Dear Editor,
EVERYONE seems to know what is best for Guyana except Guyanese. Global Witness has boldly stated that we should push for US$55 billion more from the Stabroek agreement and then immediately stop moving forward with new offshore oil-production activities.
“With additional revenues from Stabroek, Guyana should stop additional drilling and do its part to stop the climate emergency,” they said in a report published on Monday, February 3, 2020.

It doesn’t matter if several more billion barrels of oil are at Stabroek, Kaieteur, Orinduik or elsewhere; Guyana, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, should stop pursuing projects that could meaningfully transform the country. I think in making this bold and utterly absurd recommendation, Global Witness may have inadvertently exposed its hand and shown what its real agenda is – and that is to create enough confusion that Guyanese rebel and disrupt the oil production already underway, while blocking all future exploration and production activities.

We must step back and ask by whom is this organisation funded?. Who is funding the local political activists and advocates that Global Witness worked with to compile its anti-oil production report? While the very report repeatedly stated that there was no clear evidence of wrongdoing in the Exxon Mobil-Guyana 2016 contract negotiation, it dropped numerous innuendoes implying that there could have been. While the report said we should be getting more, it did not say why US$55 billion more is the magic number, after which we should stop production. Who gives Global Witness the right to determine what is the amount Guyana should accept and be contented with? Why is this report only now being published, just days before an election? Who stands to benefit the most?

In the absence of answers to these questions, this report cannot be taken seriously, since it is based on broad speculation and subjective analysis, all clearly engineered to provide a pre-determined desired outcome – an end to oil production. Can Guyana afford this?

Regards
Donald Singh