Government is moving to boost its capacity for oversight of the operations of ExxonMobil, according to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, who says there are questions about the oil major’s spending and whether the country is getting value for money.
“We are in the process of building up the capacity for a lot of these things,” Jagdeo told a media forum on Monday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre as he announced positions and services for which vacancies will soon be advertised.
The positions are for a value engineer, legal and commercial consultants, and a firm or person to provide services for a procurement process review and petroleum data management.
The value engineer, Jagdeo said, would examine “all the critical infrastructure that Exxon is engaged with”.
“They have to examine it, from our perspective, to see if the government of Guyana is getting value for money. This includes the workers that they have to get,” he explained.
“Are we getting value for money? Why do they have to spend US$150 million on a headquarters when we could build the Marriott (Hotel) for US$50 [million]? Fifty million for fibre optic coming in from the FPSO (oil platform) and we brought a fibre optic cable from Barbados, 430 miles, for (US) $30 million? We want to know what is so special,” he added.
A legal and commercial consultant, government hopes, will assist it “to monetise and conclude all of these contracts. The contracts to do with the price of gas; to review the PSA to do discussions about the liquid we are going to sell, how will we commercialise it.”
With local content being an area of much contention and one where Guyana’s private sector has been pushing for maximum benefits, Jagdeo said that government wants a procurement process review. “We see Exxon advertising but we are not sure whether if the advertisement is tailored for certain people or is fair on local content. This person that we are going out for will examine all the procurement issues,” he said.
With Exxon reluctant at times to share its data, Jagdeo said this country is recruiting a Petroleum Data Management for Transparency Unit to ensure that data is readily available from the company and for the public.
“Many times they are reluctant to share data. We believe we have to get a critical data set to effectively do our job of policing them,” Jagdeo contended.
“Secondly, there is the relationship between the ministry and the public. We are falling down on that, too, so this person would ensure we maintain a website. From the time a shipment is sold, they would upload the price. They will show who bought it and all of that. In real time, production data for the week will be posted. How much waste water was generated, how much gas was flared. All of the data will be uploaded there,” he added.
