Since oil exports began in Guyana in January 2020, the government has exported approximately 5 million barrels of oil – 4 last year and its first cargo for 2021 just two weeks ago – representing the country’s share of oil from the Liza Phase 1 Development.
“So, we have 206.7 million US dollars in our Natural Resource Fund, untouched. We haven’t spent a dollar to date and a lot of people may ask why, why are we keeping it?” Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat commented on an interview aired on Saturday.
Former President of Guyana, David Granger, signed the Natural Resources Fund into law on January 23, 2019, around one month after his APNU+AFC coalition would have fallen in a vote of no confidence in Guyana’s National Assembly.
“The no confidence motion was in December 2018. So, we were not attending Parliament because we believed, and based on our constitution, that the government was illegal at that point in time because our constitution clearly states that if you have been defeated in a no confidence motion you must hold elections within 90 days,” he said.
Mr. Bharrat further explained that the NRF was viewed by his PPP/C party, then in opposition, as heavily flawed with too much power vested in the Minister of Finance, pointing out that there are a number of areas which needed to be strengthened so that there can be more accountability and transparency.
“The people of Guyana must know when the money is being used, they must know how much is going into the budget every single year, they must know what it is being spent on,” he said. “So, we want better accountability and transparency, basically. So, that is why we decided we are not going to use it because if we start using it, we will be using it with the same old model that we don’t agree with.”
President Irfaan Ali said just last week that his government is moving to introduce legislation that would severely punish the non-disclosure of proceeds from the oil and gas sector.
“To accomplish this, legislation will be introduced during this session of the National Assembly, making the Finance Minister and the Finance Secretary responsible for publishing details of all revenue and expenditure in the Official Gazette, allowing the people to track all transactions,” the President said.
Guyana began producing oil at Liza Phase 1 in December 2019 and has so far approved two more projects – Liza Phase 2 and Payara – which are set to come on stream in 2022 and 2024, respectively. It is expected that by the end of the decade the country will be producing over 1 million barrels of oil per day from multiple offshore developments.
