The appearance in today’s issue of the Stabroek Business of an article written by Mr Louis Holder, a local business owner, reflecting on what he perceives to be some of the impediments to the growth of the country’s manufacturing sector, seeks to break new ground in the relationship between this newspaper and the business sector.
We have been, for some time now, seeking to encourage the private sector, through its various business support organizations (BSOs) to see the Stabroek Business as a vehicle through which the business community can not only make public the various events and happenings in the different sectors but also a means of sustaining a two-way flow of information with its various publics, not least with the government.
Here, it must be stressed, the invitation is open not only to organizations like the Private Sector Commission, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) but to the various specialized organizations covering areas such as mining, forestry, banking, aviation, the retail trade, music and the arts etc. Once these contributions have a relevance to the commercial growth and development of these organizations and the institutions working within those sectors, we are prepared, limitations of space permitting, to provide a platform for discourse.
Government too, through entities like the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Business, GO-Invest, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Forestry Commission and others can join the discourse. We believe that what we offer is an opportunity for a free flow of ideas which, sometimes, if not always, can lead to solutions to problems and resolution of issues.
It is our assessment that Mr Holder is not only a clear thinker but also that he hones in on a number of critical issues pertaining to the growth of manufacturing sector, many of which have been raised before. We found his submissions on the bureaucratic wall which he encountered in his quest to sell his coffee revealing, while his articulation on what he perceives as a sort of cultural bias on the part of consumers to locally produced goods is a subject that has arisen before, myriad times. Indeed, what we may well have discovered having probed this particular issue is that the predilection for foreign imports might, in many instances, be a somewhat more complicated matter.
The real significance of Mr Holder’s article is that it not only articulates sentiments felt by manufacturing sector as a whole but that it also ventures into what some might consider to be areas of controversy. It is no secret – even though there is often a considerable pretence to the contrary – that there is, not infrequently, an edge to relations between government and the private sector that extends itself into interludes (sometimes protracted ones) of quiet in the discourse between them. It is a propensity that raises questions about the veracity of the notion of public/private sector partnership and – this newspaper is convinced – has to do with a private sector concern, real or imagined – that the maxim to follow is one that councils that the less said the better. Of course, it is altogether unacceptable that the private sector should be hemmed in by a doctrine that attaches a mindfulness of how the government will respond to every public statement that it makes. The two sides cannot always be expected to see eye to eye on everything and even if there are disagreements there can be no room for fear of reprisals.
Mr Holder’s article is reflective of the posture of a businessman who is clearly prepared to engage in what the communication specialists refer to as a free and open encounter. He is not about to die wondering, to watch his business collapse into a rubble of all the various anomalies that affect the growth and progress of the manufacturing sector. More than that, by the content of his article, Mr Holder exudes the persona of a businessman, who is prepared to generate constructive debate on issues that affect the sector in which he has invested with a view to bringing what we believe are relevant concerns to the attention to the powers that be here in Guyana and the rest of the region.
It is an approach, we feel, that should be accelerated and intensified and taken up by the various other BSOs. For the record they are all aware that the Stabroek Business is open to be used as a sounding board for public discourse on important business issues. We welcome the emulation of the precedent that Mr Holder has set. Indeed, it would have been more than worth his time and effort if the state agencies concerned with the issues raised in his article were to respond regarding the measures that are being taken to address them.
