Almost one year after the landmark Local Content Act was passed in the National Assembly, it is undergoing review with the aim of addressing possible gaps, Director of the Local Content Secretariat, Martin Pertab has disclosed.

“Going forward, the intention of the secretariat is to have an open discussion, work with each stakeholder as we strengthen the Local Content Act, and of course close all possible loopholes. The idea is that while we continue to prioritize Guyanese nationals, it must be done in a sustainable manner,” the Director of the Local Content Secretariat said.

Mr Pertab was at the time speaking during the opening ceremony of the Guyana Supplier Forum on Monday at the Leonora Stadium.

The legislation creates special provisions for local companies and citizens to participate in 40 areas in the Oil and Gas Sector, and according to Mr Pertab, over the last 10 months, the Local Content Secretariat has been working to develop the necessary institutional, administrative and monitoring framework to help facilitate implementation the Act.

It was noted that the Local Content Secretariat has developed a portal with the list of all registered companies, along with several guidelines.

“One of those is the procurement and bid evaluation guideline. Under that guideline, companies registered with us, who have a valid Local Content Certificate automatically will gain 5% of the evaluation points during the evaluation process. So, traditionally there are three criteria that companies usually evaluate projects on, one, financial, technical and of course health and safety. So, essentially what we did, we added a fourth category, which is on local content,” he explained.

He pointed out that already, 350 local companies have registered with the Secretariat paving the way for them to be given preferential treatment in the award of contracts within the Oil and Gas Industry.

According to him, the Secretariat is on track to achieving the 500 registered companies target by the end of this year.

He said the Local Content Secretariat is also working with oil and gas companies to ensure Guyanese are given the opportunity to significantly benefit from the Petroleum Sector.

Based on preliminary assessments, local content earnings for 2022 have already surpassed G$129B.

“Under the Local Content Act there is another element that focuses capacity building and recruiting process. So, the prioritisation of Guyanese is not only limited to companies providing goods and services to the industry, it also extends into the recruiting process. Based on our annual plan… 836 new hires were estimated for this year, and this is from March to December. Based on the half year plan…that figure is now 1, 125 new jobs, and of the 1,125 new jobs, 858 were filled by Guyanese…taking the total amount of Guyanese in the oil and gas industry to 3,689,” he said.

It was noted that almost 80% of the Guyanese, who were hired recently, are holding technical positions. He boasted that not only did the Secretariat achieve its annual target of new hires in just six months but exceeded that amount by around 34.5%.

He said initially, contractors and sub-contractors had committed to expend around US$1.8M on training, however, by the end of June of this year, actual expenditure amounted to around US$3.3M, an increase of around 83%.

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