Dear Editor,
The world financial crisis will come to an end. When this happens and economies settle, the scramble for limited investment dollars will begin in earnest. Sadly Guyana will have more catching up to do than most other developing countries, having repeatedly shot itself in the leg as an investment host. Battle weary foreign direct investors will be inclined to look the other way from the investment enigma that is Guyana today. In any index established to measure investor friendliness in an ocean of over 200 investment host countries Guyana will appear as a bottom feeder. In the race for part of the large pot of investment dollars Guyana’s performance is marginal and relegated to that of an ‘also ran’ country contestant.
Yet, the new economic era when it dawns will have the power to bring Guyana out of poverty. But first Guyana will have to reinvent itself as a caring and friendly investment host. In all normal countries the government of the day has the sacred duty of attracting and keeping investors whether the investor is classified as local, diaspora or foreign. There is an attitude and discipline that informs the continuous process of marketing Guyana and this is precisely where the country disappoints and lags behind many nations in the region and elsewhere. It follows that to reinvent itself Guyana must look seriously at its track record as an investment host particularly over the last 2 decades.
Improving attitude and discipline in treating with inward investment does not require rocket science. Those responsible for handling inward investments need only to call on their powers of observation and common sense or copy from established investor-friendly countries of which there are many in the region. Investors do not want to wait 3 years for a critical decision that should be made in 3 weeks or 3 months max. They do not want to be sent from pillar to post or on an endless merry-go-round only to find that they’re standing in the same spot after considerable time, money and energy have been spent. Nor do investors want to be lied to routinely or at all. As a rule, investors do not want to be greeted by bureaucratic regulations that tie them up in knots or face unrealistic expectations that they will be willing to develop Guyana’s economy, with all the associated risks, while eking out a tiny percentage of profit here or there. It’s simply not worth their while.
Chronic delays, corruption, and seemingly arbitrary or capricious custom duty assessments keep foreign investors at bay.
Land acquisition is another tortuous and intimidating process with an obsolete legal framework, unenforceable zoning laws and an inefficient bureaucracy. For a country with such vast acres of uninhabited land, investors tend to be alarmed at how scarce and highly priced land is. Our judicial system needs to be properly streamlined and modernised.
Investors expect governments to recognize and act on their key duty in regulating their economies so as to establish and enforce the rules of the game. No investor wants to employ his own private army to protect his personnel, property or assets. They did in Dodge City, Tombstone and Gun Hill during the Wild West era but are less inclined today in 2009 Guyana.
Courts of law must be ready to enforce contracts and settle disputes promptly, fairly and without political interference. No investor will want to invest here when it faces the risk that frivolous or unfounded lawsuits could tie it up for years in slow-moving courts. It simply cannot afford to have its capital and operations held hostage by court injunctions through all the long months awaiting a full hearing of the case in court.
Investors expect government to hire more judges, to pay them more, and to streamline the administrative systems in the courts to make them work better.
Investors could be made more welcome. The way forward must be to transform not just the prevailing mindset that investors need us more than we need them, but also the institutions intended to market Guyana and attract foreign direct investment. Go-Invest now does a better job than erstwhile, but is merely one of a clutch of agencies or authorities dealing with investment.
These institutions must be transformed so that, instead of focusing almost entirely on benefits they imagine the investor will easily derive from placing his investment here, they focus instead on some new insights into the competitive environment and on new legal obligations to acknowledge a reciprocity of obligation. Moreover, the work must begin at the top.
Yours faithfully,
F Hamley Case
