Oil & Gas
‘Shell’ pulls out of Vreed-en-Hoop Shorebase: For their share in a US$300 million investment made with two other local businesses in the NRG consortium for the Vreed-en-Hoop Shorebase Inc (VEHSI), the Nazar ‘Shell’ Mohamed-owned Hadi’s World Incorporated has pulled out and is selling its shares to the other partners, a decision, Mohammed says, is based on personal religious beliefs. And while the announcement follows an explosive Reuters article that claimed that the Mohameds were engaged in gold and drug smuggling and that that US government officials had repeatedly warned ExxonMobil to avoid doing business with the businessman, Mohamed emphasised, “It has nothing to do with Reuters and was a decision made by me since before the Reuters article, because of Islamic rules as it relates to borrowing and interest.” “I can confirm that, yes, we have sold our shares to our partners…,” Mohammed told Stabroek News yesterday when contacted. Asked if it was because of or connected with the Reuters article, he replied that it was “far from.” Further, while he acknowledged that the Reuters article had brought his name into disrepute and caused his family much sadness, his decisions are not influenced by negatives, speculation, or malicious lies, as he his grounded in the belief that his God is the only judge and is all knowing. Mohamed explained that while he went into the investment to earn profits, further expansion of the project entails borrowing of capital, which his Islamic beliefs do not subscribe to if that borrowing entailed interest on sums loaned or earned. Mohammed noted that because of the partnership agreement with NRG, he could only speak on his business’ operations and decisions. NRG Holdings Inc is a consortium of three local entrepreneurs, comprising gold miner Andron Alphonso of ZRN Investment Inc; Nazar ‘Shell’ Mohammed, of HADI’S World Incorporated; and Nicholas Deygoo-Boyer of National Hardware Guyana Ltd. Last year they had commenced construction of the Vreed-en-Hoop Shorebase Inc. It will be leased to ExxonMobil to support its offshore oil operations and the contract between the two entities was signed last year. The news of Hadi’s exit and the announcement which comes just months after the Reuters article is likely to raise eyebrows on the possibility of the two having some connection.
Procurement
NPTAB defends Tepui award but silent on experience question: While not addressing the fact that the winner of the $865m Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara, Pump Station contract did not meet the specified experience criteria, the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) last week defended the award as it said it was one of the lowest responsive bids. “Specifically, with regards to the construction of the Belle Vue Pump Station project, twenty-six (26) companies tendered for that project. Thirteen (13) bids were deemed non-responsive and were therefore not considered for award. Of the thirteen (13) substantially responsive and compliant bids, the lowest priced responsive bid was awarded the Meten-Meer-Zorg Pump Station, while the second lowest responsive bid was awarded the Jimbo/Grove Pump Station. Tepui was the third lowest priced responsive bidder and was awarded the Belle Vue Pump Station.” The board added, “Clearly, therefore, merely looking at the bid price announced at the opening of the bid cannot be used to adjudge the winning bidder and, (worse) yet, be used to impugn the integrity of the evaluation process and subsequent award of the contract.” It was not immediately clear how three separate pump station awards could be made from one group of bids. NPTAB referred to a letter by APNU+AFC MP Ganesh Mahipaul, who bemoaned the evaluation process of the tender but it did not address a similar concern raised by Opposition MP David Patterson who has taken the issue to the Public Procurement Commission, asking for an investigation to be launched. “A contract for the construction of a Pump Station at Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara, Region #3, was awarded to Tepui Group Inc. on August 14, 2023, the procuring entity was the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, I write seeking an investigation into the award of this contract on the basis that the Contractor was not eligible for the award,” Patterson said in a letter to the Public Procurement Commission (PPC), on Tuesday. Submitted with the letter were the details of the $865,543,500 contract award and the fact that the company was only formed late last year. Also among the documents was the contract award letter from NPTAB to the company, dated August 14. Patterson noted that of the 26 companies that bid, the company which won did not meet key bidding criteria, which stated that bidders had to have completed similar projects within the last three years. “The technical requirements of the bid documents required the successful bidder to have successfully completed projects of a similar nature and size within the last three years. Tepui Group Inc. having been established in August 2022, do not meet these requirements, however, were still awarded the contract.
