Kudos, Cabinet
Notwithstanding its extreme reluctance to release the contract signed by Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman with Esso Exploration and Production (Guyana) Limited and two Joint Partners some eighteen months ago, Cabinet deserves credit for its decision to make the contract public in December.
Focus on Guyana’s National Budget 2018 represents the twenty-eighth edition of this Ram & McRae annual publication which highlights, reviews and comments on the major issues surrounding and raised in the National Budget.
Focus 2018 begins with a correction of a statement in Focus 2017 that Budget 2017 was the earliest national budget ever been presented in post-independence Guyana.
Introduction
The Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan, presented the fourth budget of the APNU/AFC Coalition – with “The Journey to the Good Life Continues” as its theme.
In this section we consider the measures announced by the Minister, analyse them, evaluate their impact and discuss the extent to which they provide useful economic benefits to stakeholders.
Introduction
Taxation without representation was one of the causes of the American Revolution and has ever since been an emotive appeal for those who consider themselves aggrieved by injustice.
In Part 23 this column noted that Indonesia which had taken a lead role in the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) had moved to the Gross Sharing Production Sharing Contract.
Indonesia explores new model
Indonesia, the country that is credited with giving the petroleum world the petroleum production sharing agreement (PSC) in the nineteen sixties, now seems to be walking away from the model.
Part 21
EITI Admission
That troublesome confidentiality provision in the law and the Petroleum Agreement has once more attracted attention with the announcement that Guyana is now officially the 53rd candidate country of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
Part 19
Disposal of Production
Recall that under a production sharing contract, costs are deducted from the value of production to arrive at profit oil to be shared between the contractor and the Government of Guyana in the proportion set out in the contract: Article 11.6.