Govt. will heed TT Expert’s advice to measure local content by value not volume- VP Jagdeo

Apr 19, 2021 News

Kaieteur News-After noting the advice of Trinidadian Energy Strategist, Anthony Paul, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo is now a firm believer that Guyana should measure local content by value and not by volume.

TT Energy Expert, Anthony Paul

The former Head of State made this disclosure during one of his recent online interviews. During the said engagement, Dr. Jagdeo demonstrated his understanding of Paul’s sage words as he said that an oil company for example, can say it hired 20 Guyanese to provide food supplies but omit the truth about the value of the contractors going to those firms.

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo

The official said, “…when you check the 20, they’re only supplying two baskets of bora or mangoes, and the bulk of it is coming from one big supplier from abroad. So, if you measure by volume, it would say 20 Guyanese versus one foreigner supplying food. But when you look by value, you’d see that they are earning a pittance.”
Mr. Paul, a local content expert who had served on Government’s local content advisory panel last year, had told this newspaper during several exclusive interviews that one must think of local content as something that can be measured. The Local Content Expert had said, “…If we can measure it, then we know how well we are doing. People often describe local content as the number of people employed; the number of companies engaged. But remember, every activity has to be budgeted for. As such, I like to think of local content in a monetary sense. I ask, ‘what is the value of inputs for the activities being carried out in the sector?”
Based on Paul’s advice, Dr. Jagdeo said the Government will enforce the principle of measuring what oil companies are doing, and “not to leave it just at their word.”

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