Leader of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday said he didn’t believe the government was committed to full transparency in the extractives sector and said that it would be huge embarrassment to the country and a rebuke to President Irfaan Ali if Guyana was delisted from the EITI.
Stabroek News on Wednesday reported on Guyana’s suspension from the Norway-based Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) for failing to meet an end-of-year submission of the 2020 report.
Without mentioning the SN report, President Ali in a Facebook video that same day said that his government was firmly committed to openness and accountability and sought to blame members of a multi-stakeholder group for the predicament the country now faced.
Ramjattan during an Alliance For Change (AFC) press conference yesterday said that his party had predicted last year that Guyana’s relationship with the EITI would have been in “jeopardy” and would have likely led to its “expulsion from that international watchdog body.”
He said he believes that the PPP/C has “hardened its position in not wanting to live by the hard standards of transparency which the international body sets for our extractive industries, namely oil and gas, mining, fishing, and forestry.”
Ramjattan stated that the arrangement between Guyana and EITI is for “complete transparency of all the gold contracts which were given (out) whether it was medium, small or large mining companies, and also transparency as to who are the human beings behind those companies, what you call the beneficial ownership. How much money they are paying for these concessions? How much royalty are they paying? How much taxes are they paying?”
He said this is so that Guyanese can go on a website and get the information as to whether it “is friends and family and favourites of the PPP who have gotten the gold concession all across the country or the forestry or whatever, and that is what brings a country to the democratic standard and the transparency standard of EITI in the extractive industry.”
He stressed, “Everything is now made extremely transparent.”
According to him, a country’s expulsion from the EITI simply means that the government of the day does not want to share “that kind of information.”
Touching on the ousting of Dr. Rudy Jadoopat as the Country Coordinator of the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GYEITI), Ramjattan said, that it was done on “maliciously false” grounds that he was a member of the AFC.
Dr. Jadoopat was last year replaced with former Pro-Chancellor of the University of Guyana Dr. Prem Misir, who Ramjattan yesterday labeled a “PPP propagandist.”
According to the Leader of the AFC, the Jadoopat-led secretariat had assisted the multi-stakeholder group and the independent administrator in the successful setting up of the GYEITI in 2017, along with the completion of three reports; 2017, 2018, and 2019.
He charged that the Misir secretariat has led “us into suspension.”
“His talents reside not in transparency nor in the operations of the various protocols and standards of EITI which demand transparency, indeed he now has four months after the date of the suspension to still present the 2020 report, not doing so will see Guyana being delisted from the international body.”
Ramjattan pointed out that if Guyana was to be delisted it would bring “stinging rebukes to the Ali-led administration and huge embarrassment to Guyana.”
Further homing in on President Ali’s statement, Ramjattan said, that his party was not surprised by the President’s “exaggerated, camouflaged concern now that suspension has happened.”
However, he said the situation was worsened by blame being assigned to Covid–19, flooding and two members of the multi-stakeholder group.
“This is disgraceful and dangerous, attacking two of the most prominent and active civil society members is plain suicide. EITI standard makes it clear that each and every member of the multi-stakeholder group” must operate and express their opinions freely without fear or reprisal, he said.
He said that his party’s position remains that the independent administrator for the fourth report (2020) was hired in violation of EITI standards “at least in the eyes of these two members also.”
According to him, the heart of the matter was that the terms of reference of the independent administrator “did not reflect that (the report) must report on the status of the implementation of the recommendations” of the 2019 GYEITI report in the 2020 report.
“This was missing, consequent upon an overlooking of same by the Prem Misir secretariat, that overlooking itself has further questions and implications about it, and the AFC will probe further into that”, the AFC Leader said.
Ramjattan added that both multi-stakeholder members were within their right to speak to their individual conscience on the issue and to similarly vote, adding that on the matter of their conscience, the President saw it fit to “criticize and retaliate.”
