World Bank Project to enhance EPA capacity to monitor oil sector not scrapped – Minister Bharrat assures

Jul 25, 2022 News

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In arguments by Shadow Natural Resources Minister, David Patterson for his full liability oil spill coverage motion in Parliament last Thursday, he accused the government of tearing down two World Bank capacity building initiatives that contribute to the improved management and oversight of the budding oil and gas sector.

He highlighted that the government had failed to either utilize or fully implement measures under the World Bank’s US$20M Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project, and measures in a separate US$1M grant, for updating the Environmental and Protection Agency’s (EPA) oil and gas capacity, under the same project.

Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat had told Kaieteur News two weeks ago that his ministry and the relevant teams are still working to “refine” the use of the World Bank US$20M line of credit. During Thursday’s sitting, contrary to Patterson’s claims, Minister Bharrat was happy to report that, “the programme at the EPA was never cancelled.”

He told the National Assembly that as a matter fact, the department grew from three members of staff to 13 presently, which are dedicated full time towards monitoring oil and gas activities. He said the EPA has strengthened its capacity through international consultants and satellite monitoring too.

Additionally, the programme recommended strengthening of the Guyana National Bureau Standards (GNBS) for real time monitoring and being present on the FPSOs which the minister said has been done in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism Industry and Commence. As such, he clarified that, “We do have persons physically present on both FPSOs doing real time monitoring for us.”

It should be noted that neither the Natural Resources Minister nor his shadow, specified the name of the document, but it is understood that the particular EPA programme resulted from a US$1M grant from the World Bank. When Kaieteur News asked EPA Head, Khemraj Parsram about the said document and its implementation just over a week ago, he told the newspaper that he was unsure and could not say whether the document regarding the EPA was indeed with the agency. He told the newspaper that it was “not during my time” and that he was currently out of the country. Parsram had promised to make checks and provide the necessary update.

Former EPA head Dr. Vincent Adams had brought the existence of the document to the newspaper’s attention since he claimed to have noticed “a worrying trend” where government seemed to be deliberately not utilizing available resources to firmly activate protective mechanisms to secure the country’s oil and gas sector.

Dr. Adams said he personally sought the EPA grant which was facilitated through the Department of Energy, and a Brazilian expert won the job. He too claimed the programme was scrapped and that persons who were allowed and were in the process of attaining oil and gas education through the University of Guyana and abroad, were reportedly told by a top executive that, “the EPA is not a university.”

Dr. Adams enlightened that at the time of his tenure, he was the only petroleum engineer in the country and that he understood the magnitude of work and capacity building that was required and thus sought to provide the same level of management skills available in the United States. He said he wanted to make the EPA into a model agency and “set the tone” for the other oil related state agencies. The particular training, he said would have seen the EPA having skills in oil resource estimates and other such areas.

The former EPA Head shared too that he would have assisted government in determining their own oil resource rather than waiting on the data provided by the oil companies. The argument too was that as Guyana auctions oil blocks, it could use its own skills to determine its assets and make decisions on its own information.

In his speech, Patterson had reminded that the country was downgraded by the World Bank for not using the US$20M loan. He claimed that the PPP dumped the plan conceived by the coalition and funded by the World Bank for the EPA to add a new petroleum unit with 34 specialists which included for 24/7 vessel monitoring.

He said, “The World Bank provided the US $1 million grant for this initiative, it went out to tender, hired an expert who came in and worked with the EPA and DOE to prepare and presented a fully comprehensive plan including the organization chart, position, descriptions, qualifications for each position including highly specialized and experienced petroleum, geological and environmental engineers.” Patterson said the plan was completed in 2019 and recruitment was in progress until the Covid-19 pandemic came and put things on hold. “The PPPC has however, scrapped the programme all together and is yet to propose an alternative,” the former minister alleged.

“The bottom-line is that unlike the Coalition which had institutions in place, the PPPC doesn’t care one iota about preparing and developing our oversight staff to help mitigate incidents such as a spill; but at the same time, it is also neglectful and doesn’t care about ensuring the provision of liability coverage to clean up after a spill. The coalition had both safeguards in place, only to be callously torn down by the PPPC.”

Kaieteur News was nonetheless informed that the World Bank US$1M grant programme under the Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project was conducted by Mr. Carlos de Regules and is entitled Institutional Assessment and Action Plan for the Oil and Gas Sector for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Guyana. It is dated October 25, 2019.

 

 

 

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