THE Iwokrama International Centre will receive financial support to the tune of US$100,000 from the Government of Guyana in order to ensure it continues its work in 2015.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon Wednesday at his post-Cabinet press briefing, made the announcement telling media operatives that the centre has been experiencing financial difficulties as a result of lack of support from its international partners.
He said that the centre has been experiencing financial difficulties in recent years as a result of inadequate and untimely interventions by international partners. That awareness, the Cabinet Secretary said, “has led to Government’s decision to again extend financial support to the centre. “To that end, Cabinet has approved another financial tranche of, this time, US$100,000. This tranche, Luncheon explained, is intended to come from the proceeds of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC). He stated that it is intended to provide bridging financial support for the centre as it implements its 2015 financial plan. The current dire financial situation of the centre would be eased, as that 2015 Financial Plan is successfully implemented and the international community’s financial support is resumed.”
Questioned on the transfer of funds from the GGMC to the Iwokrama and the housing sector and not to the Consolidated Fund, the HPS stated, “The funds accumulated at the GGMC are the royalties paid by miners as they exploit natural resources that belong to the people of Guyana… the mining act reposes in that Commission the collection of royalties on behalf of the people of Guyana; once collected, they are available for the pursuit of Government’s intention for the people of Guyana in the context of implementing policies and programmes of the executive.”
Explaining the authority to utilise the funds as is being done, Luncheon said, “The statute is fashioned in a way that indeed allows the Commission to retain those funds and to invest those funds at any particular point in time, and presumably at the discretion of the administration.” He further explained, “Nothing in statutes imposes an obligation to transfer funds at any stipulated time …or is there a statutory obligation for transfer [of] funds to the Consolidated Fund.” This, he said, could be done at the discretion of the administration, depending on the priority of Government policies. That priority, he explained, saw Cabinet approving support for the Iwokrama International Centre and the housing sector.
Guyana, he stated, has a responsibility for maintaining the Iwokrama International Centre and providing support for a policy which had its origins in the 1990s under the latter days of the Desmond Hoyte administration. Expanding on the recent support by Government’s programme in recent times, he said, “Without the Government’s support over the more recent years, the deficit would have remained on the books and threatened its financial viability and ultimately its existence.”
Iwokrama is a unique reserve of 371,000 hectares of rainforest and was established in the early 1990s by an International accord, with Guyana as host. It is a not-for-profit organisation governed by an international board of trustees and managed by about 70 permanent staff members in Guyana.
The centre has been experiencing financial difficulties over the more recent years in the face of inadequate and untidy interventions by the international community partners of the accord; but the Government of Guyana has been continually giving financial support to the centre to ensure its viability.