Guyana’s attorney general defends government’s support for oil development

Guyanese Attorney General Anil Nandall has spoken strongly in favour of the government’s economic agenda in response to criticism from several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have raised objections to Georgetown’s promotion of upstream oil development.

Nandall mounted a defence of the Guyanese government’s stance after several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) signed a statement accusing Georgetown of lacking accountability in the oil sector and pushing to develop hydrocarbon resources too quickly. In an interview with OilNOW.gy last week, he responded to what the NGOs have described as the “stripping” of the Public Oversight & Accountability Committee (POAC) from the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act, the decrease in the influence of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the government’s actions and the scheduled appointment of a high-ranking party member of the current government to head the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GYEITI).

More specifically, Nandall stated that the Guyanese government remained fully supportive of oil and gas exploration and production activities as a key source of revenue capable of raising the national standard of living for Guyanese citizens. He also mentioned that the government remained fully committed to its climate goals, explaining that it continued to pursue its Low Carbon Development Strategy, which is aimed at facilitating environmental protection.

The attorney general acknowledged the important role that civil society organisations play in Guyana. However, he also called into question the motives of those groups that had signed the statement calling for the government to exercise greater accountability in the extractive sector.

“So I want to know, as a Guyanese – forget that I’m a minister or a government person – who are these people? Whose interests are they representing? Who is funding them? I believe that there is some organisation somewhere or organisations somewhere that has an agenda that is unknown to me, who are behind these different groupings of people,” he commented.

Additionally, he pointed out that such organisations were expected to be critical of authority, owing to the stances that they are expected to take as part of their manifestos.