In the absence of his national plan to create jobs, the Minister of Finance Winston Jordan on Monday encouraged persons to create their own businesses.
“All good paying jobs, as far as I am concerned, can come from self-generation and that is why we have to focus a lot on small and medium businesses, creating entrepreneurs rather than traders out of people,” he said at a press conference.
In its elections campaign manifesto, the APNU+AFC coalition had promised job creation, particularly for young people, but a year into its five year term, it has changed its tune by calling on persons to create opportunities for themselves rather than depend on government.
The coalition had promised that it would “aspire to achieve rapid economic growth and development. This will involve a strategy for meaningful job creation, with adequate wages and remuneration, in pursuit of a dynamic and modern economy.”
It was promised that a program would be created to transform the productive and emerging sectors of the economy and which will “foster and facilitate the upgrading of skills for our people for the enhancement of industrial growth and the development of value-added services.”
When asked about this campaign promise on Monday, Jordan said that “one of the things we have to put into the mix immediately, no matter what we do, is that we have to have a political climate in Guyana that is conducive to long term investment.”
He said that there are scenarios in Guyana where as soon as the government is changed, there is a feeling of insecurity, heightened tension and social cohesion issues, among others. He said that people don’t invest in such a climate, particularly in the area of manufacturing.
“We have to do exactly what we are doing now, trying to connect the coast with the hinterland…while we are extracting some of the wealth out of the hinterland it is being done in a dysfunctional, ad hoc and highly inefficient manner and that is because instead of having proper roads and boats, you have little trails…,” he said, while adding that there needs to be connectivity through the building of “proper climate reliant infrastructure.”
He also said that there needs to be a value-added initiative and he singled out the bamboo industry in Taiwan and Indonesia. He questioned the logic behind cutting and exporting our logs without embracing the concept of adding value.
Jordan said that he cannot give a numerical target for job creation until he gets his national plan going. “I don’t want to tell you ten thousand, fifty thousand and so on and then the next obvious question you are going to ask me is where you gonna get them from,” he said.
Earlier this month, President David Granger advanced a position similar to that of Jordan.
He said on “The Public Interest” that government doesn’t have jobs to give out and, therefore, is moving to encouraging entrepreneurship, where people create job opportunities for themselves.
Granger said government wants to ensure that more people stay in school and qualify themselves He also said it wants ensure that more job opportunities are opened in the private sector, especially in the rural and hinterland communities, as well as to encourage more entrepreneurship. He stressed that government wants to help citizens help themselves.
