Guyana is in the process of recruiting an Independent Administrator to prepare the country’s second report, which will be submitted to the international secretariat of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
This is according to National Coordinator of EITI Guyana, Dr. Rudy Jadoopat, who reminded that the country’s first report was submitted to the International Secretariat on April 25, 2019.
“We are in the process of hiring the Independent Administrator. The expressions of interest were closed on the 10th of September, ” he commented.
The Independent Administrator is an organization, typically an auditing firm, appointed by the multi-stakeholder group to produce the EITI report.
Dr. Jadoopat noted that this is being facilitated through the National Tendering process and according to the tender issued, the Independent Administrator would be required to prepare a gap analysis, review all relevant legislation for conformance to EITI standards and make recommendations for any possible changes, as well as identify actions to be taken to address the recommendations from the first EITI Report for the fiscal year 2017.
The final appointment of the administrator is being spearheaded by the Department of Energy, since funding has already been approved by the World Bank to facilitate this.
In the meantime, he said, “The National Procurement and Tender Administration has established an evaluation committee that will select and scrutinize the number of expressions of interest, which were submitted.”
The committee, he underscored, will then request proposals from these persons and out of the proposals submitted, the best will be selected by the Department of Energy.
“The multi-stakeholder group is hoping that the Independent Administrator could be in place as soon as possible, because it wants the report to be ready by March 31, 2020,” he pointed out.
Representatives of the EITI oversight Board for the EITI implementation will be in Guyana in April 2020 to assess the country’s rate of implementation and Dr. Jadoopat is hoping that the country’s second report will be ready in time for the visit.
Referring to the first report submitted to the international body, he said the guidelines of accountability are very strict.
“Requirement five of the EITI International guidelines speak about revenue allocation so whether you are in Black Bush, Mabaruma or Linden you would want more roads, schools, facilities and better medical facilities and so on, so that is where the Government will look to spend the monies on from the revenues coming in,” he explained.
In April 2019, the World Bank approved a US$20 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA) to strengthen institutions, laws and regulations to promote good governance and a prudent management of Guyana’s emerging oil and gas sector.
