Teixeira: Information OGGN seeks readily accessible

Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister Gail Teixeira has informed that information relating to tax returns from oil and gas operator ExxonMobil, could be accessed via the company’s filed statements at the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority.

Teixeira was today responding to a letter by advocacy group, Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN) which seemed to insinuate that access to information about the oil company’s tax payment was not forthcoming by the government and limited as a result of the law.

The minister highlighted; however, that the request for information under the Information Act was seemingly invoked by the group as a means to access tax information for ExxonMobil Guyana and its co-ventures.

Based on the Petroleum Agreement (2016) between the Government of Guyana and the Exxon Consortium, the state will pay income tax on behalf of the company, following which, the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) will issue a certificate to Exxon as verification of the obligation being met.

“It would be interesting to note that the information that the aforementioned group is seeking – is readily available and accessible within the public domain, vis-à-vis the oil companies’ financial statements, which can be obtained from the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority,” Teixeira said.

She explained that by law, companies operating in Guyana are required to file their annual tax returns with the Deeds and Commercial Registries.

Although third parties shall not have access to taxpayers’ data from the GRA in accordance with the law; insofar as the tax certificate is concerned issued by the GRA to the oil companies or any other company for that matter the tax information, notwithstanding, can be extracted from the companies’ financial statements.

“Commonsensically,” the minister continued, “this group (OGGN), which is made up of seasoned attorneys, accountants and economists, ought to know that they can independently ascertain the tax information that they seek from the financial statements, which can be obtained from the Deeds and Commercial Registries as previously mentioned. Furthermore, their attention is drawn to Section 15 of the Access to Information Act,” she said.

This section of the law specifies what information shall not be applied for under the Information Act, including documents with information that is open to public access or an official website.

It also speaks to documents which contain information available for purchase by the public and documents available for public inspection in a registry maintained by the Registrar General, National Archives, Parliament or other public authority.

Teixeira reminded that Guyana’s Access to Information Act was modelled on and adopted wholesale the above-mentioned section and others of its Canadian counterpart before a Parliamentary Special Select Committee and passage in the National Assembly.

She urged citizens to become acquainted with the avenues where they could access the information they desire.