Patterson calls for probe into award of $865m Pump Station contract: Believing that a company awarded a nearly billion-dollar contract for the construction of a pump station at Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara, did not meet the bidding criteria, former Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson has written to the procurement commission asking for an investigation to be launched into the matter. “A contract for the construction of a Pump Station at Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara, Region #3, was awarded to Tepui Group Inc. on August 14, 2023, the procuring entity was the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, I write seeking an investigation into the award of this contract on the basis that the Contractor was not eligible for the award,” Patterson said in a letter to the Public Procurement Commission (PPC). Submitted with the letter were the details of the $865,543,500 contract award and the fact that the company was only formed late last year. Also among the documents was the contract award letter from NPTAB to the company, dated August 14. Patterson noted that of the 26 companies that bid, the company which won did not meet key bidding criteria, which stated that bidders had to have completed similar projects within the last three years. “The technical requirements of the bid documents required the successful bidder to have successfully completed projects of a similar nature and size within the last three years. Tepui Group Inc. having been established in August 2022, do not meet these requirements, however, were still awarded the contract,” “Please find attached, documents and articles that are in the public’s domain. I would be grateful, via the PPC, if an investigation can be conducted, and should the award prove defective, that the necessary actions be taken against the entities and individuals associated with this award,” he added.
Trafficking in narcotics
Spanish customs nab four Guyanese, two Albanians on fishing boat with cocaine: Four Guyanese and two Albanians were on Thursday (September 28th) arrested in Spain after they were found on a Guyanese registered boat containing one tonne or 1,000 kilos of cocaine. “The operation was carried out in collaboration with the American agency DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and the Spanish Navy. The six crew members of the vessel were arrested…,” a release from the Tax Agency of Spain stated. The arrests comes even as Irish authorities reported on a seizure of a vessel in Cork containing some 2.2 tonnes or 2253 kilos of cocaine that it said fetches a street value of €157M, which had come to Guyana from Curaçao on August 18th before crossing the Atlantic. “A further three men have been arrested as part of an investigation into a cargo ship which was impounded off the coast of Cork this week and found to contain a large quantity of cocaine… the bulk cargo ship used to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine,” the head of the Irish Joint Task Force which conducted the operation told a press briefing. Reports from Spain’s Tax Agency are that the fishing vessel ‘Mathieu’ was spotted without a flag in the Atlantic some 1,100 kilometres off Cape Verde, a country comprising a group of islands that lie 385 miles off the west coast of Africa. According to the Spanish Tax Agency, its Customs Surveillance Service in a joint operation with the National Police and the Portuguese Jewish Police, intercepted the vessel with its cocaine cargo. Then a patrol boat – Fulmar – towed it to a port in the capital city of Arrecife on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where it was unloaded. When Stabroek News made contact with Head of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) James Singh, he said the agency was aware of the situation and an investigation had been launched.
Education
President floats $15m housing loans for teachers: Housing loans for teachers of $15m at an interest rate of 3.75% were floated yesterday by President Irfaan Ali in a meeting with a large number of educators at State House but a livestream of the session ended abruptly just when a litany of problems were raised including WiFi not being available over the last two years in one school. According to the Department of Public Information (DPI), the President stated that within two weeks, an activity will be organised during which banks will be invited to approve loans, on the spot for teachers who have already been allocated a piece of land. “What I can ask the (Chief Education Officer) to do for me now is to check in the entire school system to see all the teachers who would have had an allocation made to them for a piece of land but they don’t have the bank loan or the bank is giving them a hard time. “We will get the list of teachers; we will tell you all that you have to walk with…so we get everything pre-approved,” he said. Ali noted that he reached out to the banks to work along with teachers to prequalify and approve them for loans for up to $15 million with an interest rate of 3.75 per cent. The teachers will have the option to choose one of the designs from the different categories offered by the Ministry of Housing and Water in order to fast track the process, DPI said. “If you want to use that design you can save that cost…we will try to expedite the approval [for the plans] at the NDC [Neighbourhood Democratic Council] level,” the president further stated. An Office of the President release yesterday said that teachers who are yet to commence construction will receive subsidies from the Government for steel and cement to build their foundations. In a meeting that would be seen as attempting to undermine the bargaining process between the GTU and the government, President Ali also said that the existing anomalies affecting teachers paid below their minimum salary scales will be rectified this month, according to the release from the Office of the President.
