–challenges Trotman to produce source of his information; says claims being used now as a smokescreen for coalition’s poor track record

PEOPLE’S Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo vehemently rejected the claims being peddled by politicians and affiliated media outlets that he agreed with the APNU+AFC government waiving taxes to ExxonMobil.

During a press conference at Freedom House on Thursday, he pointed out that political opponents are attempting to deflect from their track records by spewing such claims.

Despite former Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman’s book “From Destiny to Prosperity” published for some time now, it is only until the election year that these claims are now emerging.
In the book, Trotman claims that Jagdeo, who was the opposition leader at the time, was informed about the terms of the contentious oil contract with ExxonMobil, which allegedly included tax waivers.

There are now attempts by well-known government critics to attach Jagdeo to the lopsided oil contract that was signed by the previous government.
The coalition has continuously come under fire for its lack of transparency regarding a signing bonus related to Guyana’s oil sector.

According to Jagdeo, the coalition not only hid the US$18 million signing bonus paid by ExxonMobil, but also lied about its existence, and said it was a gift when caught.
Challenging the claims made within the book that he was briefed on the oil contract, Jagdeo called on Trotman to cite the source of his claims.

Further, pointing out how untrue these claims are, he said if he were involved, based on how the current opposition operates, they would have masqueraded it all these years.
He then pointed out how Christopher Ram also peddled these baseless claims, compounded with his “recycled” arguments about the oil and gas sector.

Jagdeo continued to refute these claims, highlighting that the issue was made public during a parliamentary debate via the supplementary order paper.
He noted that PPP members of parliament disclosed they had first seen the document in question late at night.

Gail Teixeira, now Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, and former PPP/C Parliamentarian, Odinga Lumumba, both opposition parliamentarians at that time, highlighted a number of issues, especially given the short notice.

While the former government claimed that they had the best interest of citizens at heart, both PPP parliamentarians grilled them for not acting so.