Between them, it took the coalition administration and the Private Sector Commission (PSC) a little over a day to confirm what had long been apparent, that is, that the relationship between the private sector and the government, post the 2015 general elections, has never really come to be characterized by any real warmth. Last Friday’s release from the PSC could hardly have been blunter, declaring as it did that it had “noted the decline of the economy” and that its particular concerns included “the crippling new taxes for the mining sector and the institution of Value Added Tax on necessities.” The members of the business community, the release went on, “expressed a lack of confidence in the manner the government is managing the economy.” It went further, alluding to “the flight of capital from Guyana and the lack of significant new investments in the last two years. Real estate values are dwindling, property for sale inventory is on the rise and wealth is eroding rapidly,” the statement added.
What an outburst! It was inevitable that the uncharacteristic bluntness of the PSC would encounter an angry official response. It came swiftly, cutting to the chase, accusing the PSC of allowing itself to be used as a Trojan Horse for the political opposition.
What the exchange did was to spell out in language that required no interpretation just where things stand in terms of the relationship between the government and the PSC. What it did as well was to issue an open invitation to the political opposition to join the affray. Mr Jagdeo and company will probably not decline the invitation.
The chance of a swift corrective initiative appears slim. Even prior to the weekend exchange the coolness of the relationship between the government and the PSC could have been felt. Now that the government has spoken its mind about what it says it believes is the PSC’s role as a proxy for the PPP, the issue could well move in the direction of a political trajectory before a semblance of sanity is restored.
It could hardly have happened at a worse time. Setting aside the fact that bad blood between the government and the private sector at home sends a less than encouraging signal to potential external investors this is a time when, by the government’s own admission, foreign investment is a priority. Circumstances at home, not least the current prickly relationship between the government and the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) and the ongoing fretfulness in the business community over value added taxes, require that the two sides seek to get over this hurdle quickly. This is not the time for grandstanding.
The weekend outburst marked the culmination of just over a year-and-a-half of fuzziness regarding the status of the relationship between the government and the private sector. Early in the tenure of the present administration there had been a low-key meeting between the two sides, though it has to be said that the outcomes of that engagement never really communicated a strong sense of any mutual enthusiasm for deepening the relationship. It was as if the two sides were simply going through the motions of a formality.
When the rumoured public-private sector ‘summit’ failed to materialize, it became clear that an early, serious engagement between government and the private sector was not on the cards. Since then, the two sides have not come even close to sitting down together to fashion the paradigms of a relationship between them.
That early opportunity having been missed the issue of the state of the relationship between the two sides inevitably became subsumed beneath other matters on the administration’s agenda, not least its preparations for the country’s jubilee celebrations. It was not that there were any clear signs that the two sides were at daggers’ drawn. Rather, what was manifesting itself was an arm’s length relationship that always ran the risk of declining, and now that is exactly what appears to have happened.
It took a while but the proverbial penny has now dropped with the issuance of the respective pronouncements, and now that it seems that the government has gotten its political juices flowing (at least the content of its statement suggests this) we can anticipate that any kind of rapprochement (if indeed such a term is applicable in the circumstances) could turn out to be a protracted process. The public posturing and grandstanding in this instance is one thing; the reality is that the country is at an economic juncture where it cannot afford the luxury of a protracted falling out between the administration and the private sector. There simply has to be a way past what now appears to be a worrying impasse ‒ and quickly.
