The Guyana Government will be establishing a Department of Energy within the next few months. This announcement was made by the South American nation’s Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, on Tuesday evening.
Speaking on the matter shortly after the weekly Cabinet briefing, the Minister stated that the decision to establish the Department came after he broached a proposal to the country’s president David Granger. “I did propose to His Excellency, the President that we begin considering the establishment of a Department of Energy. This Department will be the only one which will be focused on the development of the petroleum sector,” Minister Trotman revealed.
He continued to explain that Cabinet deliberated on the matter on Tuesday, before determining the initial steps for the creation of the department, saying, “we held and had a very lively discussion on the proposal which I presented…and it has been determined and decided that we will have the Department of Energy established and this will be coming within the next few months.”
Minister Trotman, who currently has oversight of the petroleum sector explained that the new department will be housed at the Ministry of the Presidency. The quintet of Ministers previously selected to oversee the development of the sector comprise the task force which will be meeting and making proposals to Cabinet as to how the new agency will be comprised, staffed, and what its mandate will be, Trotman explained. “The president and Cabinet has mandated that I would head the task force which would comprise the quintet of ministers; that would be Ministers of Finance, State, Public Infrastructure, Business, and myself. We would include the other Ministers of Public Security, Public Communications and hopefully Ministers of Education and Social Protection,” the Natural Resources Minister divulged.
He also made public that the expectation is that the Ministry of Natural Resources, “will hand over responsibility of the function of Petroleum to this new department, and we will see a more direct and focused mandate from this Department of Energy.”
This announcement comes days after Minister of State Joseph Harmon said that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), which currently has the responsibility of petroleum, will no longer bear that mandate. This, he said, is to ensure the effective management of the embryonic industry given the enormity of the responsibilities that come with it.
