Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat
Meanwhile, Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat said the signing of the contract finally puts to rest claims that the government was not willing to conduct the audits and that it could not be done since the stipulated two-year window for auditing had elapsed.
“There was sensational news in the media that the government was not interested in these audits and had missed the timeline but today we have to be honest and fair and give credit where credit is due,” Bharrat said as he pointed out that the audit will cover the period during which the former APNU+AFC government was in office.
The Natural Resources Minister said it was an easy option to hire an international company a year ago to do the audits but he explained that it was important in the vein of supporting local content to build local capacity in this area.
He also noted that it is costing the government less to hire this consortium of local companies to conduct the audits.
Bharrat reiterated that the cost recovery audits will also address validation of the government’s profit oil shares.
According to Bharrat, Haynes and the team submitted a bid for over US$1 million to audit the three years of activity but after negotiation that was reduced to over US$700, 000 at the time of the award.
