The Coalition Government has been accused of ‘selling dreams’ to Guyanese with regards to the benefits which are expected to come from the Oil and Gas Sector.
During a press conference on Thursday, Opposition Leader Dr Bharrat Jagdeo maintained his view that the Government is making excessive efforts in overselling the oil sector to citizens with the intention of painting false images of the benefits, in their minds.
As such, Jagdeo went on at length to warn the country against falling prey to the weightless promises, and called on the Government to provide facts.
“I suspect the reason why they are doing this…is because they have one thing to sell, remaining in Guyana- the hope of a better future with oil money because that’s what they’re telling their supporters. So magically, in 2020 our lives would be transformed. We’ll all be wealthy,” he remarked.
The Opposition Leader was also critical of recent statements made by Business Minister Dominic Gaskin, who defended the contract signed between US based oil giant, ExxonMobil and Government.
Jagdeo said Minister Gaskin’s statement only confirmed that the Government is more concerned about how much money they could earn from this sector and nothing else.
“His statements confirm our view that this Government only looks at the Governmental sector. How much revenue it can collect. So what he did, he pointed out how much money we will collect from ExxonMobil versus what we are collecting from the Gold mining sector as revenue. He did not look at the impact of the Gold Mining sector on the lives of maybe 100,000 people,” he explained.
The Opposition Leader further went on to accuse the Government of “selling everything” without proper analysis, compared to the Oil Giant who has been extremely careful in the manner in which they provide information to the general public.
“So ExxonMobil puts in a caution statement on their own graph saying ExxonMobil will not be accountable for what is here. That it’s only for illustrative purposes. Yet our Government sells this as Gospel,” Jagdeo asserted. (Ramona Luthi)
