…accrues US$36,169 interest thus far

FINANCE Minister Winston Jordan on Friday announced that the US$18M signing bonus received from U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil in 2016 remains in the Bank of Guyana but has been invested in the U.S. treasury bills and Canadian bonds where it is accumulating interest.

Jordan told reporters Friday that while the money has not been used, it has already accumulated US$ 36,169 in interest.

“I have the latest statement from the Bank of Guyana and it says that the account has a balance of US$18,036,169,” he stated at his Ministry’s boardroom. He explained that the signing bonus which was originally deposited into an escrow account at the Bank of Guyana (BOG) has two parcels; one being US$15M which has been allocated for Guyana to fight its border controversy case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the other being US$3M which has been allocated for training and capacity building.

“All US$18 million is still in the account plus the interest of course. During 2018, since we did not know when the United Nations Secretary-General would make his decision, we did not put any amounts in the budget. So now, what we will have to do is go for

supplementary. This supplementary will be based on Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ indication as to how much they think we will have to pay the lawyers and others who provide services related to the ICJ matter,” explained Jordan.

Guyana two weeks ago submitted its application to the ICJ requesting that the court confirm the legal validity and binding effect of the 1899 Arbitral Award regarding the boundary between Guyana and Venezuela.

He explained that a schedule will be provided to his ministry and he will then approach the National Assembly for a supplementary provision for that sum. He reminded that once the matter is taken to Parliament, then debates will ensue and government will be required to answer all questions posed.

“When finally it is passed by Parliament and signed into law by the President we will then approach the Bank of Guyana to transfer the said identical sum to the Consolidated Fund,” the Finance Minister stated.

Thereafter, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will request the release of the funds after which they will approach Central Bank to purchase the identical sum and then pay the lawyers and other service providers relative to the ICJ case.

“Everything will be on the revenue side, it will be on the expenditure side, balance of payments, reserves of Bank of Guyana, it will be in the monetary accounts. It is a million times more transparent than what took place during the Suriname, Guyana issue where $10M or more was paid and not a penny was passed through any account at Bank of Guyana,” said Jordan.

Meanwhile, Jordan made it clear that the signing bonus given by ExxonMobil was never hidden. “It was there since 2016- it is a public account and not a private account. These are government accounts and every government account that you want to know the balance, you could call the bank or the Accountant General because is your money,” the Minister stated.