–foreign affairs minister on signing bonus being made public

GUYANA’S Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge has noted the “very real risk” of the US$18M signing bonus being ventilated in the public to Venezuela’s advantage in the border controversy.
This is even as the country anxiously awaits the United Nations Secretary General commitment to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Speaking to the press at Parliament on Thursday, Greenidge said if one is engaged in a court case, one’s lawyers would have to design and work on strategy.

He said if the opposing party, in this case Venezuela, is made aware of subjects such as how much money is devoted to the process and the battery of lawyers recruited, that country can structure it’s strategy “to make life difficult” for Guyana .
“It is a very real risk,” he told reporters, noting that “it does involve problems”.
Greenidge said the Government expected that the matter’s sensitivity would have been kept on the back burner but according to him, the main “parameters” of Guyana’s case has been spelt out to the public.

He said people are worried, adding that an Opposition Member of Parliament suggested to him Thursday that another US$2M is hidden somewhere, as he explained the laxity in which the matter is being treated.
Greenidge said Guyana is in the process of trying to attract businesses to these shores, but he decried the manner in which companies such as the multi-national entities are being treated by sections of the media.
He said the Government tried to handle the signing bonus issue in a manner that would have minimised “the type of mischief that occurred”. In 2000 when the CGX/Suriname controversy arose, the then PPP Government discussed the matter with lawyers and the oil company paid the lawyers.

In this case, he said the APNU+AFC Government decided to ensure that the resources are received and secured and secondly, to ensure that there is an arrangement in place for the use of monies and that it can be accessed “reasonably quickly”.
Greenidge, who has years of corporate experience at the international level, told reporters that it was he who advised President David Granger that the signing bonus be treated cautiously regarding its publicity.
“In a manner that was, that we do not put it up on the screen right in the beginning,” he said.

He reiterated that the receipt of the money from American oil giant, Exxon Mobil was no secret. He said that while a few of his Cabinet colleagues knew of the receipt of the money, only a few would have been formally appraised of its intended use.
As regards the border controversy, Greenidge was upbeat about the prospects for Guyana, noting that there is at least one more meeting with the UN’s representative before year-end, one which strikes at dialogues with Venezuela.

He said while the UN Secretary General has committed to take the matter to the ICJ, there are “a set of conditions” which have been mentioned in the letter the official dispatched to Guyana, conditions which focus on dialogue between the two parties in the border dispute.