Pres. Ali fumes over calls for more transparency in spending of oil money

Dec 19, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News- President Irfaan Ali, on Wednesday, sought to play down calls from the public for greater transparency in the spending of oil resources and instead wailed in on critics of his government saying that those who are raising questions have a convenience of conscience.

Speaking during an early-morning Facebook Live broadcast, President Ali said up front that he wanted to “address some characters in our society, who exercise what I would term egotistical arrogance.”

In recent weeks, scores of people have called on the government to list projects oil money is being used to fund but the administration has resisted this, with Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo saying that this will be a difficult undertaking.

Boasting that the current administration brought transparency to the Natural Resource Fund Act the President said, “The new Act of 2021 that we passed simplify a formula setting a ceiling of the transfer from the NRF not a secret account, but the Consolidated Fund. It establishes a simplified formula; it establishes a ceiling and it establishes that the money must be transferred to the Consolidated Fund. Further, it goes on to say, instead of the Act that they illegitimately passed, where none of us would have known what the revenues are, the new Act of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic government, ensured that all receipts be published in the official gazette.”

President Ali said that when his government took office in August 2020, they inherited a Natural Resource Fund Act (NRF Act) that was illegal as it was rushed through the Parliament by the previous administration after the no confidence motion was passed.  “…You would recall that on the 21st of December 2018, a no confidence motion was passed by the National Assembly. On the third of January 2019 after the no confidence motion was passed, the NRF Act was passed by the National Assembly after the no confidence motion with no input from the then opposition, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic,” he recalled.

Without providing specifics of how the oil money is being spent or addressing the questions raised, Ali said that transfers into the Consolidated Fund are included in the National Budget which is in turn spent on the country’s social sectors.  “After all of that, after the Parliamentary approval by everyone in Parliament, it still must get the scrutiny from the Auditor General, the expenditure, then of course, the examination from the Public Accounts Committee – none of this existed in the illegitimate Act,’’ he added.

Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Nigel Hughes during a recent press conference, had issued a scathing statement, in response to the explanation provided by Jagdeo, on government’s failure to account for the use of the country’s oil revenue. Jagdeo had said that itemising the expenditure from oil money would be difficult and went on to highlight the steps taken by government to ensure transparency in the use of the resources. He reasoned, “How do you balkanize revenue coming into the Budget? (It) becomes a very difficult thing to do. So, where the transparency is done, transparency is that every cent spent from oil money, from non-oil revenue and from borrowing, has to be appropriated by the National Assembly through a Budgetary Appropriation Process, whether it is the original Budget or through Supplementary Budgets which then form an appropriation act or a supplementary appropriation act, which itemizes all of the expenditure of the state and how much is going to be spent….”

For his part, Hughes quoted a letter by businessman, Dr. Terrence Campbell, published in the December 7 edition of the Kaieteur News highlighting the failure of the Investment Committee to perform its functions, as outlined in the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act of 2021.

In a section of the letter, as quoted by Hughes, Dr. Campbell, the Opposition’s representative on the Investment Committee, said he was shocked to read Jagdeo’s comments that “balkanization of revenues” in the Consolidated Fund would make it difficult to show how NRF funds were being spent.  He explained, “a little over a month ago, I began pressing internally for the Board of the Fund to demand the justification for withdrawals from the Fund in accordance with Section 16, Subsection 2 and Subsections (a) and (b).”

These Subsections specify that withdrawals must be for national development priorities and or essential projects to ameliorate the effects of a natural disaster. Dr. Campbell said his request was met with stout resistance, even in the face of threats to initiate litigation. “In essence, the Board signs a blank cheque with each withdrawal. This effectively reduces the Board to a rubber stamp and the Public Accountability and Oversight Committee, which is supposed to provide oversight, to a white elephant,” the Committee Member concluded.

To this end, Hughes said this was perhaps the most disturbing news that he had read for the month as there is essentially no scrutiny of the resources meant for future generations, by the Investment Committee. “If we really sit down and think what that means, in other words, this has now become a slush fund, a facilitating entity that literally carries out the government’s bidding when in effect the primary responsibility is to overlook exactly what the government is doing with our money, our asset, our investment and attempting to stop them, interrogate them,” the lawyer stated.

Fast forward to December 14, the Kaieteur News reported that Jagdeo said that the Government of Guyana will only list emergency projects being funded by oil money.  “Any clown would know the national development priorities of the government is reflected in its annual budget, which is approved by Parliament. Parliament determines that, not the NRF (Natural Resource Fund) members of the Board or Terrence Campbell from the Investment Committee. It’s the Parliament, the people who are elected by the people of the country. Not an Opposition representative to the Investment Committee,” the VP said. Jagdeo’s statement follows a series of concerns raised earlier in the week regarding the lack of transparency in the use of the country’s oil revenue.

(Pres. Ali fumes over calls for more transparency in spending of oil money)

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• convenience, Jagdeo, NRF Act, oil fund, President Ali

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