The CARI­COM Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CP­SO) has apol­o­gised to the peo­ple of Guyana for the “me­dia spec­ta­cle” caused by the unau­tho­rised leak of an in­ter­nal email which raised con­cerns about that coun­try’s new lo­cal con­tent law.

The law, which was signed by the pres­i­dent of Guyana Dr Mo­hammed Ir­fan Ali on De­cem­ber 31 2021, pri­ori­tis­es Guyanese na­tion­als and Guyanese com­pa­nies in the pro­cure­ment of goods and ser­vices.

It lays out 40 ser­vices that oil com­pa­nies and their sub-con­trac­tors must pro­cure from Guyanese com­pa­nies and Guyanese na­tion­als by the end of 2022.

A leaked email from the CP­SO’s cur­rent chair­man Ger­vase Warn­er stat­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee agreed that the leg­is­la­tion ap­pears to vi­o­late sev­er­al pro­vi­sions of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.

Mem­bers of the Guyanese busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty ex­pressed out­rage by this.

And be­cause Warn­er is al­so the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the re­gion­al con­glom­er­ate Massy Hold­ings which is head­quar­tered in T&T, this coun­try has been tak­ing some flack.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the CP­SO stat­ed that its at­ten­tion has been drawn to nu­mer­ous ex­changes in the Guyana Me­dia cen­tred on rou­tine in­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion em­a­nat­ing from Warn­er af­ter the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing held on Jan­u­ary 11.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, that com­mu­ni­ca­tion ap­peared to have been leaked with­out the ben­e­fit of any ex­pla­na­tion of con­text and in­tent. As is some­times the case when such leaks oc­cur, there has been much mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The CP­SO stat­ed that its’ ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing con­sid­ered sev­er­al mat­ters on the agen­da, in­clud­ing Guyana’s re­cent pas­sage of Act No 18, 2021, Lo­cal Con­tent Act 2021.

“The meet­ing reached a con­sen­sus, in keep­ing with its man­date, to seek con­sul­ta­tions with the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent of the Co­op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana and de­pend­ing on the out­come, to raise the mat­ter with the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at. Suresh Be­har­ry, the on­ly Guyanese Di­rec­tor cur­rent­ly on the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee and the on­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of an ac­tive Guyanese Com­pa­ny with­in the CP­SO, was asked to be an in­ter­locu­tor be­tween the CP­SO and the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent of the Co­op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive is­sue,” it stat­ed.

“That the in­ter­nal CP­SO com­mu­ni­ca­tion penned by the CP­SO Chair­man, Mr Ger­vase Warn­er was con­tained in an email which, in its sig­na­ture block, de­scribed Mr Warn­er’s po­si­tion as pres­i­dent and group CEO of Massy rather than as Chair­man of the CP­SO was an un­for­tu­nate er­ror,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Warn­er act­ed un­der his re­mit as the chair­man of the CP­SO, and not in his sub­stan­tive po­si­tion as pres­i­dent and group chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Massy. De­spite this er­ror, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion clear­ly and ir­refutably refers to pro­posed CP­SO ac­tions that are ap­pro­pri­ate­ly with­in its man­date and the var­i­ous lev­els at which ur­gent con­sul­ta­tions should be sought to ad­dress any pos­si­ble is­sues re­gard­ing the leg­is­la­tion,” it stat­ed.

The CP­SO stat­ed that “the pub­lic at­ten­tion which this mat­ter has at­tract­ed, and the cross-bor­der con­cerns that arise for the pri­vate sec­tor, are ev­i­dence of the im­por­tance of the CP­SO in pro­vid­ing agency to cross-bor­der pri­vate sec­tor con­cerns.”

“The CP­SO, does not claim to be the ar­biters of right and wrong on mat­ters which ap­pear to sub­tract from set­tled rights em­a­nat­ing from the RTC. The CP­SO, how­ev­er, has been charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to raise is­sues and seek con­sul­ta­tion and pos­si­ble res­o­lu­tion of such on mat­ters per­tain­ing to the full im­ple­men­ta­tion of the CSME,” it stat­ed.

“While the CP­SO as­sumes no li­a­bil­i­ty for the unau­tho­rised leak of our in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee com­mu­ni­ca­tion, we do feel it our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to apol­o­gise to the peo­ple of Guyana for the ‘me­dia spec­ta­cle’ to which this has ap­par­ent­ly con­tributed. Please note that the con­cerns raised re­flect the views of the CP­SO and not that of any spe­cif­ic mem­ber com­pa­ny,” the re­lease stat­ed.