US$18M signing bonus transferred to Consolidated Fund

May 31, 2019 News

By Kiana Wilburg

The Government of Guyana has finally transferred the US$18M signing bonus it had received from ExxonMobil to the Consolidated Fund along with an extra US$480,000.

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan

The money was initially being kept in an account at Central Bank but was closed since January 2019.
Finance Minister, Winston Jordan confirmed the close of the account yesterday afternoon. The economist said that this is without prejudice to the pending High Court ruling on whether keeping the signing bonus outside of the Consolidated Fund is lawful.
Documents seen by Kaieteur News last night reveal that when the government received the bonus from Exxon, it was placed into an account at Central Bank which subsequently opened a special account to manage proceeds from investments.
In November 2016, US$15.8M was transferred to the investment account and expended to purchase overseas bonds. The balance of US$2.176M stayed in a cash account.
This newspaper understands that the Government earned an interest of US$498,775 from its investments during the period November 2016 to December 2018. The interest on the cash account totaled US$2,889.
On December 28, 2018, this newspaper understands that Bank of Guyana received instructions from the Finance Ministry to transfer US$3.78M from the cash account to the Consolidated Fund. This left the cash account with a balance of US$112,480.
Furthermore, in January last, the value of government’s investments appreciated to US$14.545 M from US$414.477M.
The Bank subsequently received instructions to transfer all moneys being held to the Consolidated Fund. The total transfer was US$18.480M.
The transfer occurred before the High Court ruled that the No-Confidence Motion was validly passed.
GOVT. VS CRITICS
Several anticorruption advocates such as Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram and Transparency International Guyana Inc. have been extremely critical of the government for keeping the money out of the Consolidated Fund and in a special account at Central Bank.
But Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, had insisted that the decision taken by Government to use a special account is one that was above board and is representative of its commitment to transparency and accountability.
Jordan had told Kaieteur News that the bonus is for a specific purpose; to help in the matter of protecting Guyana’s territorial integrity.
The Finance Minister had emphasized, too, that from the time the money was received it was placed into the system immediately and was always managed by Bank of Guyana.

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