— natural resources minister
NATURAL Resources Minister Raphael Trotman on Friday announced that all contracts with private companies will be released by the APNU+AFC coalition government.
Trotman’s comment came days after his administration released its Petroleum Agreement with U.S. oil company ExxonMobil and its partners Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Limited and Hess Guyana Exploration Limited.
“We have started writing to all of the companies informing them that the playing field has to be levelled and that again their contracts would be made public,” said the natural resources minister.
Trotman was at the time addressing reporters at government’s post-Cabinet press briefing held at the Ministry of the Presidency.
“If you look at the Department of Public Information’s website … it says contracts. It is the intention of the government to post all contracts,” he declared, much to the agreement of Minister of State Joseph Harmon, with whom he shared the press briefing .
Stakeholders including civil society, Transparency International Guyana, the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP), as well as the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), one of the parties forming the APNU+AFC coalition government had repeatedly called for the release of Guyana’s agreement with the U.S. oil giant.
In fact, recently, Petroleum Adviser Dr Jan Mangal, told reporters that as an emerging oil-and-gas country, Guyana needs to place significant emphasis on transparency. The expert, who has over 18 years’ experience in the sector, noted that Guyana is on the verge of an economic transformation and though success cannot be guaranteed, he believes transparency will aid in success.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil head of Guyana operations, Rod Henson,said his company as a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) believes that transparency is critical.
“We support transparency… we are members of EITI,” he said, noting that when Guyana becomes a member of EITI payments such as the US$18M signing bonus will be made public.
Henson said too that the disclosure of contracts should be done across the board as transparency is critical to the success of the industry.
