Gov­ern­ment has dis­missed re­ports that the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) is with­out a func­tion­ing board of di­rec­tors.

“The re­al­i­ty is, con­trary to the wild spec­u­la­tion in the ar­ti­cle, the va­can­cies cre­at­ed by re­tir­ing mem­bers of the board of the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund, have been filled and the req­ui­site in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment and/or re-ap­point­ment to the board were made in May 2019.

“Fur­ther, Sec­tion 5 of the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund Act states that the board shall meet at such times and places as may be nec­es­sary or ex­pe­di­ent for the ef­fi­cient per­for­mance of its func­tions save that the board shall meet at least once in every two suc­ces­sive months,” Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said in a state­ment.

He added that the HSF has “pro­duced ex­cel­lent re­sults over the last 3 ? years. In 2019, the net as­set val­ue in the HSF crossed the US$6 bil­lion mark and is now at al­most US$6.1 bil­lion. And this is notwith­stand­ing two with­drawals from the fund to­tal­ing al­most US$600 mil­lion with­in the last few years.”

Im­bert said that the last board meet­ing of the fund was held last month and the HSF “is thus well with­in the pre­scribed two-month in­ter­val for meet­ings.”

He said in ad­di­tion, “and most im­por­tant­ly, un­der Sec­tion 10 of the HSF Act, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the man­age­ment of the fund has been del­e­gat­ed to the Cen­tral Bank who man­ages the as­sets and oth­er re­sources of the fund in ac­cor­dance with the act.

“The ab­sence of a quo­rum for a short while there­fore can­not pos­si­bly af­fect the “func­tion­ing” of the fund or the in­vest­ments in the fund, as this sen­sa­tion­al­ist ar­ti­cle er­ro­neous­ly im­plies.

“In par­tic­u­lar, the Gov­ern­ment has not ap­plied to the HSF for a with­draw­al with­in the last month, nor has there been a glob­al fi­nan­cial melt­down that would war­rant the ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion of the board,” Im­bert said.

The HSF is a sov­er­eign wealth fund that was es­tab­lished in March 2007. It was pre­vi­ous­ly known as the In­ter­im Rev­enue Sta­bi­liza­tion Fund, which was set up in 2000.

The HSF is fi­nanced through a min­i­mum of 60 per cent of the to­tal ex­cess pe­tro­le­um rev­enues that must be de­posit­ed to the fund dur­ing a fi­nan­cial year.