Local content legislation coming soon – Minister Bharrat

Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat has given assurance that the long-awaited legislation for local content will be coming soon.
“Already, we are at the stage of drafting our local content legislation, and that would be presented to the National Assembly very soon, and then pass it through the National Assembly and then enacted as a law”, the Minister expressed.
He made this statement during his feature address as acting Tourism Minister during the Guyana National Bureau of Standards’ (GNBS’) National Quality Awards ceremony held on Wednesday evening.

The Minister made it clear that the top priority is making sure Guyanese as a whole are the main beneficiaries in all of the sectors.
“Local content is important to ensure that Guyanese and Guyanese businesses benefit from our resources. That is the whole idea. That is the whole purpose of ensuring that we have a strong local content policy in place, supported by the requisite legislation – to ensure that our homegrown indigenous companies, our Guyanese companies, benefit from this sector and all the other sectors, not only oil and gas.”
On October 1, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) called on Government to see that the legislation is passed by the end of the year. In a statement, the GCCI had noted, “The Chamber has been encouraged by the posture of the Government as it relates to local content, and calls on the Government to table Local Content legislation before the end of the year.”
This position was arrived at after the Private Sector body highlighted the overwhelming number of infrastructure projects being handled by foreign-owned companies. This was coupled with the high volume of trucking, logistical, and other support services which are being operated by foreign-owned companies, particularly in relation to the oil and gas sector.
“The GCCI has been in receipt of several complaints from its membership of cases in which they are being bypassed for work in favour of the aforementioned category of companies. This occurs in spite of the indigenous Guyanese enterprise being both commercially competitive and having the technical capability.
“The Chamber reiterates that it remains supportive of foreign investment in Guyana. We encourage, however, that this not be done at the expense and displacement of indigenous Guyanese companies,” the Chamber pointed out.
After assuming office in August last year, President Irfaan Ali established a High-Level Local Content Panel to review policy initiatives on local content in the petroleum sector and provide guidance for the development of Guyana’s Local Content Policy and Legislation.
The panel, chaired by Shyam Nokta, compiled and submitted the Local Content Report. Also on the panel were Carl Greenidge, Carvil Duncan, Anthony Paul, Kevin Ramnarine and the Natural Resources Ministry’s Legal Officer, Sasha Rajkumar-Budhan. The end product was a list of recommendations, and subsequently a draft Local Content Policy that the Government had released in February of this year.
The stakeholders’ consultation on Guyana’s draft Local Content Policy for its petroleum sector started in February, and President Dr Ali himself opened the discussion, from which authorities were expected to receive feedback and comments for the finalisation of the critical document.
Approximately 140 stakeholders were engaged by the panel in the compilation of the report. The report outlines several recommendations to improve the country’s policies and legislation. Among the key objectives of the Local Content Policy are: to enhance the skills and competencies of Guyanese citizens; promote maximum use of Guyanese in the petroleum sector workforce; maximise the use of locally sourced goods and services in the petroleum sector; enhance the capacity of Guyanese businesses and supply chains to become internationally competitive; enhance and make world-class the training, technology, innovation and research and development base of Guyana, just to scratch the surface.