After more than sixteen months in office, the PPP/C government yesterday tabled its first oil and gas legislation which will permit, if passed, the withdrawal of the entire amount attributable to the Natural Resource Fund in the first fiscal year and be governed by a Board of Directors (BoD) which it appears will be handpicked by the administration.
The proposed BoD will raise immediate questions about control of key policy matters being exclusively in the purview of the PPP/C administration and its allies in the private sector and elsewhere. This is even though the PPP/C has said it was seeking to lessen government influence on the fund. The PPP/C government has also said it would be spending prudently but the bill allows the withdrawal of the entire amount in the first fiscal year – around US$611m.
