–Gossai says; points to importance of ‘local content legislation’ in driving growth across all sectors
SENIOR Petroleum Coordinator at the Ministry of Natural Resources, Bobby Gossai, on Tuesday said that the country’s local-content legislation has been driving growth across sectors since its enactment.

He made those remarks at the second annual Local Content Summit during a panel discussion which focused on local content for the oil and gas sector, as a driver of economic expansion.
According to Gossai, looking at where the industry is, officials are seeing the integration of local content and the benefits that are being derived from the legislation.

While he noted that the lateral linkages can be seen, there are things on the financial side that can be improved upon as alluded to by President, Dr Irfaan Ali.
“From the MNR’s (Ministry of Natural Resources) point of view and the Local Content Secretariat’s point of view, we want to make sure that industries grow, not just the oil and gas sector, because the oil and gas sector is not an island, the oil and gas sector is not a sector that stands on its own, it is driven by linkages,” Gossai added.

He related that whether it be food supply, transportation, logistics or financial services, authorities are looking to improve on that.
The petroleum coordinator told the gathering: “So, what we have focused on from the time we created the policy and then the law, into measuring local content, is looking at those 40 areas but then reflect it back on the new sub-economic sectors.

Normally, we say the carved-out areas but I like to say the beneficial economic zones that we can provide goods and we can provide services and we want to improve on that.”

With that, he added that there are many businesses that want to be added to the local content register and reach the requirements for local-content certification, so they could tap into the oil and gas industry and be locally certified and reap the significant benefits.

Gossai said too that the country retaining hundreds of millions of dollars shows that the Local Content Law itself is driving economic benefits to Guyana.

Meanwhile, during the discussion, the Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar, said that the government realised early on that the only way to get more out of the sector for the country was by having a local-content policy.
This, he said, is here now and with the legislation, the proof is in the pudding, as Guyanese are now benefitting significantly from that sector.