Energy Dept. now putting together audit unit for local content reports

Jul 30, 2019 News

The Energy Department is in the process of establishing a Local Content Compliance Unit which is expected to validate the information it receives from oil majors operating offshore Guyana as well as address potential issues or concerns Guyanese suppliers or contractors may have.
This was revealed yesterday at a press conference facilitated by Energy Department Head, Dr. Mark Bynoe. His comments were in response to questions posed by Kaieteur News on the issue of local content.
In his opening statements, Dr. Bynoe said that thus far, more than 1100 Guyanese are working with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) and its subcontractors.
Dr. Bynoe said that this is approximately 50 percent of the workforce in the industry. He added that EEPGL is working with the Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to implement two pilot programmes that would seek to build capacity within the technical institutions.
He also noted that since 2015, over $119M has been expended by EEPGL and its sub-contractors on Guyanese suppliers and service providers.
Kaieteur News challenged Dr. Bynoe to say if these were independently verified or if the data provided by Exxon are just being accepted as gospel. Dr. Bynoe noted, however, that the Unit is being established to address these concerns.
Dr. Bynoe said that granular reporting by the oil companies in their local content reports continues to be a work in progress.
In this regard, the Energy Department Head said, “We have seen an improvement, but this is a dynamic process. We are still to get more information that we asked the operator to provide to us and this will help us to analyze who is getting what, what is going where, and which regions are benefitting more than others…
“We want to ensure that there is a strategic approach that ensures all are benefitting from the resource.”
The official said that these reports would be released barring any legal impediments.

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