The Peoples’ Progressive Party (PPP/C), through its General Secretary (GS) Bharrat Jagdeo, has been calling for the criminalisation of nondisclosure of oil contracts and receipts from oil proceeds. But the People’s National Congress (PNCR) is pooh-poohing this remark, saying that the PPP/C is being hypocritical.
Sharing the party’s position on the matter this morning at Congress Place, Sophia, was PNCR Executive Member and the country’s Social Protection Minister, Amna Ally.
“The PPP has taken dishonesty and hypocrisy to new heights. Jagdeo, while as President, never made public the contracts he signed. So, to tell the media that it should be a crime to keep contracts secret is disingenuous, hypocritical and ridiculous. In and out of office, the PPP cannot be trusted,” she said.
The Coalition Chief Whip added that it was the PPP, while it was in office, that made the nondisclosure of contracts a “standard operating procedure”.
“There was no transparency when the PPP was in office. That was one of the reasons why the people of Guyana voted them out of office in May 2015, just four short years ago.”
Ally alluded to the contract that was signed between ExxonMobil and the Jagdeo-led regime in 1999, which was a major source of contention for many months.
“The PPP never disclosed the contents of that contract to the people of Guyana. The same PPP that is now promising to make nondisclosure of contracts a criminal offense…They never disclosed many of the major contracts they signed while they were in office,” Ally noted.
It was until the coalition came to office in May 2015 that President David Granger released that contract to the public, she said while adding that there are still unanswered questions regarding former President Donald Ramotar’s alleged “big oil block giveaway” to persons rumoured to be associated with the PPP.
“The PNCR is aware, that the State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA), is currently investigating how oil blocks offshore Guyana, were given to companies with no oil and gas experience,” she told the media.
