Guyana has no need for the World Bank

Apr 23, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The World Bank-funded Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project has hit a serious roadblock. Allegations have been made about possible conflicts of interest in some of the main sub-components of the project.
An international non-governmental organization and an international lawyer have written to the World Bank. They have expressed concerns about the possible conflicts of interest.
The World Bank is expected to launch an investigation, in keeping with their operating procedures. There is no way that the World Bank will sweep this matter under the carpet. There will be an investigation, and action will be taken which can affect the future of this project.
The project document of the Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project list four components – updating the legal and regulatory framework; helping to establish the institutions to manage the sector (capacity-building); improving how Guyana manages its oil revenues and; supporting project management.
The project document identifies the Department of Energy as the key implementation agency. It is the agency that will be expected to ensure that the objectives of the programme are achieved.
The programme is off to a bad start. Already problems seem to have arisen with respect to sub-components of the component relating to the updating of the legal and regulatory framework. That sub-component includes developing local content legislation which has already been the subject to controversy.
Guyana has had these types of projects over the past thirty years. They are essentially capacity-building and institutional-building projects. These projects have an extended implementation period, and by the time they are completed, there is usually a need for a successor programme. This is how the international financial institutions are able to perpetuate themselves – by constantly finding a need to lend to poor countries.
More than half of the sums lent will go back into the hands of consultants hired by the lending agency. These consultants will come, prepare a report, and collect their consultant’s fees. The report will contain recommendations to be implemented. One report will usually require another report which will drag out the project.
Capacity-building and institutional-building programmes perpetuate a consultant mentality. Once you can write a report, you can label yourself a consultant.
Already, a Project Implementation Unit is said to have been established within the Department of Energy to undertake the implementation of the Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project.
There are dozens of persons working within the government receiving consultant-level salaries, but not producing consultant-quality work. There are quite a few of them working in the environmental sector. Yet, Guyana had to outsource its Green State Development Strategy.
To think that the public bureaucracy, top-heavy with persons earning consultant-level salaries, could have not produced this document is incomprehensible. But it is part of the consultant mentality which we have developed since the days of the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), in which we constantly have to seek loans from international agencies to recruit consultants who come and write their reports, all of which should have been able to have been done within the public bureaucracy.
Guyana had the benefit of a consultant from Trinidad and Tobago, Anthony Paul, who had designed two drafts of a local content policy for the oil and gas sector. Yet, a new consultant was brought in under the World Bank Project to do the same work. Many of the recommendations of Paul were set aside.
The third draft local content policy which was developed has since come in for scathing criticisms. The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry has raised concerns over the lack of penalties for those operators who do not meet their commitments. This is tantamount to giving the operators a free-pass.
The Chamber was also peeved by the draft provisions which would have allowed the subject Minister to grant approvals automatically, if reviews of applications are not completed in the requisite timeframe.
Paul had previously recommended that foreign suppliers have local partners and that provision be made for a transfer of skills. It is doubtful whether this would have been incorporated into the final policy which was produced.
If the World Bank establishes that there were conflicts of interest involved in some of the consultancies granted under the Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project, then the entire project should be scrapped.
This would be a blessing in disguise. It would give Guyana a fresh opportunity to revisit some of the recommendations of Paul, which were not incorporated into the final Local Content Policy.
This can be done without the World Bank help. Guyana has no need for the World Bank. They are primarily there to ensure that we do not have laws and policies which threaten the neo-liberal order…at our expense.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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