(Kaieteur News) – The financial, audit and regulatory weaknesses highlighted in this mini-series make for disturbing reading and raise serious concerns. Matters might have been very different had both the external auditors and the ministerial auditors taken a firmer stance on compliance with accounting standards, the Companies Act and the Petroleum Agreement. Yet these failures pale in comparison with the absence of adequate contract administration by successive administrations. As trustees of the nation’s resources, they have a duty to safeguard them for the benefit of both present and future generations – a responsibility that is consistently neglected.

While the Granger Administration has attracted most of the criticism for saddling Guyana with this deeply flawed contract, the record shows a chain of failures stretching from the 1999 Agreement signed under President Janet Jagan, through its 2016 revision, and into its ongoing administration. These are not isolated errors. They reflect a persistent pattern of weak oversight, lax enforcement, poor transparency, and an undue deference to foreign oil companies at the expense of the national interest. We now turn to the specifics.

First, the excessive acreage granted (Janet Jagan), the questionable acceptance of force majeure (Jagdeo) and the resulting licence renewal (Granger) show there is no single bad decision resulting in our current plight. On the other side of the coin is clear evidence that Exxon has been granted every concession it has sought, undermining the safeguards built into the petroleum legislation, all at the expense of the country.