Dear Editor,
We are grateful to you for the opportunity to respond to Mr Tony Vieira’s letter captioned ‘In a vote the Private Sector Commission would be pro-government’ which was carried in your publication on December 20, 2013. In his letter, Mr Vieira uses inaccurate information to support his contention that the Private Sector Commission is essentially pro-government due to the composition of its membership.
The Private Sector Commission currently has twenty-two corporate members and seventeen sectoral members. The seventeen sectoral members, which are business organisations from across the country and each of which represents hundreds of individual members covering a gamut of religious and political persuasions, include the following:
The Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association
The Shipping Association of Guyana
The Guyana Association of Bankers
The Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners’ Association
The Guyana Association of Trawler Owners and
Seafood Processors
The Aircraft Owners Association of Guyana
The Forest Products Association of Guyana
The Guyana Association of Private Security
Organisations
The Institute of Private Enterprise Development
The National Aquaculture Association of Guyana
The Consultative Association of Guyanese Industry
The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry
The Rupununi Chamber of Commerce and Industry
The Linden Chamber of Industry Commerce and
Development
The Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana
The Upper Corentyne Chamber of Commerce and
Industry
The Central Corentyne Chamber of Commerce
The Commission is governed by a Council which currently consists of twenty-three members. The Council is equivalent to a Board. The seventeen sectoral members each have one vote on the Council while all the corporate members collectively have six votes. This structure which is written into our bylaws was crafted to ensure that large national or multi-national corporate members do not dominate the groupings of smaller businesses. It would therefore not be correct to assume that decisions of the Commission are unduly influenced by the corporate members. Mr Vieira also opines that the Commission issues positions on matters without convening a meeting of the Commission. It is established procedure to consult the Council prior to releasing public statements but this consultation, as with most of the Commission’s business, is conducted electronically in the interest of efficiency.
For the record, the current Executive Management Committee of the Private Sector Commission consists of the following persons:
Chairman and Chair of the Energy Sub-Committee – Mr Ronald Webster
Vice-Chairman and Chair of the Finance Sub-Committee – Mr Ramesh Persaud
Secretary and Chair of the Trade and Investment Sub-Committee – Mr Ramesh Dookhoo
Treasurer – Mr John Willems
Chair, Social Sectors Sub-Committee – Ms Annette Arjoon-Martins
Chair, Environment and Communications Sub-Committee – Mr Kit Nascimento
Chair, Agriculture Sub-Committee – Mr Beni Sankar
Chair, Building Sub-Committee – Mr Edward Boyer
Chair, Governance and Security Sub-Committee – Capt Gerald Gouveia
Chair, Transportation and Infrastructure Sub-Committee – Mr Michael Correia
In the event that Mr Vieira’s information was gleaned from an outdated PSC website, we would like to assure him and the public that the website is in the process of being updated. In the interim, we would invite Mr Vieira or any other interested persons to uplift a copy of our current Annual Report from the Commission’s Secretariat for detailed lists of our membership.
Yours faithfully,
Elizabeth Alleyne
Executive Director
Private Sector Commission
