Jordan, Trotman must resign for misleading nation on secret Exxon fund – Jagdeo

Dec 09, 2017 News, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...t-exxon-fund-jagdeo/

“I think that if he knew and misled this nation he should resign, but Mr. Speaker it’s not only the Minister of Finance (Winston Jordan) who knew of this. This letter was copied to the Honourable Minister, Raphael Trotman. He too should resign because they knew of this signing bonus and then they categorically denied it and this was since September of 2016….over a year, this country was in the dark.”

This was the Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo’s assertion as he related to the National Assembly during the debate on the 2018 Budget Presentation, that the two ministers had misled the country over a U.S. $18 million signing bonus from U.S oil giant ExxonMobil.

Both ministers were forced to admit the existence of the bonus yesterday after a leaked letter showed that the Ministry of Finance wrote to the Bank of Guyana requesting to open a foreign currency account in order to receive a deposit in the form of a signing bonus to be given by ExxonMobil.

The letter dated September 20, 2016 was written by Finance Secretary, Dr. Hector Butts to Bank of Guyana Governor, Dr. Gobind Ganga. It was indicated that the authorised signatories to the account are Dr. Butts, Deputy Finance Secretary, Ms. Louise Bouyea; Accountant General (ag.) Mr. Jawahar Persaud, and Deputy Accountant General, Ms. Jennifer Chapman. The letter was copied to Minister Trotman as well as other persons.

Jagdeo took the Government to task for being silent on the bonus. He emphasised that the administration had breached financial regulations by opting to hold the bonus in a special account instead of accounting for it as revenue in Government’s consolidated account.

Jagdeo stated that the monies from ExxonMobil could have also been paid over to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, which is the agency which oversees the sector.

“There has to be a significant breach of our financial laws. Almost, a criminal breach of our financial laws; if the money is not there…Where is it reflected?” Jagdeo stated.

He noted that the estimates under consideration by the Parliament are understated by at least $4 billion, because once money is collected by Government it has to be recorded and reflected in the estimates.

“This is ground enough for calling to withdraw the entire estimates as illegal and fraudulent,” Jagdeo noted.

He argued that this is a major scandal as the Coalition Government took large sums of money in the form of a signing bonus, did not tell the people, and wrote to set up a special account.

“What if a few years had passed, then someone could easily draw down money from this fund… and we were told that the PPP had slush fund in the GGMC, but every cent was paid in, it was just not transferred to the consolidated fund… but here, it’s a totally different situation. The entire Government, Mr. Speaker, should resign now,” Jagdeo also stated.

The Opposition Leader chronicled the Government’s continued response to the issue of the signing bonus.

Jagdeo reminded that Minister of State, Joseph Harmon was asked about the signing bonus by reporters, but he had sidetracked the issue by endorsing Trotman’s statement that the contract will be made public at a later date.

According to Jagdeo, on November 23rd he revealed to the media that he was reasonably sure that there was a signing of a bonus. He said that on the same day, Minister Jordan told Kaieteur News that there was ‘no signing bonus with ExxonMobil’ and that such a claim was ‘a figment of the imagination’.

Jagdeo opined that if the Minister of Finance knew of this and he deliberately misled the nation in such categorical terms, then there must be another motive for not being forthcoming

Breaking News…. Leaked Finance Ministry document confirms that Govt. opened account to collect Exxon signing bonus

Dec 08, 2017 News, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...exxon-signing-bonus/

GNI title --Breaking News…. Leaked Finance Ministry document confirms that Govt. opened account to collect Exxon signing bonus

Source -- https://guyana.crowdstack.io/topic/br...-exxon-signing-bonus

OI DG..why do all your threads begin with a quarter of the story..stops...then restarts with the whole story?

cain posted:

OI DG..why do all your threads begin with a quarter of the story..stops...then restarts with the whole story?

D_G trying to overtake ASJ for the number 1 ranking so he makes multiple posts for one story.