Author: ChrisRam

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Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 62)

Introduction

During the recently-concluded United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA, the Guyana Delegation led by Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge facilitated a meeting between the Governor of the Bank of Guyana and representatives of Merrill Lynch, the investment arm of the Bank of America Corporation which had expressed an interest in Guyana’s proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund. It was not so much that Greenidge facilitated the meeting, or that Finance Minister Winston Jordan would most likely have also attended had his diary permitted, but rather the enthusiasm and expansiveness with which Greenidge subsequently reported on the meeting. Greenidge at a Press Conference on his return to Guyana, promoted the banker’s “variety of expertise in the setting up of such funds, and providing options for collaboration that they can offer.”

But Greenidge was not done yet. He touted Merrill Lynch’s capacity and extensive experience in the management of the equivalent of sovereign wealth funds, reminding the Guyanese media that Merrill Lynch was no stranger to Guyana and that when he was the minister of finance in a previous government, the investment division facilitated the Bank of Guyana and the Bank of America working together. Such gratuitous high level endorsement in an emerging oil economy must be anyone’s dream.

Yet, at home, Jordan and Co have crudely and blatantly refused to engage and listen to Guyanese’s concerns and recommendations on the petroleum contract as well as the Natural Resources Fund proposal. But yes, of course, Merrill Lynch is big, it is powerful and it has that colour for which we all seem to have a pronounced complex. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 62)”

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The NIS should invite persons who have been deprived of their entitlement to establish their claims by providing reasonable evidence of their employment history

To mark the 49th Anniversary of the National Insurance Scheme, Kaieteur News’ editor and columnist Adam Harris devoted his September 30, 2018 column with a paean to Forbes Burnham with the opening line reading “Forty-nine years ago, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham conceived the idea that there should be a National Insurance Scheme.” In his second sentence Mr Harris, wrote “Whatever sparked the idea I would never know because the thought process was not documented.” These two sentences are serious cause for concern.

First, Burnham did not conceive of the idea of the NIS in Guyana. The idea goes back to British Guiana in 1954, which the PNC Labour Minister Winslow Carrington, acknowledged in introducing the NIS Bill in 1959. And second, although the NIS is not a popular subject for academic interest, the diligent researcher – or journalist – has no major difficulty in finding quite useful and, at times, counterintuitive information on the NIS, thus avoiding any quixotic search into some dead person’s head.

It would be harsh to suggest that the misstatements in the column were deliberate or an attempt to rewrite history. Still, the column states rather loosely and dubiously that the then political opposition protested that Burnham was taking money from the poor people, without acknowledging that despite their criticisms of the Bill, that the pensionable age of 65 was too high, and that casual workers and domestics should be covered, the parliamentary opposition, miniaturised in the first of a series of rigged elections one year earlier, voted in support of the Bill.

The columnist must also be aware that the Government eventually reduced the pensionable age and ironically, that it was the perpetuation of Mr Burnham’s economic policies which first placed the NIS in difficulties in the eighties.

Moving to contemporary matters, Mr Harris also reports Ms Holly Greaves, General Manager as “insisting” that everyone gets their entitlement from the NIS. Having served the NIS in a senior capacity for decades, Ms Greaves would be acutely aware of the serious deficiencies in its maintenance of contribution records. While there has been some commendable improvements, there are still hundreds of thousands of contributions which, for various reasons, have not been credited to the respective workers. But perhaps even more serious are the number of workers’ contributions which were deducted but not paid over to the NIS by employers, which the NIS did not pursue.

The law requires that such contributions be recognised and credited to the workers. Perhaps out of concern about the financial impact arising from claims from thousands of affected persons, the NIS has been resisting such claims despite compelling evidence of which the NIS management is aware.

Taking the General Manager at her word, I would like to ask that the Board and the management of the NIS make a public declaration and invite persons who have been deprived of their entitlement for years, to go into the NIS and establish their claims by providing reasonable evidence of their employment history. To expect them to have better records than the NIS is unreasonable, irrational and callous.

I would also like to see the Board and the management pursue not only those companies, but also their directors and officers, who have conspired to cheat and rob the workers of the country while threatening the viability of the NIS.

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Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 61)

Introduction

In an advertisement appearing in the national media yesterday, the Ministry of Natural Resources, on its own behalf and that of the Government of Guyana, invited expressions of interest by Consultants desirous of providing services to the Project Execution Unit, presumably of the Ministry, to “conduct an audit of the Recoverable Contract Costs as called for in the signed Production Sharing Contract(s).” It also requires the successful person or Firm to provide on-the-job training to the staff of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) on cost recovery auditing, “with a particular focus on value for money.” Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 61)”

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Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 60)

Introduction

Following last week’s call for a Commission of Inquiry into the Petroleum Sector, more than a handful of individuals approached me enquiring whether the call was serious and what would be the expected outcome. After the spate of Presidential Commissions of Inquiry out of which practically no action was taken, it is not surprising that many persons are cynical about another Commission of Inquiry (COI). My response to those persons was to ask whether they are satisfied about the controversy which surrounds this nascent but critical sector, which will soon dominate Guyana’s economy and indeed all aspects of life in Guyana in as little as ten years.

Nor can anyone be satisfied about the uncertainty surrounding any depletion policy and the rate of extraction of petroleum under the 2016 Petroleum Agreement signed with Esso, Hess and CNOOC. They must surely worry about the implications of the quadruplicating of the country’s petroleum reserves following further discoveries by the three and the nearly dozen or so other oil companies that have been issued with Prospecting Licences. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 60)”

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Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 59)

Introduction

It was good to see Dr. Mark Bynoe, Director/Head of the Department of Energy in the Ministry of the Presidency speaking publicly on the petroleum sector. While Minister Joseph Harmon has been assigned responsibility for the sector by President Granger, and will necessarily be answerable to the National Assembly, the day to day management and oversight of the sector seem now to fall squarely on Dr. Bynoe.

In an interview with the State-owned Guyana Chronicle published last Wednesday, Dr. Bynoe was cautious about any “revisiting, revising, [or] renegotiating” any petroleum agreement but in a masterpiece of officialese, assured the Chronicle that “we” will continue to engage deeply to ensure that value leakage is reduced wherever possible. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 59)”