If it is not for the Stabroek Business to seek to order the priorities of either the new political administration or the private sector we believe that the portents suggest that how they relate to each other is certain to be on both their front burners in the period ahead.
Very recent news that oil has been found in significant quantities and that foreign investors are gearing themselves to undertake the production phases of their investments in the minerals sector point unerringly in that direction.
The point was made to the Stabroek Business over the past week or so by two local businessmen that Guyana’s excursion into major foreign investment and interface with major international business organizations should not cause it to overlook the growth of the local business sector. In this regard one of those two businessmen openly spoke of what he believed were the practises of nepotism and cronyism as rationale for offering business opportunities under the previous administration and that these would be unacceptable under the new dispensation. What, in our view, would also be unacceptable, is the continuation of the practise of previous political administrations of doing far too little to market our country abroad, a circumstance which, in this newspaper’s view, may well have caused us to miss out on investment opportunities purely because we are still not known in some parts of the world for much more than the Kaieteur Falls and Jonestown. What we found too was that the two businessmen with whom we spoke had differing views on the ‘politics’ of the private sector. One of them appeared to feel that the notion of the private sector as ‘the engine of growth’ meant that there could be no place for political partisanship in the disposition of the business support organizations. The other felt that rather than being representative of the interests of the private sector as a whole, the PSC was what he described as a “boys club” that did little more than dance to the tune of the previous political administration.
Whatever the veracity of those differing views we are still faced with the challenge of fashioning a public/private sector relationship that allows for the two to play their respective indispensable roles in building an economy which, given the promise of oil, now appears to offers much more enterprising prospects in the long term.
In this regard we believe that even at this early stage, there would have been something resembling a more energetic reaching out between government and the private sector. We are told by one of our two recent private sector interviewees that a meeting between the new administration and the private sector will happen in the short term though, frankly, and for all the settling in that has to be done by the new government, such a meeting – at least an initial one – ought to have occurred already.
We say this because we believe that few things are probably more important to the economy and business at this time than a very public assurance that, as far as growth and development are concerned, the two are on the same page.
In this context we find it a trifle disconcerting that up until now our own efforts to have the PSC provide us with some official indication of just what its intentions are as far as engaging the government is concerned has received absolutely no traction. For the record we raise this matter again and this time, publicly.
A new minister responsible for business has been appointed but as was pointed out in last Tuesday’s issue of the Stabroek News the concept of “business” is certain to extend way beyond that particular subject minister’s portfolio and in our coverage of business and the economy we expect, for example, to hear from other ministers including those responsible for Foreign Affairs, Tourism, Natural Resources, Finance and sometimes from the President himself.
To return to the substantive issue we believe it is important that the populace as a whole and the business community in particular be sent early and clear signals that the government and the private sector are more or less on the same page as far as the vital economic and developmental interests of the country are concerned. The pace of providing those assurances needs to be significantly quickened.
