Government yesterday down played the transfer of the US$18 million signing bonus from a special account to the Consolidated Fund, with Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon saying that it was determined by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan that the time was appropriate.
“What the minister said was that it would be placed in the Consolidated Fund at the appropriate time. I believe now, based on what is happening with our budget, what is happening with the nearing of first of oil in Guyana, what is happening with the fact that we have established and made law the SWF [Sovereign Wealth Fund]—it is now an Act of parliament—that it is the opinion of the honourable minister that it is indeed a correct time for that funds to be placed in the Consolidated Fund,” Harmon said when asked about the decision.
The Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc (TIGI) recently reiterated its position that the US$18 million signing bonus, which was received from ExxonMobil, should have been in the Consolidated Fund and that there was a clear breach of the constitutional provisions when it was not placed there.
The Kaieteur News reported yesterday that Finance Minister Winston Jordan on Thursday confirmed that the bonus was moved to the Consolidated Fund. The report said a special Bank of Guyana account in which the funds were being kept was closed in January. There was no announcement of this development by the government, which has previously been criticised for its secretive handling of the bonus, which was not disclosed until a year and a half after it was received.
TIGI took issue with statements made by Director of the State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) Professor Clive Thomas last week about its complaint about the signing bonus and said that its primary concern has always been that it was not deposited into the Consolidated Fund.
The local anti-corruption watchdog that it also felt it necessary to “especially make it clear that TIGI did not at any time accuse any member of the government of converting the signing bonus to personal use” and issued a letter outlining its position.
“It is important to note that the SARA Director’s expressed view does not challenge the assertion that the signing bonus was deposited outside of the Consolidated Fund. Hence, we conclude that we were unsuccessful at pointing to ‘any unlawful conduct’ in relation to the signing bonus that is compelling enough for SARA to act. Nevertheless, we maintain that the signing bonus is vulnerable to capricious and potentially illegal use as long as it is not reflected in the Consolidated Fund where it would receive parliamentary oversight,” the letter said before adding that TIGI also continues to ponder what the government might “find compelling enough as a reason for preferring to violate the constitutional provision on managing public funds and to evade accountability in this matter.”
The signing bonus was paid to government in June of 2016 but there was no official acknowledgement of this by the David Granger administration until the information was leaked to the media in December, 2017.
Government’s decision to deposit the US$18 million signing bonus received from ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd (EEPGL), into a Bank of Guyana account, had been criticised as unlawful, with critics saying that the funds should have been placed into the Consolidated Fund as it is public money.
Following criticism, government said that the money, which would in part be used to pay Guyana’s legal fees for the border controversy case with Venezuela, would be deposited into the Consolidated Fund before being released. The administration’s handling of the signing bonus was also challenged in court.
TIGI pointed out that the leaked letter to the Bank of Guyana confirmed that even while the politicians either misled the public or deflected questions, the signing bonus had been received more than a year earlier and that it was deposited into an account that was not established by an act of Parliament.
“Consequently, the money was not reflected in the Consolidated Fund as prescribed by the constitution. The arrangement, notwithstanding the fact that the money was not converted to private use, left the fund vulnerable to misuse given the lack of parliamentary oversight. The vulnerability of the fund motivated TIGI’s complaint to the SARA,” its letters said.
In setting out its position, TIGI added that the signing bonus should have been deposited into the Consolidated Fund for parliamentary oversight.
