In two weeks, citizens will have an opportunity to review the final draft of Guyana’s Local Content Policy. This was announced today by Energy Department Head, Dr Mark Bynoe.
At a press conference held at the Ministry of the Presidency, Dr Bynoe said that the draft will be presented to the private sector and other relevant stakeholders for their appraisal.
Dr Bynoe said that the final draft better defines what can be considered as local content and how it will be measured. He said, too, that the department is focusing on the requisite framework to capture the local content data not just for ExxonMobil, but for all the offshore operators.
Further to this, Dr Bynoe said that the oil companies continue to submit their annual local content reports while noting that there has been some degree of improvement where this process is concerned.
The Energy Department Head said, “We are still to get more information that we asked the operator to provide to us and this will help us to analyse who is getting what, what is going where, which regions are benefitting more than others et certera. So even as we build capacity, we want to ensure that there is a strategic approach that ensures all are benefitting from the resource.”
Dr Bynoe said that once there are no legal impediments, he is open to making those reports public.
In addition to this, the Energy Department head said that local content data from the companies indicate that more than 1,100 Guyanese are working with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) and its subcontractors. This, he articulated, is approximately 50 percent of the workforce in the industry. He also said that EEPGL is working with the Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) on implementing two pilot programmes that will build capacity within the technical institutions.
Furthermore, Dr Bynoe also shared that since 2015, over $119M has been spent by EEPGL and its sub-contractors on Guyanese contractors and service providers.
He noted that the Energy Department is working on establishing a special unit that will not only verify the content presented in the companies’ local content reports, but also address any grievances by local suppliers.