GPL
Purchase of $27M in reconditioned generators reveals lack of plan for GPL – Patterson: If the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) had stuck to a proposed plan that would have seen it add between 20 to 25 mega-watts of power annually to the grid, it would not be in the “dilemma” it is in and rushing to buy reconditioned generator sets to meet increased demands, former minister of Public Works David Patterson said last week. And knowing that the country was on a trajectory to decrease the use of heavy fuels, the generator sets would have been dual powered to allow for the changeover, instead of continuing with HFO usage, as will be the case with the 17 used generators GPL said it was procuring from Honduras, Patterson contended. “They used a power generating study we had left to justify the gas to power project. However, that same study showed that we needed 20MW to 25MW per annum since 2018, to keep with normal average demand. As a good government they should have put measures in place to have at least 15 to 20 [MW] per year, up to this point and to keep up with the demand,” Patterson told the Stabroek News.Referring to an article published in the Sunday Stabroek, which stated that GPL was getting extra power for Christmas and had procured generators worth US$27 million from the Dominican Republic, Patterson said that had there been proper planning, there would have been no need to buy the refurbished machines. The generators are being procured from Honduras and not the Dominican Republic as had been stated. “Now that they are in crisis mode, they are rushing to buy reconditioned generators? Those generators are high speed or less fuel efficient and we had done away with buying or renting high speed gensets. Why go back to that now?” he questioned. “The plan should have been to continue to add capacity where there should have been an increase until the gas-to-shore project comes on stream. Not… that you drop everything and just wait on the gas to shore to solve everything. You still had to plan because every day [life] continues,” he added. And where his government was blamed for not doing enough, Patterson rubbished the claims saying, “If we didn’t buy that 63MW generators, this country would have been in a worse state. The last power entered into GPL system came from us and they can’t dispute that. And to think that was since 2019,” he stressed. “There is a narrative… ‘the coalition did nothing’. How can they [say that]? Plus that they would have been aware there was to be continuous upgrade of the system. This government has opened malls and added this and that with fanfare and not a single megawatt of power since then, but then blaming us with total untruths? They should have planned,” he emphasized. President Irfaan Ali claimed that the APNU+AFC government left the main utility company in a state, and without a plan, but Patterson referred to a letter he had written in 2021 saying, “All that I said then, I repeat.
Politics
President has not provided evidence of eight attempts to contact Norton: Three weeks after he committed to provide evidence that he had reached out to Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton eight times in an attempt to fulfill his constitutional mandate, President Irfaan Ali is yet to deliver on the promise. However, the Opposition Leader has produced five letters, two of which were sent to Shadow Minister of Legal Affairs, Roysdale Forde, by Minister of Governance, Gail Teixeira, and two responses, all pertaining to one issue and that was the appointment of the members of the Public Service Commission. The other letter produced by Norton is a response from the Opposition Leader to the President, dated June 23rd and references to a June 19th letter sent by Teixeira, informing that Ali had proposed consultation for three persons to be appointed to the PSC. The Sunday Stabroek had reached out to Director of Press and Publicity in the Office of the President, Suelle Findlay-Williams, who had in the first week after Ali’s claim pointed out that the President was overseas and when he returned would address the issue with him. The next week she was asked to speak with the President and provide a response on the matter. But, up to last week, the President’s Office was yet to provide any of the referenced letters. This newspaper had also followed up with the President himself but up to press time had not gotten a response. On September 9, the President had told a press conference he had hosted at State House, that he believed that he had fulfilled his constitutional responsibility as it relates to reaching out to the Leader of the Opposition, as he had done so some eight times. “For a matter of fact, I formally reached out to the Leader of the Opposition on eight occasions, between April 2022 to June 2023, in relation to fulfilling my duties, in accordance with what the Constitution requires. So, you would not find me wanting when it comes to fulfilling my constitutional mandate because I believe strongly in constitutional rule, and upkeeping the Constitution of our country”, he said in response to a question from Stabroek News. Pressed for details on the announcement, the President promised this newspaper that he would release the letters to prove that he making efforts to reach out to the Opposition Leader for dialogue.
