Following government’s tabling of its proposed Local Content Bill in the National Assembly on Thursday, six years after the discovery of oil offshore, frontrunner for the leadership of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Aubrey Norton says a wider cross-section of the business community should have been consulted.
Leading up to the tabling of the bill, the government held consultations with the local private sector organisations in an effort to address concerns. However, Norton, who is running for leadership of the largest opposition party – said that the Private Sector Commission (PSC) is not representative of the wider business community and therefore consultations limited to the Commission will produce skewed results.
“We tend to make the Private Sector Commission synonymous with the private sector and it isn’t. The Private Sector Commission is a selected few, who in my mind, are aligned politically but the wide expanse of businesspeople in this country are not involved in the way they should be involved,” Norton told Stabroek News during an invited comment on Thursday.
Norton further added that while he is yet to look at the Local Content Bill in its entirety, from what he has seen there is not much benefit for the wider expanse of the business community.
“Any local content should be structured in such a way that a wider cross-section of business people of all ethnic groups should be involved and benefit from the oil. While I have nothing against the Private Sector Commission, I do not see it as representing the private sector so when I talk I would draw a distinction between the private sector and the Private Sector Commission.
“We need to let the private sector benefit and stop making it an issue solely of a Private Sector Commission which seems to be the elite of the business community rather than the business community,” he posited.
The PSC is currently headed by Chairman of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) Paul Cheong, who was also on the PPP’s list of candidates contesting the March 2020 elections.
Norton told this publication that Guyana should pursue legislation where every citizen benefits and not just the elite few. He said if elected as leader of the PNCR, part of his agenda includes pursuing initiatives for every Guyanese to benefit.
“What is fundamental is taking the actions to ensure the people of Guyana benefit from oil resources…You have to make good deals with Exxon but if the domestic rules and regulations are not in place then the people still would not benefit. So it is not just restricted to Exxon alone, it is a total governance package we have to look at – the question of local content, the question of the state, the government and how it utilizes the resources for the people to benefit and also the relationship with Exxon. So I wouldn’t be misled into making it a uni-dimensional thing when it is multidimensional,” he explained.
“The Local Content Bill 2021 represents the principal vehicle through which Guyana seeks to negotiate a trade-off between investors engaged in the petroleum sector and Guyanese nationals and Guyanese companies involved in the petroleum sector,” the Bill tabled in the name of Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat states.
The Bill explicitly states that “local content” refers to the monetary value of inputs from the supply of goods, or the provision of services, by Guyanese nationals or Guyanese companies and includes local capacity development. Additionally, it defines Guyanese nationals as citizens of Guyana, while Guyanese companies “means any company incorporated under the Companies Act which is beneficially owned by Guyanese nationals,” who ultimately exercise, individually or jointly, voting rights representing at least 51% of the total issued shares of the company; and that has Guyanese nationals holding at least 75% of executive and senior management positions and at least 90% of non-managerial and other positions.
