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Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded -Column 154

Introduction

By its very name, the Ministry of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs should defend and advance democracy, promote and ensure transparency, and strengthen and enforce accountability. Regrettably, the Ministry, in pursuit of the party’s agenda, is increasingly a convenient vehicle for political deflection and democratic reversal, where Parliament is reduced to a rubber stamp for government (read Party) plans and governance is engineered to serve narrow interests rather than the public good.

This was evident in a recent response from the Ministry, which, rather offensively, dismissed a legitimate request by OGGN, a civil society organisation, for information about oil tax payments and access to information. It would have been to its credit if it had simply advised the OGGN of the statutory framework for accessing public information. Instead, it misrepresented the law, ignored glaring conflicts of interest, and deflected the issue of accountability.

Law is the bedrock, information is the oxygen

The Ministry knows that law – including the Constitution – is the bedrock of governance and that information is the oxygen of democracy. Without compliance and sanctions, laws become hollow instruments, existing on paper but non-existent in practice. Given its mandate, the Ministry should ensure these principles are applied in every sphere of government. It should strengthen mechanisms allowing free and open access to information – not shielding the government from scrutiny. Instead, it has chosen to defend a system in which:

The Commissioner of Information is neither independent nor effective. In the meme “family, favourites and friends”, the Commissioner’s son is a minister, his wife chairs the Teaching Service Commission, and his office is his home! A more egregious combination of conflicts is hard to imagine.

Just coincidentally, the Commission has not filed an annual report since 1996!

Parliament is merely a tool for government use, convened when an appropriation bill is needed, or legislation passed to fulfill some international obligation or domestic unavoidable need. Under this form of governance, parliament can never function as a meaningful check on executive power. And, of course, in another part of the tripod, the Speaker’s role appears to be to restrict and, as necessary, prevent meaningful debate.

Proper governance is practically absent, with constitutional safeguards twisted to accommodate political interests. The all-important Judicial Service Commission and, to a lesser extent, the Constitutional Reform Commission stand as examples of how institutions meant to strengthen democracy can be sidelined and manipulated.

The Integrity Commission, often held up by the Ministry as a bastion of accountability and guarantee against governmental corruption, has never filed an annual report of its performance. Currently chaired by the wife of a late PPP/C Minister, the Commission has been filing annual audited financial statements that are only part of the annual reporting process.

Troublingly, this Commission seems to be operating as a mere repository with no sample audits or reviews undertaken by the Commission.

A weak and ineffective Access to Information System

The Ministry must be in self-delusion to think that Guyana’s Access to Information framework has served any purpose other than its own or can somehow be compared with that of Canada. It knew about the weaknesses in the Act before its introduction when the Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc. raised concerns in 2011. Yet, no amendment has been made to ensure its proper implementation, let alone strengthen the law.

This impotence starkly contrasts with Canada, which has continuously improved its own Act, most notably through Bill C-58 in 2019, which expanded the law’s scope, strengthened the powers of the Information Commissioner and introduced mandatory proactive disclosure obligations.

While Canada refined its legislation to promote openness, Guyana’s Access to Information framework remains stagnant and ineffective. The claim that Guyana’s Act was “modeled wholesale” on Canada’s is false in many fundamental respects:

Canada’s system is decentralised, meaning requests go directly to the government agency holding the records. Guyana’s centralised model forces everything through the Commissioner of Information, frustrating the process to make it non-operational.

Canada’s Commissioner of Information has enforcement powers and can order disclosures. Guyana’s Commissioner lacks meaningful authority and serves more as a postbox than an active entity.

Canada’s Office of Commissioner of Information has an active website full of information, advice and assistance. That of the Guyana Commissioner does not even have a letterhead, much less a website, and an “office” inaccessible to the public.

False Claims, Misdirection, and a Lack of Accountability

The Ministry’s response to the Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN) was factually incorrect and legally flawed. It claimed that companies in Guyana are required to file their tax returns with the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority. This is false – tax filings are made at the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), not the Deeds Registry. Either the Ministry does not understand essential corporate compliance, or it is deliberately misleading the public. That is deliberate prevarication. The issue is not about financial statements but about whether or not certificates of assessment were properly issued, why the payments to support the certificates were made, and how they are accounted for. 

The Ministry is not even responsible for the Access to Information Act. Yet, it attempted to dismiss concerns about transparency while failing to address why the sole Commissioner of Information has been unresponsive and unproductive.

Conclusion

While the Ministry discredited itself with inappropriate language and style, citizens like Anand Goolsarran and Alfred Bhulai and organisations like TIGI and OGGN wait in vain for basic information on the petroleum sector. A Ministry that is properly informed and genuinely committed to governance would facilitate citizens. It would elevate Parliament to its proper role as an oversight body rather than reducing it to a rubber stamp for government approval. Such a Ministry would hold other ministers accountable for legal obligations, including filing annual reports as required by law. It would treat transparency as a fundamental democratic value rather than a threat to be contained.

Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Column 153

“The OECD/G20’s Pillar Two framework mandates that all in-scope MNEs (multi-national enterprises) pay a minimum effective tax rate of 15% on profits in each jurisdiction. The Bahamas must act decisively to ensure that these taxes are collected here, rather than abroad”: The Bahamas Government

Introduction

In a development that would be almost comical were it not so devastatingly costly to Guyana, The Bahamas is now poised to collect taxes on income earned by Exxon from Guyana’s oil wealth. Contrast that with Guyana, whose government, despite widespread calls for similar action, refuses to exercise its sovereign right and power to tax all income earned in Guyana. The Bahamas’ initiative-taking adoption of the OECD’s Pillar Two framework exposes Guyana’s fiscal negligence and its leaders’ spineless subservience to ExxonMobil and multinational interests. The framework ensures that multinational enterprises pay a minimum tax of 15%.

Guyana’s refusal to adopt the OECD framework reveals an uncomfortable truth: our government has actively given up billions in revenue rather than even suggesting that ExxonMobil and its partners Hess and CNOOC should pay taxes on its hefty profits from Guyana. This active, deliberate and calculated inaction has led to the absurdity where The Bahamas, a country with only sand, sea and shells, will soon generate more tax revenue from Guyana’s oil industry than Guyana itself!!

The Bahamas is known for its tax haven status, but the country wants to collect revenues from its multinationals and stand alongside countries that take their reputation seriously – at least until Exxon finds another country to shield its Guyana profits.

The Cost of Inaction: Billions Lost, No Accountability

No one should be fooled that Guyana’s refusal to join the OECD framework is an oversight -it is a manifestation of the country’s leadership kowtowing to Exxon and Hess over the interest of their own people. They know that if they sign on, they must commit self-styled heresy by charging tax on Exxon. Unfortunately, this is not their only show of loyalty to Exxon. Their refusal to utilise the renegotiation clause in the 2016 Petroleum Agreement already stands as a glaring example of fiscal surrender, with Guyana not only waiving its right to collect taxes but also reimbursing ExxonMobil for its tax obligations and providing receipts for taxes Exxon and Hess never actually paid.

This is not about legal constraints or contractual obligations – this is about a government that has chosen to protect ExxonMobil from taxation rather than safeguard the financial future of its own people.

Giving away the Billions

It is estimated that Guyana has already given up around three billion United States Dollars in taxes which the oil companies should have paid since 2020. To put this in perspective, The Bahamas anticipates generating approximately US$$140 million annually through its new tax measures, applied across its entire economy. Given the vast scale of ExxonMobil’s operations in Guyana, our potential revenue under the same framework would dwarf this figure multiple times over.

The Flimsy Justifications for Guyana’s Tax Giveaway

Government officials, from President Irfaan Ali to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, continue to hide behind “contract sanctity” rhetoric to justify this inaction. Yet, their arguments collapse under even the most basic scrutiny. While The Bahamas is demonstrating the ability of a small nation to assert its tax sovereignty, Guyana’s leaders remain silent on why they refuse to do the same.

Former Prime Minister Samual Hinds has jumped on the Exxon Train and recently claimed that Guyana’s 2% royalty and profit-sharing arrangements compensate for the complete tax exemption granted to ExxonMobil. This is nineteenth-century, misleading, and fiscally irresponsible. No other oil-producing nation has accepted such terms, and the insistence on defending them reflects either shocking economic mismanagement or deliberate efforts to placate corporate interests at the expense of national development.

What contract sanctity?

It seems that the Government is engaged in some dodgy accounting regarding the taxes to be paid to the Guyana Revenue Authority. Under the 2016 Agreement, those funds should come from the government’s share of profits. But as we know, the 2021 Natural Resource Fund Act limits the use of the NRF funds. That, as lawyers would say, is an amendment by implication. However, an examination of the Government Estimates shows that there is no collection by the GRA, so the question then is who issued the Tax Certificate since it is not the GRA.

The inevitable question is whether Exxon accepted the amendment to the tax payment provision in the 2016 Agreement and whether there is some off-the-book arrangement between the company and the Government of Guyana.

Conclusion

The stark absurdity speaks for itself: The Bahamas, a country of sand and sea, will soon collect more tax from Guyana’s oil wealth than Guyana itself. While The Bahamas boldly asserts its rights under the OECD framework, Guyana’s government remains locked in what can only be described as an unholy alliance with ExxonMobil – providing tax receipts for unpaid taxes, refusing to renegotiate terms, and refusing to sign on to an international tax framework thereby surrendering billions in revenue. To describe this as fiscal negligence is too kind. It constitutes a deliberate betrayal of national interests that transforms Guyana’s oil blessing into a case study of corporate colonialism in the 21st century.