Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh on Tuesday met with visiting Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland QC and discussed a range of matters including oil and gas and good governance.
A release on Tuesday from the ministry said that Singh lauded the Commonwealth.
“Even when we were in Government (before) we could recall there were a number of important pressing global problems whereby the Commonwealth played an integral role. Our issues in Climate Change was one example but there were other things like the Multi-dimensional Vulnerability Index. In particular, the Commonwealth has demonstrated a unique leadership on Small States issues and that is in particular, a topic that we feel very strongly about,” Dr. Singh said.
For her part, the release said that the Secretary-General noted that the current period is a new era where small States have a pivotal role to play with Guyana’s leadership being of particular importance in terms of its current approach to development as it is not only focused on oil and gas but also on developing other areas.
The release said that she added that Small States despite possessing only small voices, will be very powerful especially since they have demonstrated graphically the consequences of Climate Change.
Other areas discussed included debt-management, good governance and anti-corruption, information communication technology in terms of digital solutions for effective financial management along with the development of upstream petroleum policies.
The Commonwealth Secretary-General was accompanied by Director and Head of the SG’s Office, Deborah Jamieson; Senior Director, Governance and Peace Directorate, Professor Luis Franceschi, Assistant Research Officer of the SG’s Office, Francis Wanjiku and Assistant Research Officer of the Governance and Peace Directorate, Fayola Fraser.
Accompanying the Minister at the meeting were Finance Secretary, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Director of Projects (Project Cycle Management Division), Tarachand Balgobin, Head (Bilateral Division) Donna Levi and Head (Debt Management Division), Donna Yearwood.
