…Min Jordan says enough available to set up Sovereign Wealth Fund

THERE is no need to rush the establishment of a Sovereign Wealth Fund here, Finance Minister Winston Jordan said as he poured ‘cold water’ on Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo’s more than three-hours-long presentation in the National Assembly last Friday.
It was three hours of mindless, aimless ranting, Minister Jordan told the National Assembly as he responded to the Opposition Leader as the 2018 National Budget debates culminated.

Jagdeo, during the budget debates, had accused Government of dragging its feet on the finalization of the bill to govern the establishment and operation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. However, Jordan, who vowed to remain a “thorn in Jagdeo’s side, said there is no need to rush the process. “The Sovereign Wealth Fund being in place in 2015 don’t mean anything to us, there is nothing to put in it, doesn’t mean anything to us. Last time I heard the oil is going to flow sometime in the first quarter of 2020, this is December 2017,” the Finance Minister pointed out while declaring to the House that “We have to get it right.”
Minister Jordan said it would have been an issue if the country had started receiving oil revenue with nowhere to put it, but as of now, there is enough time to have the legislation in place and the fund established, making it clear that this Administration will not rush the process.

Government, however, is anticipating that the Sovereign Wealth Fund Legislation would be presented to the National Assembly before the end of 2018. Explaining the process, the Finance Minister noted that upon entering Office in 2015, the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU-+AFC) Administration was cogitating the establishment of a Sovereign Wealth Fund on the basis that a substantial amount of oil had been discovered offshore Guyana. With Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, spearheading the process, Minister Jordan said the Commonwealth Secretariat was invited to assist Guyana in the formulation of the Sovereign Wealth Fund legislation.

“When we went to Uganda last year, and we saw what Uganda was doing, we looked at the draft the Commonwealth Secretariat gave us and we thought that it needed a lot of work,” the Finance Minister said. According to him, the Natural Resources Minister subsequently did a redraft and, in January 2017, handed over both drafts to him as Finance Minister, including the original document submitted by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

“I invited a number of our development partners to take a look at the Commonwealth Secretariat’s draft to see how we can improve it and strengthen it,” Minister Jordan further explained. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank (WB) were among other development partners that provided extensive “comments” on the draft submitted to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Those comments have been handed over to the secretariat.

Even as the Government paves the way for the establishment of a Sovereign Wealth Fund, he said President David Granger had thought it best to have a Green Paper that would include the country’s perspective on the Sovereign Wealth Fund and how it could evolve. “We are working on that, something we wish to get to Cabinet sometime in the New Year and our thinking is to get this green paper into the Parliament by middle of next year,” Minister Jordan said while assuring that the Sovereign Wealth Fund Legislation will be in place before the end of 2018.