…GRA’s Petroleum Cost Recovery Unit to be strengthened with $1B increase
…Bill passed to increase NRF withdrawals, debt ceilings
After four days of intense scrutiny, the National Assembly passed the $1.146 trillion Budget 2024 in the late hours of Friday evening.
Under the theme, Staying the Course: Building Prosperity for All, Budget 2024 was presented on January 15 and was historic in the sense that it is Guyana’s first trillion-dollar budget. The 2024 Budget Debates were conducted last week followed by the four-day Consideration of the Estimates, which wrapped up on Friday evening with the Committee of Supply going through the Finance Ministry’s allocations.
During the intense scrutiny, Senior Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh revealed that plans are in place this year to strengthen the Petroleum Cost Recovery Unit of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). He was at the time responding to a question posed by Opposition Member of Parliament Volda Lawrence, who asked whether a $1 billion increase to GRA would cater for the unit to be fully staffed.
However, Dr Singh posited that in addition to staffing, efforts will also be made to conduct training at not just the GRA but all other State agencies and departments that have oversight of Guyana’s oil and gas sector.
“Amongst the units that have been identified for strengthening during the course of 2024, not only with additional recruitment but also with training and other capacity building efforts, is in fact the Petroleum Unit [at GRA]. There are, of course, other units including audits and customs and so on, where we will similarly be making efforts to strengthen institutional capacity… [This] has been identified as high priority…,” the finance minister posited.
Back in August 2023, Commissioner General of GRA, Godfrey Statia, had lamented during an appearance before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the tax agency was grappling with its staff being lured away by greater pay from oil companies operating in Guyana.
Statia said they were working assiduously to fully staff the GRA and had even poached some staff from other ministries. But as they increased pay for some persons and train them, they still leave.
Meanwhile, during Friday evening’s Consideration of the Estimates, the finance minister was grilled on a host of other matters from the Opposition parliamentarians including the Amerindian Land Titling Project for which he disclosed some $800 million has been allocated in this year’s budget.
According to Dr Singh, Government will be conducting 24 investigations, issuing 15 absolute grants, 50 completions of cadastral surveys and demarcations of granted lots this year.
“This represents… a very significant scaling up of works that is being done on Amerindian Land Titling, which we have treated as amongst our highest priority since our return to Office,” the minister stated.
In fact, since 2020, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has already done 43 investigations, eight absolute grants and eight demarcations – a significant achievement compared to the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change regime’s “dismal” failure in granting land titles to Amerindian communities during their entire five-year term.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister also took on several MPs from the APNU/AFC Opposition on the constitution of the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) Board, which he said government is firmly committed to address. Dr Singh argued, whoever, that in the absence of the LEN Board, Government has giving out a large number of grants to small entrepreneurs in Linden and across Region 10 – an initiative that will continue this year.
Following the approval of the Finance Ministry budget after nearly two hours of scrutiny in the Committee of Supply, the Estimates of Expenditure for Financial Year 2024 was put on the floor of the National Assembly and subsequently approved.
This paved the way for the House to pass the Appropriate Bill 2024 – Bill No. 1 of 2024 after it was read three times.
However, the passage of Budget 2024 was not without drama as the Opposition MPs staged a walkout in the National Assembly. This was after Chief Whip, Christopher Jones, raised concerns about the audio in the Opposition’s Lounge being breached during the livestream of the parliamentary proceedings Friday night.
According to Jones, the “sanctity” of the Opposition Lounge was “breached” since the Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton, can be heard in that audio along with the conversations of several other Opposition Members.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, expressed concerns about the situation especially after he had previously instructed that the cameras in the Opposition Lounge be shut down. “Certainly, we will have to deal with this condignly,” Nadir assured.
Despite this, however, Jones indicated along with the remaining new APNU/AFC Opposition parliamentarians existed the Dome at the Authur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) while the sitting was still in progress to pass the Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Bill 2024.
This bill, which was tabled last Friday, seeks to increase the withdrawal amount from the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) as well as raise the ceilings on domestic and external debts.
Minister Singh said the Opposition’s walkout is reminiscent of the events that played out in December 2021 when the APNU/AFC MPs disrupted the National Assembly sitting, stole and broke the Mace and assaulted Parliament staff.
Nevertheless, Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Bill was eventually passed by the one-seat majority Government. It now allows for the NRF Act 2021 to be amended to increase the ceiling on annual withdrawals. Under the revised proposals, a sliding scale is proposed for withdrawals from the first US$5 billion of deposits paid into the Fund in the immediately preceding fiscal year. Beyond the first US$5 billion, 90 per cent of deposits in the immediately preceding fiscal year will be saved.
Another component of the Bill is provisions to effect the Removal of Duty and Value Added Tax (VAT) on Sports Equipment and Technology, the Removal of Duty and VAT on Firefighting Equipment, Reducing the Cost of Life and Medical Insurance and increasing the Income Tax Threshold to $100,000.
The Fiscal Enactment Bill also includes proposals to update the debt ceilings, that is, the domestic public debt ceiling being increased to $1.5 trillion and the external borrowing ceiling raised to $1.5 trillion.
According to Minister Singh, this Bill has “…critical legislative and statutory elements contained in Budget 2024 and also establishes the legal framework to ensure sustainable and optimal financing of the accelerated development agenda that we, in the People’s Progressive Party, will be delivering to the Guyanese people in the near, immediate and long-term.” (G8)
