Latest update January 1st, 2025 1:00 AM
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PPP yet to honour promise to release list of beneficial owners of oil blocks
One year later…
Kaieteur News – It has been over one year since the PPP/C Government has failed to honour its promise to release the beneficial owners of the oil blocks offshore which include but are not limited to the Kaieteur, Canje, Orinduik, Kanuku, Demerara, Corentyne, and Berbice concessions.
Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo
The issue was first raised in November 2020 by the Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who holds an oversight responsibility for the oil and gas industry. Back then, he said that the government would seek to determine the beneficial owners of Guyana’s resources, with first priority being given to the owners of the nation’s oil blocks.
Dr. Jagdeo had said that the government intends to have a greater understanding of the ownership structure of the companies with the said licenses while adding that this is important for transparency and taxation purposes.
Jagdeo said too that while a number of the companies which are operating Guyana’s oil blocks are registered in tax havens, including Barbados and the Cayman Islands, the government will ensure it goes after their information to ensure they pay their fair share of taxes.
The Vice President had also given a commitment to ensure that this was completed before the end of 2020. That was the same deadline given to Guyana and other members of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to have such information made public.
The international body, EITI, had said it decided to crack down on this global problem since hidden identities in the extractive sectors only help to feed corruption and tax evasion. It also added that people who live in resource-rich countries are at particular risk of losing out when facing this problem as extractive assets are too often misallocated for corrupt reasons.
The EITI further noted that its standard requires public officials, also known as Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), to be transparent about their ownership in oil, gas and mining companies.
The international watchdog said that this information, once provided by its members, will be publicly available and will be published in EITI Reports and/or public registries.
Once published, EITI said, law enforcers, civil society and others have a responsibility to scrutinize the information, and take action to hold to account those who misuse anonymous companies. It should be noted that countries which fail to honour the requirements of the international body could face expulsion.
Last year June, the Ministry of Natural Resources had indicated that it had not forgotten the issue as it noted its intention to start a beneficial ownership register. It also issued a call for consultants to assist in this regard.
Unfortunately, several calls to the Vice President and Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, since Monday to yesterday for an update on this matter proved futile.
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