Local content: About $322M already earned at half-year, thousands hired

With the Local Content law in place, Guyanese companies have earned about US$322 million in the first six months of this year and thousands of people have been hired to provide services in the sector.

This is according to the Director of the Local Content Secretariat, Dr. Martin Pertab, who spoke at a press conference on Tuesday.

Pertab explained that the secretariat calculates the value of local content by figuring out aggregate spending on procurement, employment costs and investments in capacity building.

“As of June 2023, actual expenditure to the 40 carved out areas was somewhere at about US$322 million, 62 per cent of annual target,” Pertab said.

Projections of that spending are detailed in companies’ annual plans. For 2023, it is projected that a total of US$721 million will be earned.

Through Guyana’s 2021 Local Content law, hundreds of Guyanese have benefited from increased access to opportunities carved out specifically for them.

Currently, 40 areas – from transportation to legal services – have been carved out for Guyanese. The law details the percentage requirement of Guyanese that must provide these services in the oil and gas sector.

And with oil companies required to get goods and services from these local companies, Pertab also noted that there has been a growth in hires by local companies. There are about 850 local companies registered with the Secretariat.

And Pertab said about 3,943 Guyanese were hired between June 2022 and June 2023. At the same press conference, Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat said about 6,000 Guyanese are directly involved in the oil and gas sector.