In the courts
CJ rules against bid to stop offshore gas flaring: Acting Chief Justice, Roxane George SC has ruled in favour of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); against which an action was filed to put a stop to flaring of gas offshore by ExxonMobil. Among other things, the Chief Judge said “there is no evidence that the modified environmental permit (EP) will cause additional adverse effects…” The Court found that the EPA did not breach the law as was being alleged. The case surrounded an application for judicial review filed by three Guyanese women— Sinikka Henry, Sherlina Nageer and Andriska Thorington—for the Agency to cease gas flaring. The litigants had asked for orders directing the EPA to provide reports on the amount of gas flared, and the toxins released. They were also asking for an independent and expert probe of Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd’s (EEPGL) compliance with manufacturer’s standards for operating its gas compressor. Their contention had been that that Esso, an offshore company wholly owned by ExxonMobil, has been flaring associated gas almost continuously since it began production in December 2019, despite undertaking to reinject the associated gas, not flare it. In May 2021 after ExxonMobil had flared billions of cubic feet of associated gas, the EPA purported to modify Esso’s permit to allow it to flare gas. The litigants also argued that the Agency’s decision to modify Esso’s environmental permit to allow flaring was irrational and unlawful and that it should be quashed by the Court. They also argued that the Agency breached the Environmental Protection Act Cap 20:05 by purporting to allow Esso to flare in return for paying a fee. The three alleged that the EPA acted in breach of the law when it decided to modify the EP issued for the Liza 1 Petroleum Development Project. They also contended that the EPA’s decision to charge US$30 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalents emitted as set out in the modified Permit was in breach of the polluter pays principle. In responding to the claims, the EPA maintained that its decision to modify the Permit was made because the unmodified Liza 1 Permit had only prohibited routine flaring. The Agency had said that in that form, it did not consider or regulate ‘flaring which was not routine.’ It contended that having recognised this gap, it made the decision to modify the Permit in order to set out the conditions that would govern flaring that was ‘not routine’. Further to this, the EPA advanced that it had moved to apply the polluter pays principle in order to require ExxonMobil Guyana Limited to bear the cost of ensuring that the environment remained in an acceptable state in keeping with the Environmental Protection Act. In handing down her ruling, the Chief Justice underscored that during the proceedings, the Applicants abandoned a number of the reliefs they had requested for lack of evidence.
Passport
Passport backlog of over 5,000 to be cleared in a week – President: President Irfaan Ali recently promised that in one week, the backlog of over 5,000 outstanding passports will be gone. He made this announcement yesterday via social media when addressing several issues, including the passport backlog. The President stated that there are over 5,700 passports to be issued to persons in Guyana and in the diaspora and asserted that in a week’s time the issue will be dealt with. “So, I have brought together the team and they are working in a concerted way. Twenty-four-hour shifts to have this entire backlog of 5,302 plus a backlog of about 400 for the diaspora. So, that is just about over 5700 passports in the backlog nationwide and in the diaspora. They are working to completely bring to nil this backlog by next Friday. So, all things being equal we don’t have any challenges with the machine.” Over the past few months, people have been complaining about the delay in the delivery of passports due to various issues. As a result, some persons have had to delay their travels while others are unable to engage in the process of applying for visas. At the passport office, applicants are being told that they would have to wait 40 days for their new passports. The authorities say that this is because of the shortage of blank passports. The complaints eventually reached the ear of the President who decided that it was prudent to intervene to move the process along. “I have seen persons making complaints about the length of wait for a passport. Well, as you know, there was a huge backlog, there was a shortage of passports and this was a global issue. Now, we have purchased a lot of passports back into the system.” He also urged persons to utilise the passport offices in their regions so as to reduce the backlog at the central passport office in Georgetown.
