Govt. hosts a unique press conference for State Media, News Room
– dismisses questions on the oil industry
Yesterday, President Irfaan Ali during his address to the nation.
Kaieteur News – At their first press conference of the year, the Irfaan Ali administration banned most media houses from attending the same engagement. Instead, he conducted an exclusive engagement to state media and the private news agency, News Room.
In the consultative sent to the media about his address to the nation yesterday, the President’s Office did not specify what the issues covered in the President’s speech were, but only that it would be live-streamed .
What came as a surprise, however, was that shortly after the President’s address; the independent media discovered that Ali had set about holding a press conference, but only with the state media, namely the Guyana Chronicle and other media house, the Newsroom.
Banned media houses such as Prime News, News Source, Stabroek News and this publication took their dissatisfaction to a media group managed by former correspondent Edward Layne in a bid to seek an explanation for their exclusion . At the time, Layne could offer no justification, but noted that media houses could send their questions to the group and would link them to the President.
However, when it was Kaieteur News’ turn to send questions, which focused on Guyana’s oil and gas industry, Layne refused to associate the questions with the President, noting that press engagement focused solely on the Guyana-Venezuela debate also. like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to this notice, Kaieteur News was unaware that the questions focused solely on the above two topics.
Despite that, Kaieteur News’ environmental-related questions focused on recent news that ExxonMobil had increased torching at its operations Liza Destiny – Guyana’s first offshore US oil giant’s petroleum development project. The company’s blaze comes after its gas compressor malfunctioned for the second time in a year, and as of last 2020, the company is expected to release billions of cubic feet of toxic, natural gas into the atmosphere.