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Foreigners now seeking to become Guyanese to cheat Local Content requirements – Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday put foreign companies on notice that the Government of Guyana (GoG) will not allow the naturalisation of overseas employees seeking to fill high paying job vacancies in the oil and gas sector.
Jagdeo during his weekly press engagement was responding to a question from Kaieteur News when he revealed that “big companies” are now applying for their employees to become naturalised citizens in Guyana, claiming to have been in the country for five years. Subsequent to their naturalisation, foreigners would be able to enjoy benefits provided for Guyanese under the 2021 Local Content Act. The legislation seeks to ensure Guyanese gain employment in the sector. It also outlines a number of services that must be provided by Guyanese to the oil companies, as well as their sub-contractors.
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo
The Vice President said, “It’s our intention to close the loopholes that some foreign companies are utilizing, it’s our intention because some of them get high paying jobs so the management they have higher paying jobs for the foreigners but overtime they have to change the management so a lot of the big companies, and we will start exposing them, they are trying to get their foreign staff, claiming that they lived here for five years and to get them Guyanese nationality.”
Jagdeo said government is carefully monitoring that situation. He also alerted the companies that they would not succeed in any such effort. He made it clear, “We are watching that carefully so I hope if some of them applying for it, I see some of the big companies applying for that, they are not gonna succeed. They have to give our people more opportunities and better paying jobs too. Some of these companies will do everything.”
Jagdeo was keen to note that government will be moving to strengthen the legislation and expand opportunities available for Guyanese in the sector. The VP’s comments come on the heels of a recent commentary by Attorney-at-Law and Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram who argued that the rapid development of the petroleum sector was preventing Guyanese from enjoying the real benefits of Local Content.
“Part of our problem is that we have tried to move too fast. We have moved from zero to 100 in a couple years. We don’t have the capacity so we can’t have real local content.” Ram pointed out that the Local Content Act sets out 40 areas for Guyanese to benefit from. He said this was a mere fraction given that there are about 300 to 500 types of expenditure incurred by the oil companies and sub-contractors. He said, “Only for 40 (areas) and some of them they range from 100% like for cleaners which is no big deal, Guyanese are good cleaners apparently but we can’t do the higher things.”
With Guyanese being paid to do minor jobs, receiving meager salaries, the Lawyer noted that the respective percentages for the 40 areas should have been changed within a year. On the other hand, he said, “The schedule to the Local Content Act has remained unchanged. We have not taken account of experience and how it has worked compared with what we thought it should be.”
When asked to comment on this state of affairs, Jagdeo said the Local Content Law was delivering major benefits to Guyanese. In fact, he pointed out that by the end of 2024, some US$700M would be invested in Guyanese businesses. Jagdeo was keen to note that in the absence of this legislation, the country would have merely secured just about US$50M instead. To this end, he said, “So first of all we should hail this Act as the biggest impact. We don’t even talk much about our success but this Act in itself is a great success. This Act by the end of this year will drive US$700M of business to our local companies. That’s not a small sum of money…that is major, major change and we intend to create even more room for our people provided they develop the capacity.” Notably, he did not address the rapid pace at which the sector is being developed but noted that a revision of the Local Content Act is ongoing.
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo
- big companies, citizens, foreigners, Guyana, Guyanese, Jagdeo, Local Content, naturalised, naturalization, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo
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