Ashni Singh responsible for empty PetroCaribe Fund – Finance Minister
July 27, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under News, Source
As the blame game continues, Finance Minister Winston Jordan said that he recently had cause to inform the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic that it was their custodian of public monies, Dr. Ashni Singh, who is solely responsible for the state of the PetroCaribe fund.
This was after General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Clement Rohee told him bluntly during an exchange on the 2015 budget, that his government’s contention of the account being empty is propaganda at its best.
Jordan said that at any time and any place he was ready to “show Rohee the evidence” to justify the statements made by the Granger administration that the fund was empty.
The Finance Minister told Kaieteur News, “Everyone (the past administration) was concentrating on rice production but rice farmers were not being paid. When we assumed office, we found that there was no money in the PetroCaribe account and Rohee told me it is propaganda. I told him I’m prepared to show him the documents on the state of the account.”
Rohee was part of an opposition team that included former Ministers Robeson Benn, Pauline Sukhai and Juan Edghill and member of the Executive Committee, Dharamkumar Seeraj, which met with the Finance Minister last Friday.
Jordan continued, “Seeraj came in late and just wanted to explain that the Guyana Rice Development Board had nothing to do with the current state of the account. I told him he was correct. The management of the funds had to do with the former Minister of Finance (Dr. Ashni Singh) who would have authorized transactions from that account. He is the one who gave permission for certain transactions. He is responsible.”
The Finance Minister said that he even told the delegation that officials in Venezuela informed him on his most recent visit that the past administration was told that the Spanish-Speaking country would not be renewing the oil for rice barter agreement under the PetroCaribe deal. After that note, Jordan said that the opposition did not push further. He added, “I gave him all the history on this matter. We have nothing to hide”
PetroCaribe is an oil alliance between a number of Caribbean states and Venezuela to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment. The alliance was launched almost a decade ago in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela.
Under the agreement, Guyana was required to establish the PetroCaribe Fund, pay part of the money for oil up front and the rest over a number of years at a minimal interest rate.
In October 2009, Guyana signed a special trade agreement with that neighbouring country to supply paddy and rice valued at US$18M. To pay the rice farmers and millers participating in the programme, the Government of Guyana is authorized to deduct monies from the fund and disburse through the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB).
It was on June 11, last, that Minister of State, Joseph Harmon disclosed to the media that the new administration discovered that billions of dollars were missing from the PetroCaribe Fund.
Harmon had blamed the situation on a “casual” and “callous” administration of the fund by the previous Government. The “fund is almost bankrupt… there is just nothing in it,” he had said.
Given the state of affairs with the Fund, the coalition Government is now swiftly moving to revamp the management of the rice industry to ensure new markets are found and the situation is regularized.
With there being no monies in the PetroCaribe Fund to pay rice farmers, the Granger administration was recently forced to dip into the Consolidated Fund for US$9M to clear off some of the debt owed to them. Another US$8M still remains outstanding to clear off the total debt, according to Jordan.
He had said that when one takes this unforeseen expense into consideration along with the $3.8B bailout that was granted to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), which is already $90B in debt, “government has been hit with a double whammy.”
The recent payments to the rice sector is also part of the reason the Finance Minister said that this industry along with the sugar sector poses the biggest threat to the APNU+AFC’s 100 day plan and it is already just over 60 days since the Granger administration has been in office.
