Changes to the NRF Act

Sep 29, 2024 Editorial

Editorial…

Kaieteur News – The PPP/C Government withdraws money from the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) and deposits those funds in the Consolidated Fund. The total moved for the period 2022 to 2024 is approximately US$2.6B. Guyanese know that much. After that, there is a blanket of darkness, under which citizens live regarding how those billions have been used. By no stretch of reasoning could such ever be about what is transparent. Or provides anywhere close to the accountability that Guyanese need to know about how their precious oil money was/is spent.

The government has said and insists that the oil billions withdrawn are for “national development priorities.” As spending licenses go, that could range far and wide and cover almost anything. Among those, there could be the funding of any pipedream that comes out of the heads of any of the policymakers in the government. Any statement, or posture, that emphasizes “national development priorities”, it must be acknowledged has the right kind of ring to it. By the same standard, there also can be no denying, however, that “national development priorities” may conceal a considerable amount of corruption with the people’s oil money, gloss over a culture that reeks of political shenanigans and skullduggeries. Guyanese have been stuck in the role of bystanders before when there was no oil money, and shenanigans and skullduggeries stood at runaway levels in one government after another. None can be overlooked nor spared, with the old PPP and new PPP/C, and the PNC of before and the APNU+AFC Coalition all well represented when the tricks were being developed with the people’s money. Now that there are billions of American dollars from oil coming into the Consolidated Fund, and then comingled with funds already sitting there or coming in later, it’s political maneuvering at its best. Unsurprisingly, oil billions disappear under the vast shroud of “national developments priorities”. This must be slammed for what it is. Nothing but a manipulation, the game that political con artists and tricksters love to design and then dump on a naïve, often indifferent, population. This needs to change, this all-purpose key that is nothing but a sleight of hand of exceptional cunning. A key in the hands of the PPP/C Government that empowers it to enrich itself and its cronies on Guyana’s oil money.

Opposition MP, Jermiane Figueira has called for the NRF law to be amended, so that there are specifics on how the billions of US dollars of Guyana’s oil money are spent. We have already editorialized more than once that: “national development priorities” stand as a passport for misusing the nation’s oil money, perpetuating the corruption culture of the PPP/C Government, and allowing government operators to laugh at Guyanese, while getting away with what they do. If the PPP/C Government is seriously committed to transparency and accountability, beyond words, then there should be no resistance. To resist, block, or dissemble relative to changes to the NRF law would signify that the present broad and vague label (national development priorities) serves some underhanded purpose. It could only be about what shafts Guyanese in some perverse manner. Transparency demands that the clever political concoction of “national development priorities” be on its way out. Accountability mandates that there is a level of specificity that informs Guyanese about what, where, when, and how much of their oil money is spent. Any political leadership team that is about clean governance would welcome changes to the NRF Act that are now long overdue. It would confirm their commitment to clean governance, even if such is limited to the disposition of Guyanese oil billions.

We do not think that it could be such an insurmountable task to separate any oil money withdrawn into some form of sub-account that receives and disburses oil money and oil money alone. We are certain that there are ministers, even if only one, and senior public servants who are skilled and innovative enough to deliver on such a simple arrangement. There would be two immediate benefits. First, Guyanese have the specifics (a bridge, a well, a building) for oil money expenditures. And the PPP/C Government can comfort itself that it puts to bed all doubts about how Guyana’s oil money is spent.

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