Bynoe not qualified to head Energy Dept.; removal likely – Jagdeo

Because his qualifications are not in the energy sector, Head of the Energy Department, Dr. Mark Bynoe, will likely be removed from his post by the government. Revealing this and other details was Vice President (VP), Bharrat Jagdeo, during an engagement with the press last Friday.

“Dr. Bynoe is still there [at the Department of Energy],” Dr. Jagdeo said to the media, “but I am going to be frank with you, I am not sure whether he will be there as the head, given that his experience has never been in that sector. I cannot say whether he will be retained in the area because his entire working experience is in environment.”

Notably, Dr. Bynoe is a graduate of the University of East Anglia where he obtained his doctoral degree in Economics, specialising in Resource and Trade Economics and the University of Edinburgh from which he graduated with a Master’s of Science degree in Resource Management.
He completed his Bachelor’s of Arts Degree, majoring in Geography and Economics (Double Major) at the University of Guyana and his Post Graduate Diploma from the same institution in Development Studies. Dr. Bynoe has over 25 years of experience in academia, more specifically, at the University of Guyana where he functioned in the capacity of the Director, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES) being mainly responsible for the creation of the SEES and the establishment of postgraduate programmes between the Universities of Guyana, Suriname and the West Indies.

Even without holding the requisite qualifications, Dr. Bynoe was on August 1, 2018, appointed the inaugural Director for the Department of Energy by the Government of Guyana. In this new portfolio Dr. Bynoe is expected to develop the Department for the effective management of the country’s new found oil and gas resources, while simultaneously optimising the benefits to be derived from these resources for all of the Republic.

Meanwhile, VP Jagdeo went on to say that former Head of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams, remains off of the job. He pointed out, however, that the government is assessing whether it can fit Dr. Adams and his skills into the new architecture for the managing of the energy sector.