…GCCI wants local businesses to peruse agreement

GUYANA and Trinidad and Tobago are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) next week, but the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) is calling on the Guyana Government to hold on the MoU until details of the agreement are examined.

Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, while addressing his supporters in Marabella on Tuesday night, disclosed that he would be travelling to Guyana next week Wednesday to sign a MoU with the government. “I am going to Guyana I think next week Wednesday to sign this document that will open the way for Trinidad and Tobago’s companies to participate in that prosperity that is coming to the Guyanese, even if Guyanese oil doesn’t come to our refinery,” he told Trinidadians.

Noting that the MoU was a year in the making, Dr Rowley said it was approximately two weeks ago when he received the diplomatic note from the Guyana Government, indicating that it was ready to sign off on the agreement. In Guyana, GCCI Chairman Deodat Indar backed by members of the executive called on the Guyanese to hold on to the MoU.

Declaring that neither the chamber nor Guyana is “anti-Trinidadians,” Indar said while the GCCI has signed off on many MoUs with many countries, they were between private sector entities. He said Dr Rowley’s announcement came as a major surprise, because the GCCI was never privy to such an arrangement. “We have never seen any MoU, this private sector has never seen anything…I would like to see what the MoU looks like,” he said.

The GCCI Chairman expressed his disappointment that agreements are being signed between Guyana and other countries interested in the developing oil and gas sector here, when there is no legislative framework in place.

“I am saying that we don’t have a policy, we don’t have any legislation for local content, but yet we are going and do these MoUs. I think they should wait. I am asking government to hold on this,” Indar pleaded. The Trinidad Prime Minister’s disclosure that an MoU would be signed with Guyana next week comes days after the opposition leader of the twin-island republic Kamla Persad-Bissessar, called on her government to partner with Guyana to refine its oil.

Guyana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge, said while the proposal might be good in principle, there are several critical areas that ought to be considered by Guyana before any decision is made.