The traditionally conservative nature of local umbrella business organisations sometimes makes sound and effective reporting on matters of business and the economy particularly challenging since issues and questions often arise outside the scope of information that is provided in the reports that are made public by those organisations.
Much the same is true with some state entities whose operations have a bearing on the ability of the media to effectively analyze the business environment. It is difficult if not impossible, for example, to extract any information out of entities like the Bureau of Statistics and the Bank of Guyana beyond that which appears in their published reports.
While it is easier – in some cases – to persuade individual business houses to provide interviews that deal with their own enterprises within the framework of the wider economy, engaging in relatively free and open discussion on issues that affect their operations, many others decline to speak with the media for fear, they sometimes say, of being misrepresented.
Quite a few of them concede, however, that their real concern reposes in the danger of sticking out like sore thumbs – so to speak – particularly in circumstances where what they might have to say may not meet with official approval. Value-Added Tax (VAT) and tax reform are two issues about which business owners obviously have opinions, but which they will not express publicly. Most businessmen and women with whom this newspaper has spoken have expressed the view, first, that the rate of VAT should be lowered and, second, that there has been far too much dithering on tax reform.
Few if any, however, have agreed to say so on the record. They have borne witness to various examples of caustic – sometimes downright hostile – responses by government to views that do not coincide with their own.
It is probably not by accident, for example, that none of the local umbrella business organisations has issued what one might call a comprehensive assessment of the 2012 budget, which candidly explores its implications for the country as a whole and for the particular sector(s) that they represent. Those that we have seen are, to say the least, vague and in one particular instance, careful to adopt a posture that seeks to give no political offence. Clearly, it is a matter of doing no more than going through the motions for appearances’ sake and this does the image of those organizations as independent private sector entities little or no good. More than that the posture of these organisations makes it difficult for the media to proffer an informed perspective on just how the private sector is thinking.
In sum, the whole affair resembles a game in which saying very little or nothing at all is the safest position to take since while, on the one hand, you gain no plaudits for your insights, you certainly cannot make any enemies for saying nothing.
At a recent media briefing during which he released the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (GCCI) 2012 Attitudinal Survey, Association President Clinton Urling alluded to difficulties faced in persuading members to participate in the survey notwithstanding the fact that the outcomes of the exercise were silent on the identity of the respondents. Indeed, while the survey itself was a commendable initiative one wonders whether, in many instances, the number of respondents was sufficient to cause a definitive conclusion to be arrived at.
Not much has happened since the start of 2012 to lead us to believe that private sector umbrella organisations and the business community as a whole is likely to adopt a more liberal posture towards the dissemination of information into the public domain. As one businessman (who had declined to respond to a question on the 2012 budget put to him by this newspaper) put it, “as long as there is the perception that openness and plain talk is likely to meet with official disapproval, things are pretty much likely to stay the way they are.” From the perspective of this newspaper that is not a very reassuring comment.
