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The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) has taken note of recurrent contract bundling practices within Guyana’s petroleum sector and wishes to express its disapproval of this practice.Contract bundling, which is the consolidation of the procurement of various goods and services under one contract, has seemingly become a practice of companies within the petroleum sector.

Contracts are being solicited for expression of interest (EOI) and requests for information (RFI) under one umbrella by various players in the industry. The sum-effect of this practice is that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are unable to compete in the space since the ‘bundling’ practice will set an artificial barrier to their participation.

Apart from its obvious hindrance to MSMEs wishing to service the sector, the Chamber believes that contract bundling works against the spirit and intent of Guyana’s Local Content Act (2021) thereby defeating the objectives of the Act as it relates to private sector development.

The Chamber calls on the Local Content Secretariat of the Ministry of Natural Resources to examine this practice and its harmful effects on the full utilization of the Local Content Act and, by extension, private sector development in Guyana.

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