Response to Finance Minister on KN’s Natural Resource Fund Article

Jan 09, 2019 News

On January 5, last, Kaieteur News published the article, “Natural Resource Fund Bill Riddled with Loopholes for risky Investment.” (https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2019/01/05/natural-resource-fund-bill-riddled-with-loopholes-for-risky-investment/).
Prior to the article being carried, attempts were made to contact the Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, for his comment. Those calls to the Minister went unanswered. The Minister did not return them either.
On January 5, also, Kaieteur News spoke with the Minister about the said article. Not only did Minister Jordan acknowledge that he saw the attempts by this newspaper to contact him, but he noted that he was aware of the piece which entailed comments from the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) on the Green Paper for the Establishment of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill 2018. NRGI said that based on the Green Paper, Guyana’s NRF Law should have certain provisions to prevent risky investments.
The Finance Minister informed this newspaper that when NRGI’s representative, Andrew Bauer, was here to do a presentation at Moray House on the Green Paper, he told his officials that they should not turn up. He went as far as to say that, while he notes the criticisms of Bauer as carried in the January 5 article, “No Bill is perfect.”
Jordan said, too, that there is room for regulations and amendments if deemed necessary down the line. At no point did the Minister object to the article being “erroneous”. With his permission, an article was published on January 7, alluding to those very sentiments.
Minister Jordan on Monday however, sent a letter objecting to the January 5 piece. In his letter to KN, the Minister said that the Bill “clearly limits investments to certain assets.” This publication wishes to categorically state that its January 5 piece did acknowledge this.
Be that as it may, Bauer, was quoted as saying that the said Bill should explicitly state which assets the Fund may not (be used to) purchase. The Bill does not do this.
The Minister went on to state that Kaieteur News erroneously reported that the Bill does not ensure reporting on all assets financed by the Fund. He said, “In the annual report of the Fund, the Bill mandates that the report include the market value for each individual eligible bank deposit, eligible treasury bill, eligible sovereign bond, eligible corporate bond, eligible equity, eligible commodity and eligible derivative held by the Fund.”
This is what the January 5 article quoting Bauer specifically stated, “Specifically, Bauer had expressed the firm belief that the Government must be made via the law, to disclose all the assets that were financed by the NRF.”
Bauer further said, “One of the things I am hoping the Ministry of Finance does, is put into legislation that every single asset it invests in, be made public. Meaning, everything that the government owns, every share it buys into, must be disclosed.” Given the aforementioned, this publication stands by the contents of its January 5 article.

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