Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): With the House of Representatives' approval of the draft budget law for the next two years, and citizens not experiencing any real livelihood improvements, the authorities in Bahrain returned to their well-known game, by which they sell an illusion, as they made promises of new explorations in the oil and gas sectors. The government tells MPs: No and yes at the same time.

Bahrain's oil ministry said a couple of days ago that it was difficult to include new explorations in this year's budget. Meanwhile, the ministry referred in its reports to the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the Shura Council that "the results of the explorations are promising, but their impact on the revenues of the state budget can only be seen by the end of 2024, or even at a later time"

There is nothing specific in the Ministry of Oil's words; it says there are promising explorations, but they cannot be included in this year's budget, and perhaps by the end of next year 2024 or even later. It is a clear manipulation of speech, as if it were a statement issued by an embezzler and not by a government agency that is supposed to issue clear responses.

Here, we should recall the King's speech during the opening of the first session of the parliament, where he announced to the people good news coming from the natural gas reservoirs, whose discoveries his son Nasser had declared. Now, at the moment of truth, we found no new revenues, no certain discoveries, just empty promises.

This is how the king and his sons literally achieved what they wanted from this parliament. They presented to the MPs a flimsy government program that was passed unanimously, then a dry austere budget that was also passed. Now, they want the people to continue to be distracted by the parliament game and the shouts and quarrels of its members.

This trick began almost five years ago, back in 2018, when the king announced the good news at the opening session of the 2018 parliament with regards to shale oil, and now the years have passed and everyone knows that the oil minister was dismissed from service after it was proven that the tens of millions spent by the state on exploration had gone to waste and were stolen.

After the lie of shale oil and its omens, good news came in 2022 about the discovery of natural gas reservoirs without revealing any specific date which one can follow to determine the truth.

It is worth noting that in July 2022, Bahrain indirectly announced the failure of the "shale oil" project, which it described at the time as the greatest oil discovery in the history of Bahrain. The failure was announced by the CEO of the Bahrain Oil and Gas Holding Company (Nogaholding), Mark Thomas, who said the freezing of exploration efforts was due to the project's "high cost". This was preceded by the dismissal of the Field Marshal's son, Oil Minister Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, from his post after suspicions of financial corruption worth tens of millions, and a disastrous failure that the country suffered.

Arabic Version