Part 21
EITI Admission
That troublesome confidentiality provision in the law and the Petroleum Agreement has once more attracted attention with the announcement that Guyana is now officially the 53rd candidate country of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Officially, EITI is aimed at openness around the governance of natural resources and one would have expected that the admission of Guyana was as a result of commitments made by the country concerning such openness. It is difficult to reconcile openness with the refusal to provide the country, the National Assembly or the individual Coalition Partners with any information on the Petroleum Agreement signed by Minister Trotman in August 2016.
Readers of this column are aware of my strong conviction that there was absolutely no reason for a new Petroleum Agreement with Esso and its joint venture partners. The Agreement lasts the entire duration of the Prospecting Licence and the Production Licence so the question or the mystery is the reason for a new Agreement. A source has indicated to me that the reason is not as mysterious as it may seem. Indeed, the explanation offered to me is very simple. The Government of Guyana used the excuse of a new licence to extract a signature bonus, a payment made by a contractor on the signing of an Agreement to take up any given number of blocks. The figure I have been told is twenty million United States Dollars.