Latest update April 9th, 2025 12:59 AM
Natural Resource Fund… PSC to name oversight committee member within a month
Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Gerry Gouveia has informed Kaieteur News that the PSC is closing in on a nominee for an oversight committee of Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund.
Private Sector Commission Chairman, Gerry Gouveia
Finance Minister Winston Jordan told Reuters that the Opposition and the Private Sector Commission (PSC) have not yet named their nominees to the oversight committees. Hence, the committees have not been formed.
Jordan had told Kaieteur News last year that the fact that those entities have not named their nominees would hamper the operationalisation of the fund.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Gouveia said that the PSC understands the importance of having the Natural Resource Fund monitored properly. For that reason, the PSC has narrowed down its search.
He had told Kaieteur News previously that the Commission was having difficulty finding a suitable nominee, and that it would be looking to the diaspora.
Gouveia said yesterday that the PSC already has someone in mind, and that that decision is expected to be sorted out within a month.
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, on the other hand, has expressed his opposition to the Natural Resource Fund Act as it is currently structured. He has argued on several occasions that the Act allows too much power to be focused in the Minister’s hands.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is dead set on replacing the Natural Resource Fund Act if it wins the general election of March 2, 2020.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil has already started production on the Stabroek Block, and Guyana is set to collect its share soon. Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited (SWSTL), the Royal Dutch Shell’s Barbados affiliate, will be selling Guyana’s first three crude cargos.
The Central Bank of Guyana is responsible for the operational management of the Fund, but the first set of oil revenues could be placed into the account with no oversight committees.
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