Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 November 2022, 14:59 by Denis Chabrol
Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat addressing a Local Content consultation that was organised by the Private Sector Commission.
Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat on Thursday signaled strongly that government might amend Guyana’s Local Content Act to halt the participation of persons who opportunistically obtain Guyanese citizenship to cash in on opportunities in the country’s rapidly emerging oil and gas sector to the disadvantage of those who have been living and working here for decades.
“It is only fair that us here, who stayed, who worked, who toiled, who sacrificed to develop this country that we should benefit first and not people who were born elsewhere but today they come to reclaim their Guyanese citizenship just for benefits; we are serious about that,” he said.
Mr Bharrat’s remarks on the subject to the Private Sector Commission (PSC)-organised forum on expanding the list of 40 Local Content services came almost one week after Guyana’s High Court ruled that RAMPS Logistics (Guyana) must be granted a Local Content Certificate and said there was no reason in the first place to refuse the company’s application. He restated that “we’re a government that respects the rule of law, we respect the ruling of the court, and that is we issued the local content certificate but we have our reservations too.”
He said government would not tolerate persons suddenly emerging and claiming that they are Guyanese “to the bone.” but “it can’t work like that.” The Natural Resources Minister said at the time of crafting the Local Content Act, questions had been raised about whether the legislation should have stated that Guyanese citizenship should have been linked to residency or birth but government had expected professionalism, maturity and good faith by companies. “Obviously, they didn’t because there are hundreds of Guyanese companies, born and bred Guyanese who have the ability and resources and capacity to partner with any international company too but we saw what played out and we are going to ensure that there are systems in place to ensure that we deal with these matters as they rise because we cant have people holding a Guyana passport but never paid a dollar tax to develop in this country to develop this country where it is today but want to benefit from it today. It’s unfair and it’s hurtful too,” he said.
The Head of the Local Content Secretariat Martin Pertab on Monday granted RAMPS, the largest freight handler for the ExxonMobil-led consortium in Guyana, the certificate, even as government said it would cr5aft regulations to accompany the law and held out the possibility of an appeal.
In apparent reference to the 51 percent stake in RAMPS Logistics by a Trinidad-born investor with Guyanese roots to make the company compliant with the Local Content law, the Natural Resources Minister suggested quite strongly that those who conveniently acquire Guyanese passports for that purpose would not be considered. “We are serious about people trying to rent (a) citizen. We spoke about this before. We are serious about people now trying to acquire Guyanese passports just because of some line of family membership down the line; people who were not even born in Guyana,” he said.
Less than three years, over 4,000 Guyanese working in the oil and gas sector and a large number of businesses that have started joint ventures with oil companies.
Defending the decision to limit local content to 40 services that have been reserved at varying percentages for Guyanese, he said Guyana was not preventing foreign companies from working in the oil and gas sector. “We haven’t locked any foreign company out of Guyana. Some of them may run around crying, run to the courts saying that the government is unfair. We are not unfair,” he said.
Senior Petroleum Coordinator, Mr. Bobby Gossai said more than 400 Guyanese are on the Local Content Register. He said government regards local content as a form of local content that has so far raked in US$310 million in the 2022 half-year report.