The President erred

Dec 14, 2017 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
In the news article “President says he took decision on placing US$18m at BoG” (SN Online, 13th December 2017) President David Granger has taken full responsibility for the US$18M ExxonMobil signing bonus not being placed in the Consolidated Fund, claiming that the money was escrow for National Security Emergency reasons.
This is admirable of President David Granger, but the money was not escrow at all. It was to be invested, which means the account was basically an SWF (Sovereign Wealth Fund).
An escrow account tends to involve an impartial third party where the money is held in trust. The Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Guyana are two Government Agencies. So, there is no impartial third party to the transaction.
What President David Granger is effectively saying would be the same as me saying that I have savings for a holiday trip to Guyana, so the money is escrow. No it is not. It would only be escrow if the APNU+AFC Government of President David Granger could not access the money for any other reasons than legal fees in an account held by an impartial third party.
Nowhere in the letter to the Bank of Guyana did it mention escrow or legal fees. It does mention investing in secured interest bearing securities. The account was an SWF.
Sean Ori

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