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Opposition to press Govt. for full disclosure on use of oil money
…as second withdrawal from NRF made with no word from Investment Committee
Kaieteur News – The Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act, hurriedly passed in the National Assembly by the government in December 2021 indicates that a Board of Directors must be established to prepare an investment mandate for the use of the money garnered from the oil and gas sector.
Preparation of the investment mandate, according to Section 6 of the Act, would be supported by the Investment Committee, another body required under the Law.
It must be noted that the legislation also outlines that there must be an internal audit of the accounts, at least annually. This is stated at Section 30 of the Law. It also says at Section 33 that the report shall be published on the Ministry of Finance website and made available to the public within three working days, after they are laid in the National Assembly.
Although the guidelines are clear regarding governance of the oil account, Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton on Tuesday said all of Guyana should be concerned that to date the public is yet to be privy to the details regarding the use of the funds garnered from the oil sector.
His comments came on the heels of a statement by the Ministry of Finance on Monday that the second withdrawal from the NRF for the year 2023 was made. According to the government, some US$200 million equivalent to G$41.6 billion was withdrawn bringing the total withdrawn so far for 2023 to US$400million or G$83.2 billion.
In February, Government made its first withdrawal for the year, amounting to US$200 million equivalent to G$41.6 billion.
In an invited comment, Norton told this newspaper, “We believe that there should be proper oversight and that our withdrawal and spending should be carefully monitored. We however acknowledge that the government has no interest in a transparent and accountable approach and so we are concerned.”
Since the first withdrawal from the account in May 2022, government has not indicated the specific projects that would be funded from the oil money. In fact, it had said that “national development priorities” such as the Gas-to-Energy project would be financed by the NRF; however, this project is now expected to be funded through a loan from the United States Export Import (EXIM) Bank, along with financing from oil major, ExxonMobil.
Norton explained that while he is prepared to challenge the government on accountability of the fund in Parliament, in a bid to highlight how the resources from the petroleum sector is being utilized, it does not mean the government will be open to revealing the information.
“The problem is when you question the government they are very arrogant and a lot of times they don’t give the information that should be given but we think we are obligated to ask the questions…we have had many cases where we asked questions and the government because they cannot afford to be transparent and accountable, they tend not to give the answers that are needed but we will pursue it,” he said.
Norton assured that he will be raising these questions in the National Assembly for the government to account for how each cent of the oil money is spent.
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