Mahdia COI
Former Deputy Head blasts Fire Service’s response to Mahdia dorm fire: Former deputy headmistress of the Mahdia Secondary School, Amanda Nedd, recently said that the Guyana Fire Service was “clearly disorganized” in its approach towards the school’s dormitory fire which claimed 20 lives. Nedd, an educator for nearly 25 years, told the Commission of Inquiry that the body language of the fire-fighters on the fire scene suggested that they were disoriented, confused, or did not know what they were doing. “When they arrived it was very chaotic because it was like they were unsure about what they were doing and they were very much disorganised. It is like they were not trained to attend to this situation and that is my personal view because I was looking forwards towards a quick response which I did not get from them [fire-fighters],” the former deputy head mistress told the inquiry. Nedd, who was also the school’s English Department Head said when the fire-fighters (both senior and auxiliary staff) arrived, they eventually left in pursuit of water to douse the flames. “They arrived on the scene, then I noticed that they left, came back and then spent another 5 minutes and then they left again. It was like they were all over the place”, she related. The Commission’s Counsel, Keoma Griffith then asked “So when they [the fire-fighters] left the scene for the first time, the fire obviously continued to ravage the building?” Nedd replied, “Yes and in addition to that, they had no tools for us to try breaking and entering the building, so if they had something like a pick-axe it would have been easier for all the children to be rescued.” She told the inquiry that if the fire service was prompt and effective, so many lives would not have been lost. Nedd, who is now the Acting Headmistress at Uitvlugt Secondary, West Coast Demerara, recalled that on the night of the inferno she was reading a book when her husband (also a dorm warden at the Mahdia Secondary) asked her to come to the backdoor to listen to a sound that was coming from the female dormitory. She said that her husband was in the kitchen, which is a part of the teaching quarters, when he asked her to “come and listen.”
Oil & Gas
Vincent Adams strongly criticises CJ’s decision on gas flaring by ExxonMobil: AFC executive, Dr Vincent Adams has voiced strong disagreement with the decision of acting Chief Justice (CJ), Roxane George SC who ruled this week in favour of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and against an action which was filed to put a stop to flaring of gas offshore by ExxonMobil. Adams, a former Head of the EPA, said that the CJs ruling on the unlimited flaring available to ExxonMobil is “no doubt gravely puzzling and a travesty of justice against the people of Guyana”. Speaking at press conference recently, he noted that the case brought by Sinikka Henry, Sherlina Nageer and Andriska Thorington asked the court to stop the indiscriminate, dangerous flaring of unlimited quantities of toxic produced gas into the atmosphere by finding that the Government’s modification of the EPA permit to allow for such reckless flaring, is illegal. Adams, who was dismissed by the PPP/C government, said that the APNU+AFC Coalition’s permit guided by an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and international standards enshrined that all produced gas must be re-injected and so prohibited from being flared except for emergency, maintenance and startup. “Exxon fully understood this and committed to it from day one, but was caught in a bind when their equipment didn’t work, and so conspired with the PPP/C to get out of this bind by changing the rules which they couldn’t do under the coalition”, Adams charged. According to a release issued by the Alliance For Change, Adams said that upon initial startup under the APNU+AFC coalition in December 2019, when the equipment failed, ExxonMobil begged for a 30-day and then a 60-day time period to fix the problem, but when that period expired without a resolution, they were forced to reduce oil production until it was fixed. “After the coalition left government, the EPA callously added a clause which was undoubtedly written by Exxon to allow unlimited flaring when the equipment is not working and this is what the judge has gone along with for a fine that is less than 5% of what Exxon makes by not cutting back production to stop the flaring”, Adams said. He argued that Chief Justice George in her own words seemed to have believed everything proffered by Exxon as facts and everything proffered by the litigants as “opinions”.
