Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud says Guyana will very soon be receiving the third tranche of funds under the Guyana/Norway forest agreement, as the country is on course to meeting all of the conditions.
Speaking during the budget debate in the National Assembly yesterday, Persaud said that projects will finally receive funding from the Norway funds now that they have been approved. He, however, did not specify what these projects were.
“Very soon Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh will be initialling project documents that have already been approved and which would see us benefitting from [money out of] the US$70 million. So, we are already at the point of people of Guyana enjoying benefits of projects. There are other projects which will be going to the GRIF Steering Committee,” Persaud said. “Also, as we are meeting here Mr. Speaker, we have a representative of the Government of Norway in Guyana and they are also here in terms of assessing the work we are doing because we are moving into our third evaluation for another tranche of US$40 million [for 2012]. So far, all the work we have done shows that so far we have been able to maintain those commitments.
So, at the same time whilst we are maximising our returns and benefits in terms of the utilisation of our natural resources, the benefits from our ecosystem services continue to flow,” he added.
The agreement with the Kingdom of Norway will see Guyana earning US$250 million up to 2015 for the protection of its rainforest so that its environmental services could benefit the planet. So far, the allocation of US$70 million has been sitting in a World Bank account awaiting the approval of projects from the GRIF Steering Committee. The allocation of US$70 million comprises US$30 million for 2010 and US$40 million for 2011. The World Bank is functioning as Trustee for the GRIF funds.
Persaud said that it is because of the importance that government places on coordination in the natural resources sector, with concerns about the environment, that his new ministry was created. “The creation of the ministry itself is a recognition of the PPP/C that we needed to ensure that there is better coordination, oversight and harmonisation, in terms of policies within the natural resources sector and also within the interface with the environmental sector,” he explained.
Government, Persaud added, refuses to be complacent on the challenges facing the mining sector and he said the sector must deal with social as well as environmental issues. “We know of the many social issues and we have been working and engaging the Ministry of Human Services and NGOs in dealing with this,” he noted. He said that these collaborations become more important now that Guyana is on the verge of major investments. “We know that the largest mine that we’ve had has been Omai Gold Mines Limited. And that mine produced over a ten year life span about 3.4 million ounces. Currently we have two major gold mining projects where exploration and prospecting work has been completed,” he said.
He said that just on Wednesday, the ministry was able to receive the final feasibility study for one of those operations–the Guyana Goldfields Inc. “This mine will in fact be much larger and the potential of this mine is close to 5.4 million ounces with a longer lifespan initially.
There are also two similarly sized gold mines that will be coming on stream. What that tells us is that there is an urgency with which we need to ensure that the necessary safeguards are there, at the community level and at a national level,” he said, highlighting the need to guard against the resource curse – the problems that afflict resource-rich countries.
Addressing concerns by the opposition about safety, especially in petroleum operations, Persaud said that all companies involved in extraction and exploration must submit to a rigorous environmental impact assessment.
He said too that the government must be convinced of the capabilities of these companies to respond adequately in the eventuality of a disaster.
