(Barbados Nation) – Ambassador to Caricom MP Denis Kellman, wants to see pan-Caribbean companies take the region’s productive sectors into the export markets.
He was speaking against the backdrop of a recent spate of mergers between large regional multi-nation firms, especially from Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
“It is clear to me that we cannot any longer depend on the private sector to do it,” Kellman told the House of Assembly late Tuesday night during the Budget debate, “and that the governments of the Caribbean have to do it and then pass it on to some company [for them] to run with it.”
Kellman, the St Lucy representative, said it made no sense for Guyana with all of its natural resources, to be exposed to Venezuelans, Brazilians and Chinese forcing out its people, while the resources were being raped, while the rest of the region allowed a brain and labour drain from that Caricom state.
“We have to come up with an account where all the Caribbean leaders come together and create a capital account to reap and invest in the resources of Guyana because all of the resources of Guyana have export potential,” he said.
“What we need in the Caribbean is to tap that export potential for the Caribbean. We need to invest money in Guyana to keep the Guyanese at home to find some work at home, so that they too, can share in the gold and all the other resources, instead of us trying to rape Guyana on our behalf, when we don’t have [anything] to offer the people of the Caribbean but Guyana has everything to offer the Caribbean.”
Kellman said he was calling on Caribbean leaders to recognise that if the region were to move forward then it must do so by looking into each country to see what export potential was there and getting the resources to harness those exports and putting them on the export market.
“I am not saying that if we have sweet potatoes in Barbados that we should stop planting sweet potatoes because it is better to plant sweet potatoes in Guyana,” he added.
“What I’m saying [is] that we continue to grow our sweet potatoes in Barbados for our local markets and the other countries, but see the market in Guyana as having the capacity for the export market and earning foreign exchange for the region.”
Kellman said the issue today was not just about revenue, but about foreign exchange.