New Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Ronald Webster has said that he is seeking respect for the organisation as an independent, rational thinking body and a good broker in times of dispute.
Responding to a question raised by the Stabroek Business regarding the perception that the PSC has become more concerned with not offending the government than with serving as a vigorous advocate for the private sector, Webster said that the PSC will continue “to follow the principle of not who but what is right.”
“The PSC has a cordial relationship with all stakeholders and where there are areas of dispute tends to tell it as it is,” Webster said.
Critics of the PSC, including business owners, have from time-to-time expressed disappointment over what they say is the organisation’s lacklustre representation of business issues in its exchanges with government. However, Webster told Stabroek Business that while he did not have data on such criticisms he was concerned that “one of the unfortunate developments in Guyana is the immature soccer fan mentality –if you do not clap for one team it is immediately assumed you support the other.”
Webster, the long-serving Chief Executive Officer of Caribbean Container Inc. (CCI) alluded to the fact that the PSC works closely with the government and other organisations at the level of the National Competitiveness Strategy and declared that if the Government of Guyana’s position on a trade policy or a security issue coincides with that of the PSC, so be it.
Asked to comment on what he regards as the foremost specific concerns of the PSC, Webster told Stabroek Business that one such concern was with the private sector playing a role in ensuring the continued positive growth, which the country’s economy has shown over the past three years. “For this trend to continue into the future and with it the success of the private sector, there has to be a very significant increase in the creation of quality jobs, a reduction in the migration of skills and more cost effective access to and from export markets,” Webster said. Achieving these goals, the PSC Chairman said, “requires a quantum increase in infrastructural investments” that must come from the external sources, given the limited domestic financial capacity. These, according to the PSC Chairman, “must go hand in hand with much greater emphasis by Guyanese companies on quality management and customer service.”
For the government’s part, Webster told Stabroek Business that he believed that attention should be given to various priority infrastructural projects, including the Demerara Harbour Bridge, dredging the harbour, an expanded international airport, a Georgetown-Lethem road or rail ink and the rehabilitation of interior airstrips.
According to Webster, with the global economy currently under pressure, available investment funds and loans are likely to go to countries that are stable, offer the least risk and have “world-class” independent private sector organisations. “I passionately believe that the PSC, as the unified voice of the private sector to engage and influence policy, has a critical role to play in building investor confidence for the future, while at the same time [be] clearly committed to excellence, good governance and non-political engagement.”
