Chastened perhaps by these experiences, the private sector self-assessment of its own performance, either as individual enterprises or, on the whole, as a sector, very often omits difficulties and challenges which, were they to be taken account of, would present a wholly different picture of their operations. Informed analyses of major private sector entities must, in most cases, await publication of their annual reports and even then the information contained in the reports is usually confined mostly to statistical data on matters of profit and loss. Little mention is made of what, quite often, are serious difficulties that impact on their growth and profitability. The exception to this general ‘rule’ may sometimes occur at a public ceremony held to mark the opening of a new plant or some other important company development where the presiding private sector official may venture to suggest that the accomplishment being marked by the ceremony might assume even greater significance if one or another impediment deemed to be remediable through government intervention can be removed. Comments of that nature in the celebratory atmosphere of the commissioning of a new multi-million dollar private sector plant, for example, are usually deemed much ‘safer’ than if they were made at a media conference convened specifically for that purpose.
One exception to this general private sector ‘rule’ of enduring constraints without murmur has been the annual protestations by Banks DIH Ltd. Chairman Clifford Reis over the impact of high taxes on beer and the now out of control culture of smuggling of alcoholic beverages into Guyana on the profitability of the beverage company. Banks DIH. Ltd, of course, is not the only local company that is affected by smuggling though the available evidence suggests that alcoholic beverages comprise a large percentage of the total volume of goods smuggled into the country, which, of course, provides Mr. Reis with good reason to complain. One suspects, even in the absence of reliable supporting statistics that the incidence of smuggling has created a horrendously lopsided playing field between smuggled goods that evade the considerable weight of taxation and those that are either locally manufactured or legitimately imported.
That notwithstanding, the efforts of the private sector to ‘take on’ the issue of smuggling in a planned, sustained and aggressive manner appear feeble when compared with the magnitude of the problem, though, if you were to privately engage some businessmen whose enterprises are affected by smuggling they would tell you – off the record, of course – that they believe that the problem persists largely on account of a seeming lack of official will to staunch the flow of illegal imports though it has to be admitted that government has had to face its own difficulties in rooting out a practice that has long been firmly rooted in a highly organized culture of corruption.
Smuggling apart, there are other issues that continue to trouble the private sector; issues like high corporate taxes – which the Private Sector Commission has again promised will be high on its agenda for discourse with government this year – and its impact on private sector growth and expansion; Customs administration of official imports; the impact of unreliable electricity supply on private sector productivity and the consequential rendering of locally produced goods uncompetitive and the security-related challenges associated with the practice of concealment of illegal drugs in selected food exports and the implications of this practice for access by local goods to international markets.
From a small business perspective there is the issue of official sloth in putting into effect the provisions of the Small Business Act beyond the creation of a Small Business Council that exists in name only and the interminable delay in the creation of mechanisms, including loan mechanisms, to set micro and small business on a viable path.
Against this backdrop of unresolved issues between government and the private sector one is inclined to raise questions about the effectiveness of what both sides continually insist is a viable and working partnership. Publicly, both the government and the private sector would doubtless insist that most of these issues have now found a home for discourse and resolution with the framework of the National Competitiveness Strategy (NCS) though, privately, a few well-placed private sector officials concede that the magnitude of some of the problems require far more immediate attention than is afforded through the bureaucracy of the NCS.
What then about the role of the media in first, keeping the important issue of private sector development in the public domain and, secondly, providing a platform through which aspects of an energetic public/private sector debate on those issues that impact on private sector development can be enjoined. The problem here is that neither the government nor the private sector, as a whole, appears to have any great appetite for sustained public discourse on troublesome issues.
In fairness, each of the three major private sector umbrella bodies – the Private Sector Commission, the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry – have, to varying degrees, been open to speaking with this newspaper on private sector issues. Sometimes, depending on the issues, the discourses are guarded. On other occasions some of the private sector leaders are far more open. None of the heads of the private sector agencies, however, have as yet responded positively to our invitation either to write the occasional column in the newspaper or to support the creation of a weekly Business Briefs column based on snippets of important information from their member enterprises compiled by the respective umbrella organizations. These, it should be noted, are common practices that form part of the relationship between the media and the private sector in various other countries.
Some private sector officials say openly that they do not trust the media to accurately and adequately represent their point-of-view though one such official told this newspaper frankly that the real issue is not one of mistrust of the media by private sector officials but mistrust of themselves insofar as, in many instances, they cannot trust what they say publicly not to give offence to government.
In responding to assertions by private sector officials that media functionaries need to be better oriented on business issues we have also raised with a senior private sector official the possibility of engagements between media houses and private sector umbrella organizations that can serve both as orientation fora and as occasions for off-the-record background briefings on important issues. Such a forum is yet to materialize though we do not necessarily blame the private sector for this particular circumstance.
The experience of this newspaper is that, by and large. The private sector wariness about treating with the media has more to do with its wariness of the risk of official admonition than with anything else. Sometimes, some officials seek refuge in the prerogative of personal anonymity a practice which no newspaper worth its salt can endure unendingly lest its credibility be called into question though, of course, newspapers are at liberty to indulge ‘sources’ whatever criticisms they might attract in cases where the information that is forthcoming is sufficiently important and disclosure of the source sufficiently attended by consequences.
The private sector may of course argue that the kind of openness that allows for a frank and free encounter with the media is fraught with what they consider to be unacceptable risks. Some of the scenarios that have been represented to this newspaper extend into visions of the most bizarre official reprisals for talking out of turn. In the final analysis, however, the private sector and the media must fashion ways of creating a more open relationship since, in the final analysis the causes of both media freedom and the assertion of its status as the engine of growth in the society can be usefully served by such a relationship.
