Dear Editor,
The Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN) responds to a few of the many false claims in the paid advertisement posted by Robin Singh in Stabroek News on 24 March 2024.
We start with citizens’ access to information, including access to the Laws of Guyana, which go to the heart of a democracy. In the OGGN shadow report of 4 February 2024 to the 140th session of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), we showed that the Access to Information, Act No. 21 of 2011, consolidates government power to strangle the flow of information. Public Authorities have the power to classify information in 5 levels – only the lowest of which is accessible to the public. And even this lowest level is inaccessible when deemed “not in the public interest”, which term remains undefined.
OGGN further noted that Laws of Guyana are not equally accessible. This right is enshrined in Article 7 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) – ‘All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination’; https://www.un. org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights. Clearly, if a citizen cannot read a law because of obstacles created by the Government, the citizens cannot be expected to comply with that law.
How is this key universal feature of equality expressed in Guyana? In intentions, it is well expressed. A large part of the National Constitution is concerned with identification and protection of human rights: Articles 9-40 and 212 onwards. Article 149D speaks to equality before the law; Article 212D speaks to equality between all the people; and Articles 13 and 149C enshrine the intention of government to be shared between politicians and people. However, that intention cannot be realised when the government makes use of its asymmetry in information.
To give an example: the Vice President, who is responsible for the national oil & gas policy, says that oil production will level off for some decades because a succession of oilfields will be brought into production. In spite of there being no ring-fencing, the Vice President says that costs will be paid off soon and Guyana will benefit from much greater oil revenues during or after 2027 [‘Govt. banking on high oil prices to rake in US$9B by 2027 – Jagdeo’, Kaieteur News, 17 March 2024, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2024/03/17/govt-banking-on-high-oil-prices-to-rake-in-us9b-by-2027-jagdeo/]. Therefore, says the Vice President, there is no need to negotiate the Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) or ring-fencing. Moreover, he has seen the field development plans and he knows the volumes of oil in the reservoirs. The Vice President asserts that citizens do not need to know [Kaieteur News (2024) ‘Knowing oil reserves not important to the nation’ – VP Jagdeo tells reporters. Kaieteur News. 22 March. https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2024/03/22/knowing-oil-reserves-not-important-to-the-nation-vp-jagdeo-tells-reporters ]. OGGN can provide other instances of similar withholding by government of reports in other sectors, including gold and manganese mining.
This denial of access to information relevant to a national depletion policy (and hence the medium-term future economy) is clearly contrary to the National Constitution, as well as to the Access to Information Act number 21 of 2011. The field development plans are official documents, and Section 12 (1) of the Access to Information Act states that ‘Notwithstanding any law to the contrary and subject to the provisions of this Act, it shall be the right of every Guyanese citizen or person domiciled in Guyana to obtain access to an official document’.
How operational is that statutory right of access to State information? It is not operational, as members of OGGN can attest from their attempts to make use of this Act; a few examples are included in OGGN’s shadow report. In addition, former Auditor-General Anand Goolsarran in his Accountability Watch column in Stabroek News reported that he was unable to locate annual reports of activity by the Commissioner for Information; https://www.stabroeknews.com/2016/07/18/features/accountability-watch/politically-exposed-persons-anti-money-laundering-legislation/.
So citizens are denied access to official documents and cannot easily find which parts of which Laws are relevant in any particular case. One item in the paid advertisement in Stabroek News says that with special software it is possible to read all the Laws. Some Laws are available only as images so poorly orientated that optical character recognition software cannot recognise the individual letters. And how are people – on the coast or in the hinterland – without special software, to read and know which parts of which Laws apply to them?
Guyana’s good intentions on paper simply are not translated into practice. OGGN stands by its statements to the United Nations Human Rights Committee of the ICCPR.
Yours faithfully,
Darshanand Khusial
on behalf of the
Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN)
Guyana
www.oggn.org/about
