Even though the political opposition has been highly critical of the government’s preparedness for the oil sector, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said in no uncertain terms that the coalition administration is making “commendable progress.” The Fund said that this is especially so in the case of preparations for petroleum fiscal analysis and modeling.
In a report it prepared this year, the Fund said that the Ministry of Finance has made use of expertise to develop a fiscal framework for managing natural resource revenue. It noted however that the challenge ahead will be to embed a modeling approach into decision making across relevant ministries and departments. The Fund said that this could be assisted by formally instituting an inter-agency subcommittee on petroleum modeling and having the team play a key role in modeling the Liza Project and embedding the subsequent analysis into the work of relevant agencies such as the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Energy, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, and Bank of Guyana.
The financial institution said that the modeling team should also provide technical input for the formulation of a fiscal regime policy paper.
