THE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS OF THE GUYANA ENERGY AGENCY

Sep 17, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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This column seeks to address a number of controversies that have emerged within the media, concerning the reporting requirements of the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA).
It specifically seeks to provide an opinion as to whether the annual report of the GEA is required to be laid before the National Assembly and if so, under what law is such a requirement made.  It also seeks to disabuse the reader of the notion that as a statutory body, the Guyana Energy Authority is not supposed to be guided by the Companies Act.
The Guyana Energy Agency is treated in the National Budget as a statutory body. This is important because the meaning of the statutory body under the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) is too general and ambiguous. However, because the government has chosen to treat the Guyana Energy Agency as a statutory body in the preparation of the country’s annual Budget, it has led to the belief that the GEA is thereby subject to any requirements that the FMAA may impose on it.
However, if the GEA is incorporated it becomes subject to the Companies Act and cannot be legally treated as a statutory body since the corporation has a different identity to that of a body merely created by statute but not incorporated.
Thus, if during the course of its existence the GEA became incorporated or if any incorporation continued under the Companies Act, it would mean that the GEA cannot be considered as a statutory body under the FMAA despite it being so treated in the national estimates. It is therefore for those concerned with the management of the GEA to disclose whether as a body corporate it is incorporated under the Companies Act or whether its incorporation was continued under the Companies Act.
This issue is important because if it is incorporated it would be subject to different reporting requirements than if it merely retained the status of a statutory body.
The fact, however, that the GEA may be for legal purposes, a statutory body or so treated in the National Budget does not automatically subject it to the reporting requirements set out under the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act.
Indeed, the FMAA at Section 78 allows for statutory bodies to be exempted from the reporting provisions set out under Section 80 of the FMAA providing that provision is made under the law establishing the statutory body for such reporting.
It therefore needs to be asked whether the Guyana Energy Agency Act which created the Guyana Energy Agency makes provision for reporting requirements. It does.
Section 30 of the Guyana Energy Authority Act provides that a report, (not an Annual Report) is to be submitted within six months of the end of each calendar year. This report is to be submitted to the subject Minister and is required to provide an account of transactions throughout the calendar year and in such detail as the subject Minister may direct. The GEA is also required to submit an audited financial statement. A copy of that report and audited financial statement are supposed to be laid before the National Assembly by the Minister but there is no specified time frame in which this is to take place.
It is therefore respectfully submitted that:
a)    Providing that the GEA was incorporated or its incorporation continued under the Companies Act, then that Act is relevant to the agency.
b)    Despite being treated under the Budget as a statutory agency, the GEA is by statute a body corporate.
c)     The FMAA requires that audited financial statements and annual reports of statutory bodies be submitted to the National Assembly within a specified time frame.
d)    However the same FMAA makes provision for such bodies to be exempted from these reporting requirements under the FMAA once provision is made for such reporting under the act creating the statutory body.
e)    The GEA Act makes provision for financial and other reporting, and as such is exempted from having to comply with the specified reporting requirements of the FMAA.
f)      Under its own statute, the GEA is required to submit to its subject Minister, audited financial statements and a report about the transactions it under took during the calendar year. The report to be submitted concerns its transactions and is not an annual report per se.
g)    It is for the Minister in turn to lay such reports before the National Assembly but unlike the FMAA, no time frame is set out under the GEA Act.
As suggested in a previous column published in this newspaper, there is however no harm in the authorities issuing annual reports for every public authority and statutory bodies, since this can enhance public accountability and transparency.  At the same time, we must avoid concocting controversies where none exist.

 

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