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GRA working on CCTV for oil vessel – will have permanent presence in the meantime
The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) intends to have closed circuit television (CCTV) systems transmitting a live feed at all times from the Liza Destiny Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel back to Georgetown. This is to ensure that the Authority gets a full view of everything happening on the ship.
Head of GRA’s Customs Petroleum Unit, Lancelot Wills (left) and GRA Commissioner-General, Godfrey Statia
Commissioner-General of the tax agency Godfrey Statia, and Head of the Customs Petroleum Unit, Lancelot Wills, discussed those plans during a press conference at the GRA’s Camp Street headquarters yesterday.
The Liza Destiny is currently producing oil in the Stabroek Block, pursuant to the Liza phase one project which came on stream last December.
For CCTV to be up and running, a fibre optic cable has to be laid.
As Wills said yesterday, “we are stymied by the lack of internet feed facilities from the Liza Destiny to shore.”
The agency has had to rely heavily on vessels which come to shore, for whatever reason, to report on what’s happening offshore, through various forms, according to the regulations in the Customs Act, Wills told reporters.
But the agency will have a CCTV feed as soon as it becomes practicable.
In the absence of that, the GRA will have a manned presence on the vessel at all times. Asked how soon that would happen, Statia said that they are currently working out the modalities of such an arrangement. The GRA has already given Exxon notice, and has informed of the GRA’s requirements. Statia said that there should be four people on the vessel on a continual basis.
“So they’re going to see what’s going on,” he said.
GRA would be sharing facilities with its sister agencies who also have regulatory authority in the sector, namely the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards, and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC). He explained that, when there is a lift, members of all five agencies must be present. But the GRA will be responsible for maintaining a presence on the Liza Destiny in the period before CCTV is up and running.
In November last, GRA advertised in Kaieteur News that the FPSO had been appointed a sufferance wharf and private warehouse, pursuant to the Customs Act issued under Section 2 and Part 4 of the Act.
A sufferance wharf is a place other than an approved place of loading and offloading by the Revenue Authority, where a senior customs officer may by discretion and under certain conditions, allow the loading and offloading of goods. That subjects the Liza Destiny vessel to all customs regulations which concern sufferance wharves. It is the appointment that gives GRA the authority to conduct its surveillance.
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