Several weeks ago this newspaper learnt through the Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Major General (retd) Norman McLean that arising out of a meeting which the private sector had had with representatives of the new political administration, including the President, David Granger, a private sector team would be involved in the planning of a national economic forum that would include business officials of all hues and government officials whose portfolios had to do with business, investment and the economy.
At that time no agenda had as yet been planned though we also learnt from Major General (retd) McLean that the planned forum would include inputs of an unspecified nature from Guyanese in the diaspora and we recall too that a few names of likely high profile participants were mentioned.
The whole idea as this newspaper understood it was that the planned forum would result in outcomes that would offer a sort of road map, first, for what is perhaps best described as the development direction of the economy and the country as a whole and secondly as a sort of rudder for steering public/private sector relations in the period ahead.
Once the new administration acceded to office observers were keen to determine what sort of beginning public/private sector relations would have. The biggest post-elections boost was the pleasing pass grade which the national budget secured from the private sector even though there has been little else to shout about since then.
As a body the PSC has already made a brooding public statement over what it perceives to be a worrisome official inclination towards removing some government officials from their jobs whilst individual private sector functionaries have voiced their disapproval, in principle, of Ministers being appointed to head the Boards of state agencies, griping particularly over the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) example. The mining sector, already bruised by gold prices and under scrutiny over issues of mining accidents and gold smuggling is also muttering under its breath about what it believes to be the less than expected concessions granted to the sector by the present administration following a long and bruising battle with the previous one.
To deal with the latter first it is, we expect, still safe to assume that our national economic development plans rest on a foundation of collaborative public/private sector effort and that the latter still remains what we describe as ‘the engine of growth.’ We make this point because there is the hope that gestures from both sides of the divide continue to be strong and positive so that we can be assured that the idea of a collaborative public/private sector pursuit of the country’s development is still a national priority.
If it has not all been ‘hammer and tongs’ little has happened beyond polite gestures to suggest that there has been anything even remotely resembling a ‘flying start’ for public/private sector relations under the new political administration. Surprisingly, no definitive pronouncement designed to send positive signals followed the public/private sector ‘summit’ of several weeks ago has come. Indeed, there has been little clarity on the issues that formed part of the agenda for that meeting.
Perhaps this month’s national economic forum will provide the opportunity for the first post-elections public/private sector waltz and it will be the concrete outcomes of the event rather than the fluff that is usually reflective of concluding communiqués and media statements that will provide the real answers. But then one is reminded that we are now in the month of September and nothing really concrete has been heard about the planning and agenda for the event up to this time.
