Budget 2022 Local Content measures ‘barely a dent’—Opposition

Jan 30, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – Minister with responsibility for Finance in the Office of the President, Dr. Ashni Singh, this past week announced a range of measures aimed at improving business competitiveness, promoting local content, and job creation in the still nascent Oil and Gas sector.

Opposition Spokesperson on Finance, Juretha Fernandes

The measures announced however, will not provide any meaningful support to Guyanese businesses looking to compete with their international counterparts in the market—those that already enjoy a considerable amount of concessions, tax breaks and otherwise.
Opposition Spokesperson on Finance, Juretha Fernandes, in an invited comment this past week, was asked to respond to the measures as announced by Dr. Singh to which she responded, by pointing out that leading up to Dr. Singh’s presentation, “I had spoken about equity versus equality.”
To this end, she noted that with regard the measures announced, “…although he is doing something, it doesn’t even create a dent in bringing the local persons equitably on that playing field.”
Dr. Singh on Wednesday last during his Budget presentation for 2022 drew reference to the matter of local content and maximising domestic participation in the oil and gas sector which led to the Local Content Act.
He told members of the Assembly that in considering that piece of legislation, “one of the recurring issues that arose was the question of ensuring that Guyanese businesses are not in a disadvantageous position relative to their international counterparts in competing for contracts in the oil and gas sector.”
He noted that “this could arise, for example, where the sector is procuring a service and the international companies tendering to supply that service enjoy a particular tax treatment on the importation of their capital equipment to provide that service that Guyanese companies might not enjoy.”
To this end, he announced that in the interest of ensuring that Guyanese businesses can compete successfully under the new local content framework, Government will take steps wherever practicable to minimise disparities arising from the tax system that will disadvantage Guyanese businesses against their international counterparts.
This, he said, will help improve the competitiveness of Guyanese companies, help secure business opportunities for them, and thereby create jobs for Guyanese nationals.
Recognising the mass movement of goods and intensive logistics operations which are all critical to the oil and gas sector as well as the ongoing construction boom, he observed the transportation fleet has become an essential part of business capital stock.
In this regard, Dr. Singh said “we would like to enable Guyanese businesses to be able to renew and expand their transport fleets and, additionally, to do so by acquiring, newer, safer, and more efficient vehicles.
To this end, Dr. Singh said government would be implementing a range of measures including the removal of a range of taxes from various categories of industrial type vehicles such as heavy duty trucks and haulers, oil spill equipment and heavy lifting crane, among other items.
The measures, he said, are aimed at “ensuring that as many Guyanese businesses as possible can equip themselves accordingly.”
This is in order to be able to compete with their international counterparts more effectively, according to Dr. Singh.

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