding that “the gravity of the situation warrants an emergency meeting at which a way forward will be discussed.” “It’s a meeting with a single agenda. We first have to establish whether we can rescind i.e. do we have those powers as a board or do those decisions lie solely with the Editor-in-Chief and then move on with the discussion,” she further explained. The decision, which was communicated to the two writers on Thursday, has been seen as an attempt to censor criticism of government but Williams has said that he is merely freeing space for specialist contributions. Hinds, a member of the Working People’s Alliance, which is a partner in the governing APNU+AFC coalition, has since 2015 written a weekly column, “Hind’s Sight,” in which he has been repeatedly critical of policy decisions made by the David Granger administration. In a statement to the media yesterday, Hinds noted that an email from Williams informed him that his column would be discontinued from March 12th. Hinds said that his column had not been published over the last two weeks and that while he was not sure whether the decision to discontinue his column was politically motivated, as “a political person