Former President Donald Ramotar yesterday said that the contract he signed with Canadian oil explorer, CGX followed a template for all agreements clinched before petroleum was discovered in 2015 and its release is a “lame” attempt by the government to compare it with the 2016 one signed with ExxonMobil  following the major hydrocarbon discovery in 2015.

“I would like to put it in context. It was a time when we had no exploration in our waters, we were trying to get people to investigate the area. I followed a more or less formal template that was there,” Ramotar told Stabroek News.

“Government was in a far better position in 2016 when it renegotiated for Exxon’s production licence because there was confirmation that oil was there. So to use this is just a very lame excuse for a lazy government,” he added…..