Guyana has to ensure its oil and gas local content policy promotes robust oversight of the sector given the potential loopholes for corruption that have been evidenced in other developing countries, according to Canada-based University Professor and Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Advisor Dr. Nazim Baluch.
On the background of research and reports from Transparency International, Global Witness and other watchdog bodies, which show that the oil and gas sector has the highest incidence of corruption of all sectors and is among those that have incurred the most significant penalties, Baluch said that empowering civil society and the public to have access to information is integral to ensuring transparency.
“Effective monitoring relies on access to information, and a lack of transparency can be a challenge for both government and civil society monitoring efforts. Transparency is central to monitoring for at least two reasons: It is a condition for effective monitoring; and it creates incentives for all stakeholders (government, companies and communities) to play by the rules. Within government, not sharing information across departments in the executive branch can hamper monitoring. For other branches of government, particularly parliament, lack of access to critical information inhibits credible monitoring. And for civil society, access to contracts, environmental impact assessments (EIAs), work plans, revenue collection figures and other ongoing project information is essential to monitoring efforts but is often lacking,” Baluch wrote in the GCCI’s 2019 Business Guyana magazine.
