With roughly three months left in 2022, Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund (NRF) account has already broken the US$1 billion mark. According to the Bank of Guyana (BoG), the balance of the account at the end of September 2022 stood at US$1,051,214,827.86 or GY$219,178,291,000.
Interest accumulated totalled GY$438,821,000.
Profit oil deposited into the fund for that month was GY$20,675,096,000. No royalties were received. There were also no withdrawals.
The purpose of Guyana’s NRF is to ensure there is prudent management of the nation’s oil earnings for the present and future benefit of the people by ensuring that volatility in natural resource revenues does not lead to volatile public spending.
The Fund is also intended to ensure Guyana’s natural resource wealth is used to finance national development priorities including any initiative aimed at realising an inclusive green economy.
A revised Natural Resource Fund Act was passed in the National Assembly and assented to by the president on December 30, 2021.
Prior to the legal update, the Fund accumulated US$607.6 million which was assigned to support Guyana’s 2022 budget.
The revised Act assigns the responsibility for the preparation of the investment mandate to the Board of Directors. To date, there has been no investment mandate for the Fund.
However, all necessary committees have been appointed.
The members of the NRF Board are Major General (ret’d) Joseph Singh (Chairman); Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues; former President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Professor Compton Bourne; Dunstan Barrow; and Ramesh Dookhoo of the Private Sector Commission (PSC).
