Go-Invest “does not currently have the capabilities to design policies or strategies to provide more value-added services to exporters”
The full and effective implementation of the five-year Strategic Plan unveiled by the Ministry of Business a week ago will depend on a major initiative designed to undertake a major skills recruitment drive in order to strengthen some of the critical departments within the ministry, according to a report released by the ministry last week.
Asserting that the Ministry of Business has to have the technical expertise necessary for the creation of critical institutions including a National Investment Strategy and a National Value-Added Export Strategy the Report names the key Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) as being among several departments of the ministry, which, going forward, would require a significant infusion of skilled personnel if they are to make a meaningful contribution to the realization of the objectives outlined in the five-year plan.
Listed amongst the key objectives of the plan is the “strengthening of internal capacities in order to develop an industrial policy and to implement key projects” including its proposed single window for investors.
The report also lists the departments of Commerce and Industry as well as the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) and the Small Business Bureau (SBB) as others facing significant human resource deficiencies. Some of the specialist skills which the ministry will be seeking to recruit include legal, information technology and management. Some departments will also require economists and specialists in international trade and international development.
In the instance of GO-Invest, the Strategic Plan says that the agency “does not currently have the capabilities to design policies or strategies to provide more value-added services to exporters,” and accordingly, it is a priority that the entity recruit a senior policy officer with experience in investment promotion, a senior export promotion officer and at least two junior economists or business graduates to undertake export analysis in order to provide information and data on market and product potential.
GO-Invest, the report adds, “also needs to reinforce its market intelligence and innovation services in order to upgrade its provision of services.”
The GNBS has been tagged, meanwhile, for staffing with “technical experts” needed to work in its proposed state-of-the-art laboratory in order to guarantee its international accreditation. According to the report, ‘building infrastructure and acquiring equipment will not work without the human talent and training needed to operate them.”
The report says the SBB needs to ‘strengthen its capabilities in policy drafting… as well as in monitoring and evaluating its own programmes.” Accordingly, the Bureau needs to recruit experts in the field of economic inclusion with experience in drafting policies aimed at increasing access to finance for medium and small enterprises and training in public procurement. Additionally, the report says the SBB needs to recruit professionals with experience in monitoring and evaluation in order to implement a mechanism for evaluation since the existing mechanism is not sufficiently efficient.
Meanwhile, the report indicates that the Ministry of Business is likely to face additional challenges in pursuit of an appropriate training programme for technical staff and management since “consultations with the Public Service Ministry reveal that there is currently no training programme readily available that would fit the needs of the ministry.” As an alternative, the report says, the Ministry of Business will be collaborating with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank in the planning and execution of its training programmes and will also be pursuing the option of online courses.
