OPINION: Where is Exxon’s Mr. Routledge, and is 20% an emerging pattern?

Last Updated on Sunday, 1 October 2023, 8:30 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

I find it most surprising that Exxon’s Guyana Country Head, Mr. Alistair Routledge, has not rushed out of the blocks and come out with upraised fist, and furious face.  It would be the best denial and denunciation of what Chartered Accountant, Mr. Christopher Ram, placed in the middle of the table and which painted the ‘f’ word all over Exxon’s speckled face.   It was not that wildly popular four letter ‘f’ word, but the five letter one that spells alleged FRAUD.  To Mr. Routledge, I say this: in corporate terms, fraud is obscener than the worst use that could be put to the four letter one.  It is about stains that point to swindles that savage Guyanese.

Mr. Routledge was the one who made a huge production of “good faith” in the matter of another swirling instance of perhaps underhanded corporate maneuvers that took a little while to surface.  For the enlightenment of all, it is this slippery matter involving US$214 million in audit findings.  In the same context, Mr. Routledge was holy and with all the sanctimony that he could muster: Our experience is that typically, very few, if any, costs are ultimately rejected, reflecting the integrity and quality of our accounting activities.”  The bolded words are my emphasis highlighted.

It would be helpful if Exxon’s Mr. Routledge could assist Guyanese by informing them of what occurred with his highly ethical company claiming US$460 million for precontract costs for the period 1999-2015, when its own books reflect US$368 million.  This can never have any relationship with “integrity and quality” in any system, accounting or otherwise, Mr. Routledge.  As said earlier, on something of this magnitude that challenges the cleanliness of Exxon’s corporate character, that degrades the purity of the Exxon-Guyana partnership, I expected Mr. Routledge to be up in arms and firing with both cylinders.  If anybody spots Mr. Routledge, I would appreciate this message being passed on: all Guyana is waiting, the world is watching.  His taking a page out of the PPP Government’s book in the form of silence and absence will not do.

I am sorry, but I have to touch the sacred cow that is Exxon some more, for to do otherwise would be a great disservice to my fellow Guyanese, who long for somebody to stand for them.  Exxon is not untouchable from where I stand.  On the transaction between Exxon and Shell involving a working arrangement for a parcel in the Stabroek Block, the same accounting system of “integrity and quality” is silent, lacking any entries that would/should shed some clarity (ethical light) on the value of that transaction, and how Guyana was shortchanged then, and the reason(s) for such.  When expenses are incurred in the Stabroek Block, Guyana has a significant share in those.  By the same token, I would think that when there is revenue, then Guyana should participate in that also.  The Exxon-Shell deal was a revenue moment, and Guyana should have had a piece of it.  Further to the Exxon-Shell scenario, what I read makes the situation even more glaring: it was not one transaction, but two.

Now, I put this out for the archives.  Once I may understand, even agree that it was accidental, the result of either system or human failure.  When it is twice, and the same accounting atmospherics prevailing, a pattern emerges.  On the issue of a pattern, Mr. Ram dug and discovered a US$92 million difference in what Exxon charged Guyana in the US$460 million precontract billing for 1999-2015 versus what is in the company’s own books.  It is a neat 20 percent overcharge.  In the matter of the US$1.6 billion audit of Exxon’s precontract costs from 1999-2017, the IHS Markit audit findings of US$214 million was the figure finally settled on by the British audit firm and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).  Of conspicuous note was that the GRA had a higher number for its own audit findings, but that was either overruled or negotiated downwards to US$214 million.

Though I/we do not know what the GRA’s audit findings number was, I ask thinking, honest and patriotic (honest and patriotic only) Guyanese, to weigh this bit of commonsense.  The US$214 million IHS Markit-GRA audit findings represented 13.375 percent of the US$1.6 billion that Exxon submitted for its expenses.  Now here is the first possible connection: could it be that the GRA’s higher audit findings in terms of dollars were somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 percent, give or take?  Now call what I present next whatever pleases.  But relative to Exxon’s expenses, is 20 percent emerging as part of a pattern?  A 20 percent corporate shakedown or surcharge?  A 20 percent tax or tribute or toll?  Perhaps, it may be better to describe this in a manner more familiar to Guyanese.  Is 20 percent added to its numbers for expenses a gratuity that Exxon claims for itself at Guyana’s expense?  It would be good to hear from Mr. Routledge.