Office of the President to have oversight of Finance, Natural Resources

The Office of the President (OP) has clarified that the Finance Ministry and oversight of the oil and gas sector will fall directly under the office.
This would put to bed speculation following the swearing-in of President Irfaan Ali and his Cabinet last week. At the time, no Finance Minister had been announced.
“In response to several queries, the media corps and, by extension, the general public, is advised that the Office of the President will have oversight for the areas of Finance and Natural Resources,” the Office of the President said in the statement.
Both oil and finance are considered critical portfolios. In the case of Guyana, both are at critical junctures due to the protracted political crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in Guyana.
Guyana has not had a budget passed since November 2018. Since then, Ministries and agencies have survived on limited resources and the 1/12 rule.
Another financial hurdle the PPP/C Government faces is the state the APNU/AFC left the country’s reserves in. Guyana Times had reported back in June of 2020 that the APNU/AFC’s management of the economy has left the nation’s coffers severely depleted.
Not only has the country’s general reserves been depleted to $0, but the account is also now running an overdraft to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This is in addition to an alarmingly depleted gold reserve.
The Bank of Guyana’s Statement of Assets and Liabilities showed that at the time the General Reserve was -$290,667,332.
Additionally, Public Deposits were depleted to below $0, also recording a negative balance of -$88,629,401,855.
Guyana’s Contingency Reserve account also reflected an alarming state. The records show that when APNU/AFC took office in 2015, Guyana’s gold reserves were $15 billion. However, the APNU/AFC Administration depleted this to $715 million.
This reflected a difference of $14.3 billion spent by the Administration during its time in office, not accounting for the additional sales for gold that would have cycled through the financial system over the course of the five years.
The dire state of Guyana’s finances comes at a time when Guyana is in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic. The former Government did little to nothing to alleviate the social and economic fallout of the virus, preoccupied as they were with prolonging their time in office through the courts after losing the elections.
Since his swearing-in, President Ali along with Prime Minister Mark Phillips, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony, have met with health officials from both the public and private health institutions as well as opposition political parties.
Meanwhile, Guyana’s oil sector is also in need of urgent attention. Guyana became an oil-producing nation in 2019 with a number of key pieces of policy and legislation missing.
In fact, in five years only a single piece of legislation related to the sector was passed by the previous A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC). This legislation is the Natural Resources Fund bill, which was signed into law by former President David Granger last year.
The bill to create a Petroleum Commission is yet to pass in the House and the Local Content Policy released last year has been criticised for its lack of teeth and its confidentiality clauses.