The perception that African Guyanese are not disposed to owning businesses is a myth and must be done away with, according to former Finance Minister Carl Greenidge, who says the flawed education system is partly responsible for the problem.
Greenidge made the remark during his presentation at the Conference on the State of Black Africans in Guyana, organised at African Cultural and Development Association’s headquarters at Thomas Lands two Sundays ago.
Greenidge believes the need to refute the perception is especially urgent, considering the high unemployment rate and the need of persons to find sources of income.
He said that despite national statistics, which suggest that unemployment in Guyana is around 17% to 20%, around 40% of Guyanese have not been able to find employment or have been unemployed for some time. Factors which affect one’s ability to find employment, he said, includes gender, education and government policies, but he added that African Guyanese find it especially difficult to find employment.
African Guyanese, he said, have traditionally found employment in public service, but the downsizing of this sector, coupled with the unequal access to jobs in the public sector has created a problematic situation.
He said that as a result of the unemployment realities, which are not limited to African Guyanese, establishing businesses has become a pre-occupation. Many low-income initiatives, including food stalls and other such activities, have emerged as African entrepreneurs attempt to better their livelihoods.
But Greenidge said that there is much rumble, even among African Guyanese, that the race lacks the capacity to successfully run a business. Furthermore, he said, it is even argued that Africans do not tend to have an interest in business or entrepreneurship.
“This could not be further from the case,” Greenidge, however, argued.
Recalling what obtained in New Amsterdam when he was a boy, Greenidge said that many of the successful pharmacies, cycle shops, and other successful companies were owned by African Guyanese. He added that even the employees of many private companies, such as insurance companies, were of African descent.
Further reinforcing Greenidge’s example, Jonathan Adams, General Secretary of the All African Council, said that that slaves who were freed in Guyana successfully bought sprawling estates with monies which they had saved. A few villages, including Buxton and Plaisance, Adams said, were bought at the sum of $2.5 million. He went on to explain that while the amount seems small, this amount in the 1930s, when the villages were bought, would come up to $1.3 trillion today.
He added that this was just a fraction of the business ventures engaged in by the former slaves, since a total of 138 properties were bought. Such decisions, he said, could not have been made without critical thinking and planning.
‘Flawed education system’
Against this background, Greenidge said any suggestion that African Guyanese have an inherent disinterest in business does not make sense.
Instead, he said, the difficulties associated with the perception of African Guyanese in business stems, partially, from a flawed education system. Greenidge said that the education system is supposed to function in such a way that it gears children to do whatever it is they have the propensity to do. He said that the education system should be teaching students about the value of business and what is required to be an entrepreneur. “This is not being done,” he argued. “The tools to exploit a market are the things that should be concentrated on,” he added.
Further, he said that it may be especially difficult for a person who has always been in “wage employment” to adapt to the different challenges of running a business. Therefore, he said, the same practices employed in running a household are usually employed in running a business. This is detrimental for business, Greenidge said.
Noting a common mistake made by African businessmen, he said that that most of the startup capital is depleted in the acquisition of land and other facilities, while very little is left to supplement the businesses’ operations subsequent to startup. These mistakes though, Greenidge said, are not the results of any inherent disadvantage, but lack of experience. Pricing, procurement of materials and goods, as well as familiarising one’s self with contractual processes are some areas where problems can be encountered when experience is lacking.
Greenidge said that a wealth of knowledge in resource management and funding were made available to African businessmen during the 1970s while he was a Planning Officer at the Ministry of Finance. This assistance, he said, helped many businesses attain the success they are seeing now.
In addition, he said that in 1977, support was provided by USAID, which helped organise the facilitation of instructions in contract reading and tender bidding, which also benefitted many businesses.
Many of the businesses today, he said, may argue that their success is a result of their hard work and determination, but Greenidge insisted that while this may be true, the work done by the government and USAID also played a significant role.
Value of land ownership
Pronouncing on a separate matter, Greenidge said that African Guyanese seem to no longer realise the value of owning land. Many of the villages in Guyana, he said, were bought and inhabited by people of African descent, but now, except for maybe two instances, there are hardly any villages which are inhabited predominantly by African Guyanese.
Meanwhile, he said, landownership by Indo-Guyanese continues to soar. Greenidge said though, that some of the reasons which led to the sale or the abandonment of land by Africans had nothing to do with a lack of value. He said that much of the land which was owned by Africans lacked proper drainage and irrigation systems, as opposed to land occupied by Indo-Guyanese. This, he said, was due to the fact that land owned by Indians was located near rice fields, where better facilities abounded. Confronted with these challenges over time, Greenidge said, the importance of land among Africans has reduced.
“Indians now obtain these lands, both legally and through squatting,” Greenidge said.
He said that if this phenomenon is to change, African Guyanese must begin to see agriculture as a business that is important to Guyana and beyond these borders. He said that younger Guyanese can be enticed into the agri-sector by appealing to their attraction to technology. Many of them, he said, continue to be put off from farming and other related actives, because of the perspective that such work is “back-breaking and laborious, but things have changed and challenges of running a farm can be alleviated with new technology.”
The event was organised by the Ghana Day Committee in collaboration with the Cuffy 250 Committee. Dr. David Hinds of the Ghana Day Committee said that the immediate intention is to start a structured conversation about the condition of African Guyanese. He said that while “we talk about it in our bars and our homes, a structured conversation on the issue was lacking, that is what we are beginning today.” He said that after the function, there were intentions to take similar discussion to rural areas, including the Essequibo Coast, Linden, the West and East Coast of Demerara, and several other areas.
He added that the various committees will also be working to mobilise the community to become self-reliant as opposed to always looking to the government to fix their problems, especially in relation to addressing poverty, employment, violence and entrepreneurship.
