Oil monies will be used to lay foundation for developmental explosion – Nandlall

With the Natural Resource Fund legislation now in place, and the way paved for the Guyana Government to access its oil revenues, it is expected that these monies will be used to propel Guyana’s developmental agenda.
This is according to Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall, during his programme – Issues in the News – last week.
He said that 2022 is a landmark year in Guyana’s development trajectory and will see rolling out of some of the largest transformational projects ever executed in Guyana.
“This year will be the first year that Guyana will be receiving proceeds from its oil-rich oil and gas sector that will be used to develop Guyana and will be used to transform the lives of every single Guyanese… There are so many major projects that will kick off this year. This year we will also witness the presentation of the largest budget in Guyana’s history and that budget will lay the foundation of the developmental explosion,” the Minister stated.
There is currently over US$534 million in the Natural Resource Fund being held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
Among the major projects that will be taking off this year is the Government’s flagship initiative, the US$900 million gas-to-shore project at Wales, which is expected to reduce Guyana’s high electricity cost and increase the country’s energy capacity. The construction of a series of roadways is also on the slate including the Parika to La Grange alternative highway and a host of farm-to-market roads across the country, as well as the Linden to Mabura road project.
The new bridge across the Demerara River – for which China State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd has been selected to carry out the Design-Build-Finance model with construction cost pegged at US$256.6 million – is also set to commence this year. However, the contract is yet to be signed since negotiations are still ongoing.
Another project on the agenda for this year is the deep-water harbour project in Berbice, which is being undertaken by CGX Energy Inc at the mouth of the Berbice River to the tune of US$80 million.
But according to Nandlall, the oil money will be used to not only create new opportunities but also enhance traditional sectors.
“We are structuring the developmental agenda of this country so as to not concentrate too much on the oil and gas sector but to use the proceeds from that sector to develop our traditional sectors.”
This, he added, entails enhancing the local agriculture sector, moving it from primary production to value-added and manufacturing.
“We have to hit the export market with our fresh food, our fresh fruits, and vegetables. This is the time to build the foundation… This is the time that we have to address our energy needs and we have to diversify our energy dependence. We can’t continue to depend on fossil fuel and we have to diversify into renewable areas,” the Legal Affairs asserted.

Nandlall further pointed out that every single Guyanese will benefit from these resources and initiatives, however, he added that there needs to be cohesion amongst the people.
“This year is the year that will transform Guyana into a completely different place and it is the expectation of your Government, and the hope of our Government, that all hands will be on deck. We don’t want to leave any grouping of Guyanese behind. We want everyone to be on this train to prosperity,” he stressed.
Against this backdrop, the Minister posited that, “This is not the time for divisive politics; this is not the time for ethnic strife [and] this is not the time for racial insularity. This is the time for cohesion; this is the time for togetherness [and] this is the time [for national unity].”
The Legal Affairs Minister noted that it is for this reason that the Government proceeded with the passage of the NRF and Local Content legislation in the National Assembly last month despite protest by the APNU/AFC Opposition.
In fact, President Dr Irfaan Ali has already signed these legislations into law.

Meanwhile, as the country embarks on its development agenda, Nandlall outlined the need for the country’s laws to be updated to function in a modern nation. As such, he detailed a series of legislations that would be introduced in the National Assembly this year to build the country’s legal infrastructure.
The Legal Affairs Minister said, “We have to continue to build the legal infrastructure for a modern Guyana and we will continue to reform our archaic statutory framework and remove from it, the anachronistic elements of our law and replace them with modern legislation that is geared to meet the developmental agenda of our country. We can’t develop the country without a modern legal framework.”