A handful of citizens yesterday staged a protest in front of the Ministry of Natural Resources to press for the government to renegotiate the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement with ExxonMobil Guyana.
Among them was Article 13’s Yog Mahadeo, who stated, “I personally believe that [Vice President Bharrat] Jagdeo, [President Irfaan] Ali, all of them I believe suddenly they are seeing some other picture that Guyanese are not seeing but if they get the wake-up call that a 100% of Guyana want renegotiation, they have no choice but to renegotiate.
“I want to remind Guyanese a renegotiation of this contract will benefit us all, not Ali not Jagdeo but each and every one of us. We understand that this thing is expensive and that it is expensive to drill to explore and all that but what we don’t understand is that why we must stop in the first year while Exxon write off all its costs and they make 320 billion dollars in profit and we make 85 billion dollars but we are giving Exxon a 79 billion tax credit.
“Exxon not paying taxes but in our book it is recorded that it pays taxes. What the minister does it goes over to GRA and say record this, this is the tax and GRA has to issue a tax certificate for no taxes received. Lastly the stock exchange in the United States and all over the world that Exxon is trading on needs to look at this manipulation of the books because you are not paying taxes in Guyana yet you got a tax receipt that you have paid taxes and you have grossed up your profit and you are reporting it to your investors overseas… it is bad in faith bad in practice.”
Comments