Guyana’s local content final report has been completed and was yesterday submitted to government through Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, with Chairman of the Committee, Shyam Nokta, emphasising that the policy will ensure Guyanese capitalize on the benefits of the bourgeoning oil and gas sector.
“We recognise the importance of local content and our Terms of Reference (TOR) outlined what was expected and we were able to complete the report on time and within the mandate of the TOR,” Nokta told Stabroek News.
The Ministry of Natural Resources (MoNR) yesterday informed of the presentation and said that Bharrat will present the document to President Irfaan Ali for guidance on the way forward.
“Understanding the critical nature of the review of policy initiatives on local content in the petroleum sector, the Local Content Panel has submitted the final report for the development of Guyana’s Local Content Policy and Legislation,” the MoNR statement said.
“The report outlines several recommendations towards improvement of the country’s policies and legislation,” it added.
According to MoNR, the committee which was established in late August, was able to engage with approximately 140 key stakeholders.
The Irfaan Ali-led PPP/C government had said that the Local Content panel would conduct expansive consultation and review and devise recommendations that will inform the country’s policy in this area. Government has stated that local content will not just be in the form of a policy but will be legislated for.
It had scrapped a policy draft submitted by United Kingdom consultant, Dr Michael Warner, who was paid US$104,500 to craft a document for the APNU+AFC government. It is unclear if any element of that draft formed the current policy report.
Warner’s report was flayed by many, including the private sector and the then opposition PPP/C, for failing to aptly cater for the needs of locals in an industry that would be here for at least 40 years.
When government took office in August, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had, at the first press conference focused on oil and gas. He said that local content capacity building will be a priority for this administration.
“Local content will be in the form of legislation, it will be mandatory on the company to comply with the legislation. There will be the best technical inputs before we come up with a negotiating brief that will be cleared at the policy level and then we want to engage directly with Exxon to see that this happens. The president will listen to the entire Guyanese community on developing local content, so that there is no farming out (of) consultations of the local content to junior persons. He will deal with it directly so that he can hear from the Guyanese people,” Jagdeo had said.
“We have heard from the Guyanese public. We have seen how labour is treated and these are not for areas of building an FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading platform) or areas where we don’t have capacity. So that has to happen, Exxon will have to look at this, we made it clear to ExxonMobil, too, that they can’t claim that it is their subcontractors and we tried to meet provisions. A lot of their work is farmed out to subcontractors who operate here in Guyana, who have been paying our people wages that are discriminatory, not comparable for the comparable skill. And we will insist on that – that they must be paid fairly. We have some of the skills too. Those subcontractors, they have to observe the strict local content legislation when it comes on board,” he emphasised.
President Ali, according to Jagdeo, has insisted that a large number of Guyanese be trained from now so that in the next few years they would have necessary skills.
It is why government has put ExxonMobil on notice that an annual US$300,000 outlay for training would have to be revised. “We have to assist large numbers of Guyanese and they would have to contribute to that training. We don’t think the paltry sum of $300,000 per year is adequate. We have to find a way to contribute, that our training,” he said.
Nokta noted that the panel, which comprised former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge; trade unionist, Carville Duncan; Trinidadian Energy & Strategy Advisor, Anthony Paul; Former T&T Minister of Energy, Kevin Ramnarine; chartered accountant; Floyd Haynes; and the Ministry’s Legal Officer, Sasha Rajkumar-Budhan; all worked well together and he expressed his heartfelt thanks to them. “We had an excellent panel with a lot of experience and expertise. As head of that panel, I received the full support from the entire team,” he declared.
