Civil society grouping, Policy Forum Guyana (PFG) has called on President David Granger not to assent to the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) Act which it says is riddled with serious deficiencies.
PFG says it also wants a reframing of the oil and gas debate to address what it said was a “vacuum of vision and principles”.
The NRF Act, establishing rules by which oil and gas revenues will be utilized was passed during the January 3rd sitting of the National Assembly which had been boycotted by the opposition.
According to a PFG press release on January 26, “This Act was rushed through Parliament in the midst of the ‘No Confidence ‘ vote turmoil with no formal consultation of the Bill and in the absence of the Parliamentary opposition. In the circumstances, the member organizations of the PFG are requesting that President Granger in accordance with the democratic principle of Free, Prior and Informed Content (FPIC) allow a period for consultation and amendment before he assents to this law”.
PFG members, while commending the efforts of the Ministry of Finance, said they are alarmed at serious deficiencies in the Act. However, they are also mindful of an assurance from the Minister of Finance that the Act is ‘open to amendments’.
Among the members of PFG are the Amerindian Peoples Association, Rights of the Children, National Toshaos Council, Transparency Institute Guyana, Guyana Citizens Initiative, Guyana Society for the Blind and the Guyana Human Right Association
Since 2016, PFG said that the oil and gas narrative has focused almost exclusively on sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) driven by a range of international organisations, experts and consultants, effectively excluding those without any specialist education in the subject. The great majority of Guyanese, therefore, have no clear sense of what is intended to take place in their name with respect to the use of oil and gas.
The view of the PFG is that there is an assumption that the views of financial experts are superior to everyone else and this is carried over into the Natural Resources Fund Act by the requirement of a master’s level qualification for members of the important decision-making committees, all of whom are appointed by the Minister of Finance. This approach finds the rest of the society lumped into a Public Accountability & Oversight Committee. This committee is therefore seen as one with no real decision-making powers, having a haphazardly chosen membership with no governing principles.
PFG believes in a more inclusive approach to management of oil and gas where every sector would be a stakeholder, with something to gain through engagement, and even more importantly, something to lose from exclusion.
The new Act, in the opinion of the PFG, reflects little of this modern thinking on how the energies of different sectors of society can be mobilised for effective national outcomes.
PFG feels that public discussion to date has been superficial on the issue of how gas and oil are compatible with a ‘green’ transformation. In their opinion, the quest for a ‘Green’ state is about finding human satisfaction in a respectful relationship with nature and a major shift towards a more sociable, less polarised society. They add that political thinking on this issue is almost non-existent and mainstream politics has abandoned the attempt to provide a shared vision capable of inspiring creation of a better society.
The PFG suggests that a re-framing of the oil and gas debate should start by recognising the following principles:
(a) The Doctrine of Public Trust asserts that natural resource assets, known since ancient times as ‘the commons’, belong to the society as a whole, with the State as merely a trustee on behalf of the common ownership by citizens.
(b) The Principle of Inter-generational Justice, recognised by the Guyana Constitution, underlines that ‘all citizens’ includes future generations. The obligation of the current generation is to pass on its ‘commons’ assets intact to succeeding generations, as we received them from our forebears.
(c) Preservation of Principal: In the event of the sale of natural resource assets we must ensure zero loss of value. Immense losses occur routinely around the world in the sale of mineral resources. These losses are brushed off by mistakenly treating oil and gas sales as ‘windfall profits’, rather than as depletion of assets. As with selling off the family jewels cheaply, these losses undermine inter-generational justice.
(d) Commons or Citizen’s Dividend: Real income generated from use of resource assets belongs to all citizens as a right of ownership. The concept of a ‘Citizens Dividend’ which goes to the heart of how oil and gas revenues are applied has been replaced in the Guyana legislation by a ‘Government and experts know best’ approach.
(e) Securing the Principle of Sustainable Development for future generations needs to be reformulated in terms of applying the precautionary principle and ‘the polluter pays’ principle to protection of critical and non-critical assets.
(f) Guyana’s commitment to fossil-free energy by 2025 (the ‘Nationally Determined Contribution’ to COP21) stands in stark contradiction to oil and gas production.
The current uncertainties about the electoral time-table, PFG said, should not deflect from the fact that elections provide opportunities to extract commitments on policy issues from contending parties. Therefore PFG urged civil society and the business community to urgently seize the opportunity to extract pledges from contesting parties on these important issues since it is its view that the impression that major oil and gas questions have been settled, is an illusion.
