The 2022 audited accounts of Ministries/Departments/Regions

In last week’s article, we referred to the exchanges between Chartered Accountant and Attorney-at-law Christopher Ram, and the Attorney General as to whether the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) has been overstated to the extent of ExxonMobil’s subsidiaries tax liabilities that are required to be paid over to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). With the kind permission of Mr. Ram, we reproduce the two flow charts he had produced to explain the movement of funds for the benefit of readers who may still be unclear on the matter.

We had stated that there is no doubt that the balance on the NRF account includes Exxon’s income and corporation tax liabilities since there is no evidence that payments were made to the GRA. The NRF Act 2021 specifically states that all withdrawals from the NRF must be paid over to the Consolidated Fund to be used only to finance: (i) national development priorities, including any initiative aimed at realizing an inclusive green economy; and (ii) essential projects that are directly related to ameliorating the effects of a major disaster. It has been argued that the net effect would have been the same had payments been made to the GRA which is required to transfer all tax collections to the Consolidated Fund. However, there are no short cuts in accounting; no netting off of transactions which is a fundamental principle in accounting; and one must be prepared to “take the long road” in the interest of transparency and proper accountability. That apart, the NRF and the Consolidated Fund are separate and distinct, and they serve different purposes.