APNU+AFC’s advertisement on its Facebook page

By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Former People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) Member of Parliament (MP), Charles Ramson, feels that the APNU+AFC Government has aborted its role as the people’s representative.
He said that the government and its organs are now acting like “agents” of oil giant, ExxonMobil.
During a recent interview, Ramson lamented the “unfortunate” series of events that followed Government’s release of the list of 227 companies that conducted business with ExxonMobil during the first quarter of 2018.
Ramson noted that the list was accompanied by an article written by the Department of Public Information (DPI) trying to discredit persons and companies that have refused to be apologists of ExxonMobil or “ExxonMobil sympathizers.”
He noted, too, that articles were written by DPI without any sort of investigation that could have either verified or discredited the content of the list.
Ramson said, “What surprises me about the publication of the Department of Public Information lauding the $10B purportedly spent by Exxon in 2017 and 2018 is that; in their haste to be agents of Exxon, the writers did not even check the accuracy of the information on the list.”
Further, the oil and gas academic said that if the government and its organ—the DPI—understood an iota of how projects such as Liza phase one work, they would have been ashamed to say that so far, only $10B has been paid to local companies when the project is worth US$4.4B or $880B.

Oil and Gas Academic, Charles Ramson

Ramson explained, “The major spending from an oil company comes in this phase – called the development phase. But the government seems to be satisfied with the $10B purportedly spent in Guyana by Exxon since 2017 even though this represents just one percent of the project cost.
“They are acting and sounding like agents for Exxon rather than agents of the people.”
But, Ramson noted that the “agents” did not leave their “Public Relations” work there. “They took it a step further.
Ramson said that he found “absolutely disgusting,” the fact that there was a paid Facebook advertisement from the APNU+AFC on its official page. It carries the headline, “Kaieteur News, Ram & McRae, Guyana Times & Sleep In Hotel among local companies cashing in on ExxonMobil’s business.”
The Government also paid for this article to reach several hundreds of Facebook viewers. It was written by the DPI too.
Ramson said that the post and conversation that followed the article were geared at discrediting Guyanese businesses, which have benefited from some of Exxon’s spending.
The Oil and Gas Academic said, “They suggested that people and businesses should not criticize if they are getting paid. Well, that, to me, is the definition of a sell-out and if this is the group of persons we expect to represent Guyana’s best interest then we can say with certainty that there will not be local content legislation and that the APNU-AFC will continue to give away our natural resources,”
Ramson quoted a section of the article, which read, “It is clear that the trickledown effect is that thousands of Guyanese who are either employed or connected to these companies directly are benefitting from ExxonMobil’s presence in Guyana.”
The politician then questioned, “Is that what this government is satisfied with? The trickles?