HOW could this country cultivate a public environment whereby people who step out to speak on national concerns exercise good sense, sombre-minded consideration for the full welfare of society, and make a reasonably conscious effort to be objective, responsible, and professional in sharing their opinion with the nation? People who take on the role of public leadership, especially those positioning themselves as experts, need to be aware that their utterances on the national stage have multifaceted, far-reaching, and potentially damaging impact, that their words and choice of language could damage the public good and national progress.
A disturbing news story made the rounds in some sections of the national media and internationally on social media highlighting the strange, incomprehensible, outlandish remarks of Dr. Vincent Adams, the former Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with headlines in two daily newspapers screaming a tantrum, concerning ExxonMobil’s operation, that were he head of the EPA today, he would move to temporarily shut down ExxonMobil’s work. Dr. Adams served this country as head of the EPA, and therefore his comments take on a decidedly expert tone, and as a member of the Alliance For Change (AFC), he also speaks with a political overtone. Indeed, the AFC touts him as the country’s leading petroleum engineer, and hypes his career experience in the United States before returning to Guyana.

Given such an elevated perch in the oil and gas sector, how responsible and sensible is the utterance of Dr. Adams?
Guyana is a small country now working its way out of decades of poverty and socioeconomic struggles, and found great favour with the oil and gas find, but lacked the capital and human resources and skills to develop these oil and gas fields and to convert them to national wealth. ExxonMobil came in, and started pumping massive amounts of financial capital into extracting the oil and gas from beneath the Atlantic Ocean, not a mean feat, not at all a small thing. Here is one of the world’s biggest multinational corporation, coming to this country whose economy generated a national budget then of less than US$1B, injecting enormous amount of capital and skills in building out the infrastructure to extract the oil and gas, oil platforms in the ocean to work from, and training thousands of Guyanese in the sector, many on the local front but several on overseas stints. ExxonMobil generated over the past year billions and billions of dollars of business across the local economy. Because of ExxonMobil, Guyana now sits atop a Natural Resources Fund of US$200 million.

One is not bowing to this multinational as a great saviour that showed up and made magic and therefore deserves to be left alone to do as it pleases. But any responsible Guyanese leader would be fully aware of the role ExxonMobil is playing in lifting this country to its potential.
In considering all factors, from every angle, is it responsible and good sense for a supposedly national leader of some expertise in the sector, with ties to a political party, to come out on the public stage to call for ExxonMobil to halt operations? How responsible is such a statement, to ask a company that has expended enormous amounts of financial and other resources to set up its operations, to shut down and lose productivity?

Of course, ExxonMobil must also exercise leadership responsibility in its operations, and whatever challenges it faces with machines or if there’s a mistake that could adversely affect the environment, surely the Guyana Government would be on top of the issue. The current leadership of the EPA would be the oversight body to make sure the oil and gas sector functions with full regard to taking care of the natural environment. Both the Government of Guyana and the EPA would not sit by idly and watch the oil and gas sector impact this society negatively. For any public person to suggest that the Guyana Government and the current leadership of the EPA are negligent in their oversight of the oil and gas sector, is a serious accusation, and seems pregnant with irresponsible assumptions.
This is not to say that this nation would not entertain critical analysis of the performance of ExxonMobil, the government, or the EPA, but such analysis must be based in fact, in a full conversation that involves every side of the issue, including government and the EPA, and must be conducted with responsible consideration for the national well-being. One cannot just throw out a conversation with harsh words and abrasive language that generate panic in the private sector, among foreign investors, and within the hearts of citizens.

For Dr. Adams to make such an outlandish comment, and find entertainment for it to be published and broadcast across local and international media, one supposes that this expert would have had to decide several frightening things in his own mind, being, one, that the Government of Guyana is negligent, lacks responsible oversight of the oil and gas sector, and is allowing this multinational corporation to operate with absolute freedom to do as it will, with no governance over its work, and two, that ExxonMobil itself is irresponsible and does not care how it affects the environment, and three, that his views embody the total wisdom of the issue at hand.
It is easy to exercise one’s political clout on the opposition front to scapegoat the government. It is quite another ball game to make these public comments against a multinational corporation that is working to develop this country’s new oil and gas sector, especially without seemingly considering that the Guyana Government is looking after the interests of citizens. It seems that this public figure may have set out to scapegoat the government, which is his democratic right, but to irresponsibly make comments that could cause panic among foreign investors, that is not a way to care for this country’s development and progress. Of course, the media houses that latched on to the comments and published and broadcast those words with such wanton zeal, also cannot be proud of themselves as guardians of the public good.