The evidence that all is far from well in terms of the relationship between the government and the private sector can no longer be ignored. Setting aside that as far as the private sector is concerned the touted public/private sector summit mooted as early as a year ago is now well and truly off (the government never appeared to have any serious appetite for such a summit anyway) there appears to be sharp differences of opinion over just how the country’s economy is doing at this time.
Some weeks ago, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin declared at a private sector forum that contrary to what was being said, there is no crisis in the economy. The private sector has been cautious on this issue, seemingly not prepared to commit itself officially, one way or another. Our own understanding, based on conversations with a number of city businessmen and a few private sector officials is that there continues to be a decline in spending.
The circumstances, at least in our view, would appear to warrant some kind of sitting down between the public and private sectors on the basis of a pre-determined agenda, arrival at a common understanding regarding just where the country is as against where it ought to be and what are the measures that might reasonably be taken to get it there.
As far as an agenda is concerned we can do far worse than focusing the ‘summit’ on, among other things, several of the issues outlined in the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce’s “top 20 barriers to Guyana’s Competitiveness” promulgated in 2013. At the time, the Chamber was talking about a joint public/private sector effort to work through those issues associated with removing those barriers. That was three years ago and nothing, as far as we know, has changed.
Certainly one of the concerns among business analysts at this time is the dichotomy between the political sloganeering about public/private sector partnership and what would appear to be a cautious tiptoeing on both sides that appears to keep both parties standing still rather than moving towards each other. There is talk about the political environment and the caution that it engenders but then again can we allow that consideration to take us further down a road of uncertainty and away from what we say is our focus on public/private sector partnership. It is leadership and confidence-building steps that are required at this time not an environment that creates the impression of two sides working at cross purposes.
