Youth Movement protests President’s office, says Gov’t should cease sale of oil until after polls

Members of Youth Movement Guyana – a non-governmental group – on Monday held a peaceful picketing exercise outside the Ministry of the Presidency on Vlissengen Road, Georgetown.

The small group of persons – led by known opposition supporter, Robin Singh, is calling on the Government to withhold the sale of the first three million barrels of oil until after regional and national elections next year.

Singh, who says he is the Administrator of the organization, suggested that the Government should only sell one lift of crude before elections.

Singh said the group has been in operation five years now and monitors Government and politics to ensure there is good governance.

“We are here to protest the unusual and highly suspicious face to face meeting with persons to sell oil that we have not been pulled out of the ground yet,” Singh said.

Singh highlighted that there is no need to set a benchmark price for oil.

“…they don’t need to set a benchmark price for oil; there will be four or three shipments before us and those will be priced and those will be priced fairly according to the market because Exxon has to sell and report to its shareholders, they can’t lie about the price, they can’t rob us on the price,” Singh said.

Singh says it is in the people’s interest that the Government is transparent on the sale of oil.

As such, the group is proposing that ExxonMobil handle the sale of the oil and not the Government.

Singh explained that ExxonMobil has layers of transparency.

“You can organize a sale of oil on Whatsapp, but we are going to be charged may be US$3M a barrel for that, that is US$9M we are looking at losing, so every charge that they go per barrel is US$3M we losing, it is too much to just let it slide,” Singh said.

The group posited that they will continue to monitor the oil industry and will continue to fight for transparency.

“I am weary of this nonsense that is going on, it is our nation’s future you can’t just make deals because elections is ten weeks away. Hold your horses’ man,” Mr Singh said.