Guyana earned a total of G$20, 405, 003 billion dollars from profit oil and royalties in October, according to the Ministry of Finance’s recent publication on the Natural Resources Fund (NRF).
Inflows to the fund for the month accounts for $3,647,083 billion dollars in royalties and $16,757, 920 billion dollars in profit oil while the closing balance at the end of the month was $111,342,541 billion dollars or US$534,016,987.
Guyana’s Natural Resources Fund is kept in the New York Federal Reserve Bank where it accrued a total of $3,838 million dollars in interest in October. The payments from buyers of Guyana’s oil are deposited directly into the account. Currently, there is no means of accessing the funds since the NRF legislation passed in 2019, which requires the establishment of a number of committees in order for the fund to be activated. Those committees are the Macro-economic committee, the oversight committee and the investment committee.
At a press conference on October 29, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali said technical teams from Ghana will be assisting Guyana in reviewing sovereign wealth fund legislation, which his party had touted as “weak.”
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government previously touted the introduction of imprisonment for non-disclosure of revenues coming from the industry and reducing the interface between politicians and oil companies, to stamp out corruption. Further, the sums earned from oil resources will be gazetted so as to ensure Guyanese can the revenues coming into the country.
It is expected that the amendments will be tabled in the National Assembly and debated before the end of this year.