Jagdeo on The Tradewinds Brief

Jagdeo promises return of press conferences after five-month hiatus

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Tuesday confirmed that the government will resume his regular press conferences after a five-month hiatus, returning to a format that for years served as the country’s most consistent public-accountability venue with the executive branch. Kaieteur News reported the commitment on May 12. The Vice President did not set a specific resumption date but indicated the format would return soon.

The hiatus mattered because of what the press conferences had become. Through 2024 and most of 2025, the Vice President’s weekly engagements with the working press functioned as the single most reliable forum in which government officials had to answer follow-up questions in real time, on the record, on a wide range of policy files — from oil revenue management to housing allocation to internal PPP/C politics. The format’s suspension in late 2025 was not formally explained at the time, and the gap correlated with several controversies that the government has preferred to address through written statements rather than open press engagement.

Wales gas to power plant is free, Jagdeo says, denying ExxonMobil purchase deal

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Tuesday rejected reports that Guyana has agreed to purchase natural gas from ExxonMobil’s Stabroek Block to fuel the Wales Gas-to-Energy plant, telling reporters at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre that the gas going to the power plant is free and that the arrangement was settled in negotiations years ago.

The denial matters more than its tone suggests. Wales — anchored on a 300-megawatt plant designed to draw roughly 50 million cubic feet per day from the Liza field — has been pitched as the structural lever for cutting Guyana’s electricity costs and breaking the country’s exposure to imported fuel oil. How the feedstock is priced is the foundation of whether that promise holds. A purchase contract would mean ratepayers ultimately financing the gas; a free-gas arrangement keeps the cost on the operator side of the production-sharing agreement.

Jagdeo holds Public Day outreach as Wales gas-plant payment scrutiny intensifies

Tue, 12 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo hosted a major Public Day outreach on Monday as the government continued its face-to-face engagement programme with residents — even as fresh questions mounted over the troubled Wales Gas-to-Energy project, where Georgetown was forced to pay roughly US$82 million to the project contractor after losing an arbitration.

The outreach drew hundreds despite poor weather, with on-the-spot responses given on infrastructure, housing and land matters, according to the Guyana Chronicle’s coverage published May 11. Separately, Kaieteur News reported that Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton has now agreed to ring-fence upcoming ExxonMobil projects — a notable shift in the long-running fiscal-discipline debate around the country’s oil revenues.