On Friday August 22, 2008, this newspaper published a report based on a disclosure made by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) to the effect that it would be taking a tough line against business houses known or believed to be involved in the pedalling of illicit drugs and the marketing of counterfeit goods.
Specifically, the Chamber said the granting of membership to the body would be preceded by background checks designed to determine the bona fides of the applicants and that insofar as applicants were found to be involved in any of the two aforementioned transgressions they would not be afforded membership of the Chamber. It would be useful to learn whether those background checks still remain in place.
We recall too, a pronouncement from by a Private Sector Commission official—again some years ago—expressing concern that given the prevalence of the practice of drug-smuggling using an astonishingly wide array of the country’s exports as vehicles for the perpetration of the illicit trade, most if not all of the businesses in the export trade had good reason to believe that they were on an unofficial ‘watch list.’ The official said that being placed in such a position was, in itself, a serious inhibition to being able to do business in a normal and uninhibited way.
It cannot of course be said with any degree of certainty whether the authorities have been able to at least slow the pace of illegal drug exports. In this particular circumstance, no news is not necessarily good news. It may simply mean that the ‘exporters’ are becoming increasingly resourceful and are therefore evading detection in a greater number of cases, or else, the lawful infrastructure designed to halt the practice that has been put in place, primarily, at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, is simply not working as it should.
As far as the importation and distribution of counterfeit goods is concerned, the best that can be said is that we simply lack the means and, some say, the will, to keep what has become a multi-billion dollar industry at bay. So that—at least so we are told—counterfeit goods are often unloaded openly at our legitimate ports of entry under the ‘watchful’ eye of Customs officials.
There have, of course, been consequences. As far as the export of drugs is concerned Guyana has become a ‘watched’ country. At the same time packages and consignments of goods arriving at foreign ports from Georgetown have become the object of intensified scrutiny.
At another level, it transpires, based on relatively recent meetings between a visiting group of Canada-based businessmen and local officials, that there exists a considerable reluctance amongst Canadian importers to do business with Guyanese exporters. This is a situation that has arisen out of concerns by the former that to import goods from Guyana is to run the risk of being scalded by drugs-related hot water.
More recently, this newspaper has had the impression that the trade in counterfeits, particularly drugs, cosmetics and car parts continues virtually unchecked and, moreover, that in each of these instances, the scale of the problem makes a short-term remedy virtually impossible.
These days, all of these transgressions fall under the umbrella of ‘business’ and while there are, unquestionably, a great many businesses in Guyana that ‘play by the rules’ the Chamber’s pronouncement of more than five years ago is a de facto admission that, to borrow an age-old expression, all that glitters is not gold. The demons that most bedevil the business sector (and the ones referred to in this editorial are by no means the only serious ones) are still alive and well and there may well be instances in which we cannot say with any degree of certainty that we are overcoming them.
The point about all this is that the sanitizing of our business climate depends in large measure on the will of the private sector, specifically though not exclusively the business support organizations. One senses, frequently, a reluctance on the part of the private sector to take a stick to government’s back over shortcomings that hinder the smooth running of the business community. In the instances of drug-running and counterfeit production distribution, there are clear and substantial threats to the profitability of regular businesses and, accordingly, even if purely out of a sense of self-interest, we need a private sector that is both blunter and more boisterous about what are, in effect, serious threats to its growth and development.
