During the first round of consultations that kicked off yesterday on Guyana’s draft local content policy, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo did not hesitate to make it known to ExxonMobil’s Guyana President, Alister Routledge that the administration is concerned about its approach to renting from Guyanese.
In this regard, Jagdeo alluded to the fact that the oil giant should be utilizing more rental of building spaces from Guyanese as opposed to its plans to construct a new headquarters at Ogle.
The official’s comments were in response to statements by Routledge regarding one of the targets of the draft policy. The document proposes that by 2031, oil companies should be securing all of their steel plates from Guyanese. Towards this end, Routledge questioned how the oil companies are expected to achieve this when Guyana is not even a producer of steel. The Exxon official called on the government and other officials present at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre to explain if they envision Guyana becoming a steel producer in the future and by what time.
In response, the Vice President acknowledged that such a provision or expectation is unrealistic but noted that it is obviously not a foregone conclusion. He said, “…this is something that needs to go through several iterations before we come up with the final document…We welcome in writing some of those recommendations…But don’t worry too much about the part of steel plates. We are more concerned about rental and the headquarters and stuff. We want you to rent from Guyanese not be building headquarters. That is the sort of thing we are worried about.”
Sharing his sentiments as well was President, Irfaan Ali who noted that the conversation on the policy must seek to address what the oil companies require for the next 20 years for example and how locals can be prepared to meet those needs.
Ali said, “If the opportunity is there and locals know about it and they know what they need to do to be able to access it then this opportunity can migrate to them and we can have a happy outcome.”
The President expressed concern that there is no commitment that opportunities would be given to locals once they prepare themselves adequately and are competitive in every regard.
At the end of the day, the President said that the government is interested in setting achievable targets but stressed that Guyanese must be given assurances that they will be given first preference.
