Introduction
During the recently-concluded United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA, the Guyana Delegation led by Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge facilitated a meeting between the Governor of the Bank of Guyana and representatives of Merrill Lynch, the investment arm of the Bank of America Corporation which had expressed an interest in Guyana’s proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund. It was not so much that Greenidge facilitated the meeting, or that Finance Minister Winston Jordan would most likely have also attended had his diary permitted, but rather the enthusiasm and expansiveness with which Greenidge subsequently reported on the meeting. Greenidge at a Press Conference on his return to Guyana, promoted the banker’s “variety of expertise in the setting up of such funds, and providing options for collaboration that they can offer.”
But Greenidge was not done yet. He touted Merrill Lynch’s capacity and extensive experience in the management of the equivalent of sovereign wealth funds, reminding the Guyanese media that Merrill Lynch was no stranger to Guyana and that when he was the minister of finance in a previous government, the investment division facilitated the Bank of Guyana and the Bank of America working together. Such gratuitous high level endorsement in an emerging oil economy must be anyone’s dream.
