Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday criticized the Aubrey Norton-led Opposition for its practice of withholding details regarding its oil and gas policies and advisors.
According to Jagdeo, Norton and his party are bluffing the nation with claims of an expert advisory team influencing their decisions. During his press conference today, Jagdeo contended that Norton’s refusal to release the names of these experts stems from the opposition’s dearth of substantive contributions to the sector.
Jagdeo called out Norton and his party for the purported bluff, noting that, “…He (Norton) said, ‘I have a committee that advises me on oil and gas, but I can’t let you know their names.”
This indeed was the stance of Norton during his recent press conference where he declined to divulge details about the committee, the members’ qualifications and its plans after being questioned by reporters. Making it clear this information will not be made public he said, “I have answered the first question before many times, no I will not say who to comprise our oil and gas committee. I can say to you that it has expertise both at home and abroad.”
He added, “Why would I tell a government like this who are the members of our oil and gas group? I wouldn’t and I have no apologies for it.”
Recently, criticism from various sections of society regarding the Opposition’s reticence on matters concerning the burgeoning petroleum industry has intensified. But before these public outcries, Norton’s party previously faced condemnation for failing to capitalize on golden opportunities to influence Guyana’s new oil contracts.
Last June, as the Government of Guyana paced forward with its plans to establish two new model production sharing agreements (PSAs) to govern the country’s deep and shallow water concessions, the Aubrey Norton-led opposition wasted its chance to influence such this critical aspect of the country’s future. Instead of providing meaningful recommendations on what those contracts should entail, it chose to preach from the precipice of excuses.
The party for weeks during its press conferences complained that the two-week allotted public consultation period to provide feedback was insufficient. Interestingly, the contracts were made public in March 2023 and despite months of extensions provided that went up unit July/Agust, the contracts were eventually finalized with no input from Norton and his party.
Moreover, it is important to note that when this publication had questioned Norton about the opposition’s intentions to make submissions on the PSAs and if it could state what their possible recommendations are, Norton responded by suggesting that the opposition does not operate in isolation. He had said it was actively engaging with experts and stakeholders to gather multiple perspectives before formulating a definitive response.
He said, “The opposition doesn’t operate in a vacuum. We have engaged persons involved in data. We did say that two weeks sometimes are too short for these things. We are engaging a number of people, getting various perspectives before we say this is what we’ll do”.
Referring to instances like these during today’s press conference, Jagdeo asserted that the opposition’s persistent bluffing underscores its lack of substantive views on the oil and gas sector, which is further solidified by its excuses every time there is an attempt by the media to solicit information.
Jagdeo said, “Every single week at their press conferences and say oh the PPP doesn’t have a plan when we’ve outlined (them) and we challenge them we so to do the same, to lay there– their plan because we have laid ours, they fail to do so.”
Contrary to the opposition’s approach, Jagdeo emphasized his administration’s commitment to transparency, stating, “You may not agree with our position…, but at least we have a position on every single matter.”
He urged the nation to scrutinize Norton’s sensationalism regarding the sector, cautioning against embracing hollow rhetoric devoid of tangible proposals.
It seems obvious that this norton finds nothing to complain about, but it steadfastly raises concerns. It should shut its mouth and stop whining.