There are no more obstacles for the activation of a Savings and Stabilization Fund that will be armed with strict rules to keep people from misappropriating the money from this fund. But the rules could turn out to be paper tigers as there is no legislation to guarantee transparency and public access to the financial records of this fund.

President Chandrikapersad Santokhi had previously stated that “these riches would belong to the people of Suriname.” In other countries the citizens have unrestricted access to the workings and management of such funds but the Surinamese version of it will be shrouded in secrecy. Everybody with access to this fund will have to stick to the non-disclosure policy expect when the law compels him or her to share the information with the public. In countries such as Norway public funds are monitored by the public. The Norwegian state fund publishes reports with information about investments, withdrawals and deposits. But Suriname currently lacks legislation aimed at anchoring transparency of governance in the constitution. This means that the people currently lack the legal tools that would grant citizens access to information about the fund that will contain money generated by the nation’s crude oil sector.