Kaieteur News – A 2022 Report by IHS Markit has flagged the Government’s control of state agencies, particularly those responsible for the management of the oil sector, as being a means of fast tracking and facilitating project approvals in the oil and gas sector.
The document titled ‘Guyana aims to strengthen institutions to avoid petro-state pitfalls’ noted that though the country’s upstream regulatory and management responsibilities are dispersed across different state entities, the current institutional arrangement places these entities under the full control of Guyana’s executive branch.
The President is tasked with appointing the leadership of the Ministry of Natural Resources as well as other agencies with jurisdiction over the oil and gas sector. “This situation appears to have resulted in decision making leeway that has generally facilitated project approvals thus far,” the Report states.
Over the past few months, members of civil society have been complaining about the ramping up of oil production activities off the country’s coasts by American energy giant, ExxonMobil. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the regulatory body that permits these projects has been the subject of criticism for waiving Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) for drilling projects, which environmentalists believe could negatively impact the marine environment.
So far, Exxon has received Environmental Permits for four production fields in the Stabroek Block including Liza One and Two, Payara and Yellowtail. Presently, the oil company is seeking permission for a fifth project, Uaru+. The government has said that oil and gas activities must be expedited as the World moves to lower its dependence on fossil fuels by 2030.
In the meantime, Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton believes that the strategy to ramp up oil production despite climate change warnings and the flagrant abuse of environmental standards by the major operator, ExxonMobil neatly aligns with the ‘greedy agenda’ of the government of the day. Back in June, he told this newspaper “I do not think an approach which says just take out the oil, get as much money as you can, can be the approach”. Norton explained that while he believes that developing countries must be given the space to exploit their resources and grow their economies, this must be done in a sustainable manner.
“I believe that developing countries must be given the environmental space…the developed world would have had space to use the environment and achieve their objectives. Now as developing countries, we need to develop as well so I believe there is some amount of environmental space that should be created, but I also believe that we have to focus on climate change and the environment generally and ensure whatever we do is sustainable,” he explained.
In this regard, the Opposition Leader said there must be a different approach – one in which guarantees safety of the environment and more importantly, benefits for the present and future generations. It was also reported that while the integrity of Guyana’s environmental regulator remains under question, the Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat has made it clear that the government had to take steps to make the granting of permits easier, to allow the free flow of business and revenue in the country.
Bharrat specifically pointed out that this was the case at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) as well as the regional authorities, such as City Hall. “We had to ensure that the permitting process was not as cumbersome or not as tedious as it used to be in the past without jeopardizing the integrity or without compromising anything to ensure we fast track the approval of development coming to our country,” the Minister said at a Local Content workshop in May.
Original link posted by Kaieteur News on December 28, 2022.
