-Dr. Jagdeo says; cites reform of financial agencies as another contributor

OWING to many major reforms and the passage of several pieces of key legislation, Guyana has been able to modernise its financial architecture.

This is according to the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) General Secretary, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who on Thursday told reporters at his weekly news conference that officials through the years have managed to table pieces of legislation to effectively reform several financial policies and agencies.

“We passed the law on the stock exchange, two new Companies Acts, new Insurance Sector Act, new Bank of Guyana Act, Deeds Registry Act… a whole range of things. If you look at the Financial Institutions Act, we modernised the financial architecture of the country through a slew of legislation,” Dr. Jagdeo said.

“If you go to revenue collection we reformed the agency, we created a semi-autonomous agency…we modernised the treasury function in the Ministry of Finance, we reformed the tender board, we have one of the most modern pieces of legislation in any part of the world,” he added.

The General Secretary said that the government has maintained a transparent formula of managing the country’s finances while responding to questions posed by a reporter on changes to the legislation for the governance of the country’s Natural Resource Fund (NRF).

“We made it clear that our money will be invested in areas like education, health, some transferred to the vulnerable groups, infrastructure of a productive nature…it is not a slush fund,” he added.

Guyana’s NRF was recently a topic of discussion with international experts sharing their thoughts, with some even going as far as calling it a ‘slush fund.’

Dr. Jagdeo however, maintained that the NRF cannot be a slush fund following the government’s implementation of a formula-based approach.

He explained that under the previous government’s tenure, the NRF could have been a slush fund.
“Under APNU [A Partnership for National Unity] it could have been a slush fund. Why? Because under APNU the Minister of Finance was in charge of managing the NRF. We amended that by putting in place now a board of directors.”

According to Dr. Jagdeo, the now opposition had established a committee which ultimately saw the sole responsibility for the fund being placed in the then finance minister’s full control, without any system to maintain accountability.

“Under APNU the minister of finance had some committee advising him, a fiscal committee and a macro-economic committee, but at the end of the day he had the sole right to determine how much would be withdrawn from the fund…he didn’t have to account for it, he didn’t need to explain it to the people of the country; it was arbitrary, assumption-based and he could have taken all or none.”

Under the current government, he said, “it is formula-based, it is transparent and [at] the end of the day, he [finance minister] has no say in this. It’s based on the formula, so that is why it wouldn’t be a slush fund now.”