The Stabroek News recently carried an article which centred around a legal opinion that was given on the applicability of Article 216 of the Constitution to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd. (NICIL). The opinion argued that this article does not apply to NICIL since it is a company separate and distinct from the Government. As such, NICIL has no duty to pay over moneys into to the Consolidated Fund. It further 
argued that “…even deemed to be a public corporation, absent Ministerial direction, NICIL is under no duty to deposit revenue into the Consolidated Fund. If NICIL is a private corporation, not only is it under no duty to deposit monies into the Consolidated Fund, but from a plain reading of the byelaws, there is no Ministerial power to direct NICIL how to allocate its revenue. Only a director resolution or a change to the byelaws or similar action can mandate payment into the Consolidated Fund.”
Today, we offer some clarifications vis-a-vis the opinion issued some 16 days after the submission of the draft forensic audit report to NICIL for comments. In that report, it was stated that during the period 2002-2014 NICIL violated Article 216 of the Constitution by retaining and treating as its revenue amounts totalling $26.858 billion representing mainly proceeds from dividends from public corporations/companies and the sale of State assets. It is unclear why such an opinion was not
