Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT will be amending the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica
Act to allow for the administration of the PetroCaribe Fund.
Dr. Omar Davies, Minister of Finance and Planning, made the announcement yesterday in the House of Represen-tatives in response to calls from the Opposition for closer monitoring of the fund.
He said a board of directors headed by the Financial Secretary would be in charge of how the fund would be managed.
The minister said he has already taken submissions to the Cabinet, and that drafting instructions have been given to the Chief Parliamentary Counsel for the act to be amended.
He said before the end of the financial year he would be tabling a ministry paper, which will outline how the funds would be spent.
Earlier on, Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Audley Shaw, blasted the Government on the First Supplementary Estimates, which were later approved by the House.
Mr. Shaw accused the Government of concealing information in relation to expenditure in the budget.
"... Neither this big book, which is the annual budget, nor the smaller book, which is the Supplementary Estimates, neither of these books no longer convey the full extent of expenditure taking place in the country," he said.
He then cited the PetroCaribe Fund as one such example of concealment.
Said Shaw: "We are not talking about chicken feed money, we are not talking about petty cash here, we are talking about a fund that when it matures will yield amounts of $14 and $20 billion per year."
He also accused the Government of having alternative motives for the fund, and noted that expenditure under the fund had already started.
This was admitted to by Dr. Davies, who said a number of roads would be fixed using money from the fund.
