May 14, 2017 Source
No repayment schedule in place
While the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is debating the plight of rice farmers in the National Assembly and continues to hammer the government for not doing “what’s best” for farmers, the party is yet to speak about the fact that its actions, while in office, is somewhat responsible for the pickle farmers are in.
Minister of Public Infrastructure,
David Patterson
PPP utilized much of the money from the PetroCaribe fund which was to be used to pay rice farmers. Some of the money was plugged into projects and a huge chunk of the money was transferred to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL).
PetroCaribe was an agreement struck between the governments of Guyana and Venezuela, where Guyana would receive concessionary prices for oil in exchange for rice. Monies received from the exchange deal would subsequently be transferred to the PetroCaribe fund, under the purview of the Ministry of Finance.Some of the money was meant to be allocated to the payment of rice farmers and millers for rice produced to sustain the exchange.Some time back, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo indicated that GPL received US$115M while the Ministry of Housing got US$10M. US$16M was pumped into the Hope Canal project. What Nagamootoo did not state, however, was that this money was transferred without any formal agreement. The lack of the agreement represents serious implications and means that a repayment plan, for what was supposed to be a loan, does not exist.
Sources told Kaieteur that the situation is bad. “The PPP really abused the fund. They transferred that money to GPL, supposedly as a loan but never put any loan agreement or contract in place. If they had used the money correctly, they would have been able to pay farmers more.”
Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, with responsibility for energy indicated that he never saw the contract.
“There was no contract to govern the money that was transferred. I cannot recall ever seeing that contract but I know GPL is paying back the government money which was loaned to it from the Consolidated Fund.
“It is paying back $1B a year. But money for the petro, that has never come up. There is no repayment schedule for that.”
Asked if he thinks there was any intention to pay back, he said, “Not from what I have noticed and I have been there two years now.”
The PPP/C government never made the transfer public. Also, it has said that the $3.6B Hope Canal Project came from the treasury when it was taken from the PetroCaribe fund.
When the APNU+AFC came into office, it spoke about the mishandling of the fund. Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, had even gone as far as to say that the fund went bankrupt. He said, “There is no money.”
However, this was proven to be a bit misleading. Auditor General, Deodat Sharma said in his report that the new government transferred the money in the account tot the consolidated fund. The AG said that over $1.9B was transferred.
However, much more was expected to be in the account. So it is possible that Harmon’s statement was relative based on what was expected to be in the account.This is what the Auditor General had to say, “Compensation Agreements were entered into between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Co-operative Republic of Guyana that provided for the cancellation of the oil debt in compensation for white rice and paddy under the Guyana/Venezuela Rice Trade agreements.
