Nascimento clarifies that the President’s position on renegotiation was not about contract sanctity but rather electoral calculations

Dear Editor,

In his letter in the Stabroek News of 15 January 2025, Mr. Kit Nascimento unconvincingly emphasises that he is not writing on the Renegotiation issue on behalf of the government. Why protest that much, Kit? Editorial writers, columnists and letter writers on the matter have directed at the President, not the government, their profound dismay and concern at his reversal of an explicit promise to the Guyanese people to “review and renegotiate” the 2016 ExxonMobil PSA.

The letter employs Kit’s characteristic strategy of creating false narratives. Despite several matters that have come to light concerning the Agreement, he suggests that receiving some benefits from the current arrangement somehow invalidates the need for better terms. And that pursuing our explicit rights under Article 31.2 of the PSA would somehow violate the contract’s sanctity. This disingenuous writing style – attacking critics while avoiding the substance of their arguments – cannot obscure the fundamental need and justification for renegotiation.

But it is Kit’s concluding paragraph that is most revealing. The argument carefully constructed over the years about the “sanctity of contract” crumbles in a single paragraph. After several statements, letters and excuses  by the President, his Vice President and numerous surrogates – some paid directly and others indirectly – why renegotiation would violate sacred principles and damage Guyana’s investment climate, Mr. Nascimento casually suggests that “the time may come” for renegotiation, but “it is certainly not now” because it would be “a

prescription for losing the elections.”

I feel for my friend Kit. His letter’s tortured logic and contradictory conclusions expose how difficult it has become, even for him, to defend the indefensible. In the end, his remarkable admission exposes the unvarnished truth. The President’s refusal to act in the people’s interest is not about contract sanctity or investment principles but about crude political expediency and electoral calculations. Such a feared loss will affect not only the politicians. 

Readers owe Mr. Kit Nascimento a debt of gratitude for his accidental admissions. They reveal more than prudence might dictate.  

Sincerely,

Christopher Ram

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