Local legal committee set up to spearhead work on Local Content Bill

…to work closely with visiting Ghanaian delegation of experts

Coming on the heels of a meeting between Attorney General Anil Nandlall, Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat, legal experts and a visiting Ghanaian delegation, a decision has been made to set up a local legal committee to spearhead work on the forthcoming Local Content Bill.

The Attorney General’s Chambers met with the delegation on Wednesday. Apart from Nandlall and his Cabinet colleague Bharrat, a number of attorneys-at-law from the chamber and technical staff from the Natural Resources Ministry were present.
The Ghanaian delegation comprised the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana National Gas Company, Benjamin Asante; Senior Technical Manager for the state agency, Abraham Mensah Snr; and Ghanaian Director of Local Content and Petroleum Commission, Kwaku Boateng.
“The Attorney General welcomed the delegation to the Republic of Guyana, and expressed his gratitude to the team, on behalf of the Government and people of Guyana, for offering their assistance, experience, guidance and expertise in respect of the oil and gas sector generally, and more specifically on the issue of local content,” the statement said.
“The meeting evaluated Guyana’s draft Local Content Bill, and compared it with the Ghanaian legislation as well as legislation in Nigeria, Uganda and Norway. The visiting delegation offered practical guidance as well as insightful recommendations. Various components of the Bill were discussed and critically examined, with segments from the various legislation extracted and made part of the local Bill,” it further explained.
According to the Chambers, a local legal committee was established by the Attorney General, comprising lawyers and drafters from the Attorney General’s Chambers, persons from the Environmental Protection Agency, and officials of the Natural Resources Ministry.
“This team will spearhead Guyana’s pursuit of legislative changes in the oil and gas sector. It was agreed that this team and the visiting delegation will continue to collaborate and work closely in helping to develop a modern and effective Local Content Bill, and will continue to collaborate on other matters relating to the legislative infrastructure of the oil and gas industry.
“Upon the request of the Attorney General, the Ghanaian delegation promised to send academic writings as well as court rulings on their legislation, which will be used to guide Guyana’s efforts,” the Chambers said in its release.
Also present at Wednesday’s meeting were Senior Petroleum Coordinator Bobby Gossai Jr; Senior Petroleum Economist Martin Pertab; Senior Legal Coordinator Joanna Simmons; Legal Officer Visal Satram; and Legal Officer of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, Michael Munroe, as well as members of the Oil and Gas Sub-committee at the Chambers of the Attorney General.
The oil and Gas Sub-committees comprises Ronetta Sargent, Arti Outar, Janet Ali, Ayana Fable and Debra Singh.
The Ghanaian team’s visit to Guyana follows on the heels of Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s own visit to Ghana last month, where he met with top officials of that country to discuss their oil and gas industry, and entered into an agreement for Ghana to exchange knowledge with Guyana on establishing a local content framework.
Last year, President Dr. Irfaan Ali had set up a 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, which had included former Foreign Affairs Minister and Economist Carl Greenidge, Carvil Duncan, Local content expert Anthony Paul and former Trinidadian Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine, had compiled and submitted the Local Content Report.
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 that same month.
Approximately 140 stakeholders were engaged by the panel on the compilation of the report. The report outlines several recommendations to improve the country’s policies and legislation.
Government is likely to hire experts to examine and incorporate comments and suggestions emanating from these stakeholder consultations into the final policy document that will be presented in the National Assembly. (G3)