Government carving out rentals, other services exclusively for Guyanese in oil sector – VP

Vice President, Hon. Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has said the PPP/C Government is examining all services provided to the oil and gas industry to determine where local firms could have the exclusive domain for contracts. 

Appearing on a Facebook live interview with the ‘Guyanese Critic’ on Thursday, the Vice President said the Government wants to move rapidly to have these requirements enshrined in the local content policy. 

“We’ve made it clear we’d like to see, and we’ll put in the contract, that 100 per cent of the rentals would be coming from Guyanese. 

We made it clear if our people cannot build the [Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading] FPSO because it’s technically out of their range, we can build houses to rent, and that’s very lucrative,” he said. 

The Vice President said that brokerage services would also be set aside exclusively for Guyanese. 

“ExxonMobil and the others have been farming this out to foreign companies. Now, our people can produce brokerage and custom services for the company, but yet, they have this proclivity to give it to companies from abroad, and obscenely so.

When they had the headquarters going, you had to have local companies compete against foreign companies for landscaping services. Those would have to be 100 per cent Guyanese. Cleaning services, domestic services, a whole range of services, food supplies, all of these things.” 

Dr. Jagdeo added that there are other areas where Guyana cannot provide 100 per cent of services to the sector, such as insurance, banking and fabrication. He said the Government is careful not to put an undue burden on oil companies. 

However, the Government does not intend to make these targets static, as legislation will evolve as the capacity of the Guyanese private sector evolves. 

“You would have to review it. And as we build capacity, so too would the percentages increase in some sectors, as well as new sectors emerge onto that list, that we can supply.”

He said the Government would have to appoint persons to enforce these stipulations. 

The Government has wrapped up local content consultations with stakeholders and is expected to produce a revised local content policy, which will be used as the basis for legislation.