Oil funds will remain untouched until reforms enacted – President Ali

President Irfaan Ali has assured that monies garnered from Guyana’s oil and gas sector will remain untouched in the sovereign wealth fund until a series of reforms is enacted to strengthen the Government’s regulatory infrastructure for the sector.
The President made this disclosure following his keynote address to the Forecast on Latin America and the Caribbean Conference, hosted by the Association of American Chambers of Commerce and Latin America and the Caribbean (AACCLA) on Thursday.
“My Government is focused heavily on transparency and accountability. As you know, we have demonstrated this after the negotiations of the licence for the Payara. Not only did we make the agreement public, but we also made the environmental permit public, so nothing is done in secrecy.
“I’ve said before, there’ll be an arm’s length relationship with the politicians. We had international experts leading those negotiations and discussions,” the Head of State was quoted by the Office of the President as saying.
He explained, “We have the technical people who we are training to manage the resources from the oil and gas sector. You know, we already spoke about the establishment of the Petroleum Commission, which will be managed by highly-trained technical personnel.
“And, of course, the sovereign wealth fund is important, in terms of not only the securing and safeguarding [of] the funds but also establishing the conditions and the circumstances, through legislation, on which resources will be used.”
The President noted too that as an important partner in development, the Private Sector has an equal stake and responsibility in how the economy is managed.
According to the Office of the President, Dr Ali also committed to ensuring “openness and frankness” in dealing with governance issues.
Guyana is emerging as an oil-and-gas-producing nation. This requires the building of human and institutional capacity; crafting and agreeing to some critical policies and legal measures; and pursuing strong support and coordination among a number of governmental and non-governmental agencies.
In keeping with its manifesto commitments, the Government has pledged to implement a number of measures to ensure accountable and transparent management of the country’s natural resources including establishing an arm’s length sovereign wealth fund insulated from political interference and upholding the Santiago Principles of transparency and accountability, and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
It was reported that a total of US$150 million is in Guyana’s sovereign wealth fund being held in a United States Bank of America account. In June 2020, a total of US$94,921,803 representing both royalty and oil sales was deposited into the account while an additional US$3,698,152 was further deposited.
Further in August, a total of US$46,046,937 was deposited which represent sales and royalties for another one million barrels of oil.