Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has assured that the majority of the US$743 million spent on local content in 2024 has gone to Guyanese companies. He made this statement during his press conference on Thursday while addressing concerns about potential middlemen benefiting from loopholes.
Since the enactment of the Local Content Law in 2021 the government had vowed to revise the legislation after several concerns were raised, including fronting.
During his 2025 budget speech, Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh disclosed that US$743 million was spent on local content in 2024. Giving the breakdown of that sum, he stated that US$612 million was expended on the 40 service areas designated for Guyanese companies.
In his response, the Vice President said, “Yeah, so right now, there’s 700 odd million dollars that we speak of. I’m happy that it happened. It’s a substantial sum of money, nearly $150 billion of procurement opportunities going to Guyanese companies. So, these are all Guyanese companies based on the definition and what they presented, because they got the certificate of local ownership.”
Jagdeo acknowledged that while all companies receiving funds are certified as local, some may be structured in a way that allows them to act as fronts. However, he assured that investigations into such arrangements are ongoing.
The Local Content Act designates 40 categories of services exclusively for Guyanese businesses with varying targets. If foreign companies wish to participate in these areas, they must have a Guyanese partner who holds 51 percent ownership. Despite these provisions, the Secretariat has identified attempts by foreign companies to circumvent the law to gain access to these reserved areas, thereby undermining the Act’s spirit and intent.
“Some of them, I can’t estimate, some of them maybe engage in policies where the way they structured that they are front so that has to be an ongoing investigation. We’ve identified a few loopholes that we intend to close when we go back to reform the local content law,” he said.
To this end, the VP assures that the bulk of the money went to authentic Guyanese companies.
