Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, SC on Wednesday pointed out that there were enough consultations on the Local Content Bill ahead of their passage in the National Assembly.
He was at the time responding to a statement issued by the Guyana Bar Association earlier in the day, which contended that they were not given sufficient time nor were they adequately consulted on the Local Content Bill.
“I note with deep with deep regret the statement that purported to emanate from the Bar Council of the Guyana Bar Association alleging that they did not receive adequate consultation on this Bill…my understanding is that the Bar Association of Guyana was one of the most consulted organisations,” Nandlall argued.
According to him, the Bar Association “participated for several months, in several engagements which I consider to be consultations. I was with them at the Pegasus Hotel along the Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Dr. Ashni Singh and Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat, in a consultative engagement with a number of local organisations. I recalled that the Bar Association had a representative at that engagement.”
In this regard, the Attorney General said he is puzzled by the statement issued by the Bar Association.
“Only yesterday (Tuesday), the Bar Association was consulting with our team, so, I don’t know where or how they can come up with this idea that they have not been consulted.”
One of the issues raised by the Bar Association comments made Nandlall during the debate. According to the organisation, his remarks gave the impression that “Guyanese Legal Practitioners do not have the capacity and or are not qualified to handle matters which he described as “technical legal documents” and “joint venture agreements”, as a seeming justification for the target of 90% instead of the requested 100% by the Bar Association.”
Responding to this, Nandlall explained that “we have said repeatedly that 90% is a temporary benchmark that we are setting…I know the Bar Association feels that they know a lot of law and that they can do everything under the sun but as a Government, we have to be careful, these contracts, they are complicated, they’re complexed, they have aberration clauses that are complicated, we do not have the skill to do it in Guyana and I maintained that I don’t know that we have in Guyana 100% competency in relation to all legal matters.”
Meanwhile Bobby Gossai Jr., the Senior Petroleum Coordinator of Ministry of Natural Resources, also explained that the draft Local Content Policy was circulated to all stakeholders since February.
“As the AG has pointed out we have been reaching with the Bar council and Association for quite a number of engagements since March of this year when the draft policy was presented in February… there after the Ministry engage strategic consultation with the different bodies and associations and groups, the Bar Association was one of them.”
“We have ben engaging them since March all the way up to yesterday (Tuesday) on the policy into the draft Bill that we have. In fact, we have received active correspondents from them from April and earlier this month, and again yesterday (Tuesday),” he pointed out.
