Government’s commitment to the creation of a more convivial domestic environment in which to do business in Guyana will focus on removing some of the existing “overarching challenges” including those associated with the time required for individual procedures, according to the recently released Ministry of Business Strategic Plan 2016-2020.
If implemented, government’s plans to make the procedures for doing business here easier, could well turn around a widespread perception that overseas investors have traditionally been discouraged from investing here on account of excessive bureaucratic red tape. High on the list of time-consuming constraints listed in the document is what the Ministry of Business says is the fact that “it takes around one to two weeks to obtain the title certificate for land after the transfer instrument is filed at the Land Registry and more than three years to obtain a first-instance judgement from the High Court on land disputes.” In the instance of title certificates this newspaper is aware of instances in which it has taken more than three times as long to receive them.
Noting that most startup-related procedures for businesses are “paper-based,” the report alludes to the desirability of the application ICT in the process. Government, according to the report, will also be seeking to further facilitate ease of business by removing the time and cost considerations arising out of existing deficiencies in the exchange of information and collaboration between government agencies, a limitation which it says creates costly and time-consuming challenges for businesses.
Private sector functionaries as well as some prospective overseas investors have criticized the bureaucratic bottlenecks which they say abound in the procedures for doing business in Guyana, and have served as a fertile breeding ground for corrupt practices.
Listed in the report amongst the key strategies associated with improving the environment is the intended implementation of a single window for trade transactions which will “significantly reduce the transaction costs for import and export activities” by interconnecting the stakeholder agencies.
Meanwhile, the report also alludes to short-term plans to develop a Doing Business Action Plan, advocating and facilitating increased transparency for business and streamlining procedures and interconnecting agencies to increase the efficiency with which they work.
The plan to improve the climate for doing business also includes an initiative designed to provide statistics and economic analyses by making available information on “business cycle activities” and publishing quarterly and annual reports on the growth of sales and exports by sector and industry, sector competitiveness and current trends, an initiative, which the report says will require collaboration with the Guyana Revenue Authority “to create a data set on business activity.”
