GRA must notify Gov’t of inability to conduct oil audits – Jagdeo

Aug 04, 2023 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

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Kaieteur News – Amid complaints from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) of its significant human resource shortage, specifically in the Petroleum Cost Recovery Unit, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has said the agency must first notify the government of its inability to execute its functions before actions can be taken.

Commissioner General of the tax agency, Godfrey Statia on Monday during a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting explained that the Unit is currently operating at half its capacity, with 31 on roll but 65 persons required for the job. As a result of the lack in human resource capability, Statia told the Committee that GRA has been conducting “selective audits” with the tax body concentrating its efforts on clawing back the largest return. In addition, he said, “we have to use external accountants to do the cost recovery audit and we work along with them and we utilise their analysis and their findings to guide us in our examination and review of the accounts that would have been submitted by the oil and gas players.”

During his press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo was asked by this newspaper to state government’s position on the GRA’s inability to conduct cost oil audits as a result of the agency losing its staff to the oil companies. To this end Jagdeo said that the mobility of the local labour force was not new and it should in fact be celebrated. He explained, “Yes, it’s always a concern but not just there (GRA), from the government agencies we are losing staff to the private sector- to Exxon- but we are losing staff to other private sector and some of the private sector are losing staff to the government because sometimes our pay is more lucrative than the private sector too. “

The former President added, “People have labour mobility now where they have choices. You can’t hold people like in bondage, you have to keep training and that is why we have 17,000 people now on government online scholarship alone.”

Jagdeo said that the issue of labour mobility will continue and the government cannot restrict the right of citizens.  According to him, “This is something that should be celebrated too. There was a time when people felt they had no option but to stick with one job for life. People now find I can do better in another place then they move on.”

As Guyana continues with the rapid development of its oil and gas sector, the subject of the country’s skilled labour force shortage has been debated in the past, with President Irfaan Ali even indicating that the nation will soon be required to import such workers.

Jagdeo said yesterday that the administration has been very cautious in granting permits for the importation of skilled labourers. He said, “They have to demonstrate a need and they have to now show that the project would be adversely affected before we give the permission.”

When it comes to the specific shortage of employees at the GRA, Jagdeo said that the Commissioner General should formally share the issue with government so that measures can be taken.

“If the GRA comes to us and say we can’t get ‘X’ work done because we don’t have this ‘Y’ skilled person, then we will deal with that immediately, but we don’t wanna deal with it on a blanket basis. They have to demonstrate a need and a very specific need because the moment we do it on a blanket basis, you bring down 10 people here to work at GRA, five of our local guys would show up and say hold on a minute, we are qualified, we can do the job,” Jagdeo reasoned.

As such, he said, “if GRA, the Commissioner General goes to the Minister of Finance and say my work is being affected because I don’t have skilled Guyanese and I need three persons of a skilled nature…if we can’t find them here we would have to bring them in but it must be specific.”  On Monday, the GRA Commissioner General told the PAC that despite the higher salaries being paid to the trained auditors, the employees have been leaving the job to work for the oil companies offering bigger remuneration packages.

He explained, “We are working assiduously to get the full complement of staff. We have even pulled some staff from other Ministries, but as we know we have a paucity of skills in Guyana. We have even increased pay for persons in that capacity for them not to leave but what we have seen is that as we train staff we lose staff.”

Five persons trained within the past year alone have been stolen by the oil companies, according to him.  Presently, two audits of the Stabroek Block oil and gas activities are outstanding. The first audit was awarded since 2019 for a review of ExxonMobil’s US$1.6 billion expenses between 1999 and 2017. Meanwhile, another audit that was signed in 2022 for the oil company’s US$7.3 billion expenditure, racked up between 2018 and 2020 is yet to be finalised. Statia said he has been appealing to the employees’ patriotism, rather than force the workers to remain on the job, since he believes “you have to love your work and you have to love what you do”. Additionally, he said he believes that GRA employees are privy to the best working conditions and in some cases double salaries compared to the other public servants at the same level.

The revelations made by the tax boss as it regards the limited human resource in this critical agency would spark further concerns among Guyanese who have been calling on Government to implement a depletion policy for its newfound resources. This plan could possibly, among other things, address the prevailing challenges being faced by the Revenue Authority. In its bid to fast track the oil and gas sector however, Government last year launched its maiden bid round for 14 of its oil blocks. This will undoubtedly add to the already strained tax authority.

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• audits, GRA, Jagdeo, notify, oil

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