Government on Wednesday evening was served by the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) with an unmistakable reminder that the long-standing woes of the sector repose, overwhelmingly, in the protracted failure of successive political administrations to provide an electricity supply which, in terms of both quality and consistency meets the needs of a manufacturing sector striving for growth.
“Many of the long-standing jeopardies are inextricably linked to the high cost and unreliability of electrical power… Until we slay the beast of expensive and unreliable power, the private sector and particularly the manufacturing sector will continue to perform below potential resulting in a serious knock-on effect on jobs and on the wider economy,” GMSA President Clinton Williams declared in his address to the 24th Annual Presentation Awards and Dinner at the Pegasus Hotel on Wednesday December 18. And in his first address to the annual forum since being re-elected to the presidency of the GMSA following a two-year hiatus Williams placed on the table a GMSA recommendation that government “quickly enter into an appropriate arrangement that allows for the utilization of part of our current and future crude oil exports receipts for refined oil, at prices that are considerably cheaper than those that obtain at this time.”
Williams’ address gave credit to the efforts of both government and the private sector for what he described as “the consistent positive growth of the country’s economy over the last four years.” The present administration, he said, had, for the most part “not only embraced strategies consistent with sustainable development goals but also designed to mitigate against global economic shocks.” Contextually, he declared that “the country’s development strategies must remain underpinned by actions that provide for food security, renewed emphasis and repositioning of the Tourism Sector and the pursuit of new economic drivers including ICT, Renewable Energy (particularly Solar, Wind and Biomass), Trade-in-Services and of course the new and emerging Oil and Gas Sectors.”
On the other hand the GMSA President made clear the manufacturing sector’s considerable disappointment over the fact that the long-touted axiom about the private sector being the “engine of growth in Guyana,” had, over time, become a saga of under-realization of potential. “Prevarication,” Williams told his audience,” has become a disease that undermines what are often noble intentions. For too long we have been paying a high price for sloth in the implementation of decisions…..This will only change if and when public/private sector agreements are swiftly implemented. For too long we have been paying a high price for sloth in the implementation of decisions,” Williams declared.
Williams’ address made no secret of fact that considerable weaknesses exist in what he believes should be a carefully managed relationship between government and the GMSA designed to chart a meaningful course for the well-being of the manufacturing sector,
Mindful perhaps of the protest mounted by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) during an earlier GMSA event at the at the same venue in September which was addressed by President David Granger, Williams’ address paid only minimal attention to the prevailing political currents in Guyana. He left for the very end of his presentation the expression of sentiments alluding, first to the “a-political and objective” character of the GMSA and afterwards to the hope that the Monday March 2 general elections will be “incident-free,” and will engender positive development insofar as it serves to advance the cause of democratic governance and…serve as a benchmark in the development of our country.”
