The mood at the level of management of the Trinidad and Tobago-based logistics company, Ramps, which set up shop in Guyana in 2013, long prior to the announcement by ExxonMobil that the company had ‘struck oil’ offshore Guyana appears sober rather than wildly upbeat following a decision in the courts in Georgetown earlier this month that the Local Content Secretariat here grant the company a licence that would allow it to continue to provide a range of support services to company’s engaged with Guyana’s oil recovery pursuits.
When the Stabroek Business spoke with the Company’s Chairman, Shaun Rampersad, several weeks ago, during his visit to Guyana to keep a date with the local courts, the company would have been understandably jittery awaiting a decision as to whether the courts would rule that the renewal of its Local Content licence which had been denied by the Local Content Secretariat in Georgetown be overturned. The decision went in favour of the company and it has since been reported that its various contractual obligations to clients for which it has been providing services have been extended.
One senses that the mood in the Ramps Logistics camp has been a good deal more upbeat since the court ruling, particularly having regard to the fact that the court’s ruling was followed, in short order, by the company’s receipt of its Local Content credentials which now extends its prerogative to do business up to September 30 next year. Had the court’s decision gone the other way Ramps would have been in danger of losing a reportedly lucrative contract which it enjoys with ExxonMobil, the ‘lead player’ in Guyana’s oil recovery pursuits.
Over time, Ramps has earned a reputation for media shyness on account of what is known to be a company posture that avoids the mainstream media. That posture appears to have ended when the Local Content Certificate compelled the company to venture out into the public glare. It is not known, however, whether that posture will persist or whether it will quietly return to the shadows of the public glare.
Whether or not the heightened comfort level which Ramps will doubtless derive from the Court’s restoring of bona fides to work in Guyana will bring a greater openness in terms of its interaction with the local media (and by extension, the public) in its work here as well as a deeper footprint in terms of its embracing of a more pronounced Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disposition is, up until now, unclear. It is, one feels, to the company’s advantage that it ‘change gears’ since, by and large, it is by no means the best-known of the foreign companies providing services linked to Guyana’s oil recovery pursuits.
When the Stabroek Business spoke with Company Chairman Rampersad several weeks ago he appeared to concede that the company’s overall posture towards ‘selling itself’ to local audiences may not have been what it ought to be.
While the good news at the level of the local Court’s Judicial Review would have been decidedly uplifting for the company, that would not have caused the company’s management to overlook the announcement by Attorney General,. Anil Nandlall that the judgment handed down by Acting Chief Justice Roxane George “would be scrupulously examined for the purpose of determining, inter alia, whether there will be further proceedings.” Officialdom would appear still to have the company in its sights. There are those who would argue that, going forward, the company’s demonstrable media shyness may not work in its favour.
