In The tumult attending the March general elections and its eventual outcomes there had been something of a lull in reporting on the work of some key state agencies, an understandable circumstance since public attention had shifted in altogether different directions. Two such entities that come to mind are the Guyana Office for Invest (GO-Invest) and the Small Business Bureau (SBB) both of which were established to play particular roles in the country’s economy. This may not have been altogether surprising since anticipated changes at the top in state-run agencies in the event of changes in political administration can be more-or-less relied upon and whatever the politicians tell us these phenomenon are a function of a sort of to-the -winner -the -spoils- approach to the filling of some jobs in the state sector.
In the instance of GO-Invest there has been an announcement regarding a change at the top and this has been accompanied by the customary elaborate pronouncement about restructuring, expansion of the entity’s mandate and new, more creative initiatives to encourage investment. These apart and if GO-Invest is to serve its purpose one expects that its role will be expanded or at the very least its substantive functions will become more intense and perhaps its recruitment policy adjusted to take account of the continually unfolding oil and gas story and the expectation that this will generate an increased level of overseas investment interest.
In the instance of the Small Business Bureau not a great deal has been heard recently save and except what, some months ago, was an announcement that the Bureau would be used as a conduit through which to channel small amounts of COVID-19 related relief to small businesses. In passing, it has to be said that we have written exhaustively about the circumstances of the SBB in recent weeks and that given our significant substantive interest in small businesses we are keen to know first, whether the Bureau will remain the key state agency with which to ‘ramrod’ small businesses across the country and if so what we can expect in terms of structural changes and infusion of new resources, the kind of thing that was recently disclosed in the instance of the Guyana Marketing Corporation. (GMC). We raise this matter given the fact that it was the PPP/C administration which, in 2013, launched the Bureau with much aplomb even though, for all the efforts that would have been made for the institution to raise standards in the micro and small business sector, the objectives of the Bureau as articulated at the outset remain largely unrealized.
Our particular concern at this stage is that given what we know about the challenges confronting the country’s economy and the COVID-19 add-on, entities like GO-Invest and the SBB, if they are still intended to serve their purposes, will not only have to focus on their objectives but will also have to be properly resourced and equipped as well as possess a strong sense of direction. In the instance of GO-Invest, it will have to be responsive to what is likely to be an intensified interest in inward investment as the fortunes of the oil and gas sector unfold.
One might add – though this may be a vain hope – that the important, indeed critical tasks which the two agencies (and there are a few others) will have to perform will allow them to be spared that overwhelmingly cumbersome phenomenon of direct political intervention which, of course, always has its own agenda.
If the government is serious about having institutions like these and others press ahead with the key assignments dictated by the substance of their portfolios, they will have to resist the temptation – which, frankly, is already apparent in a number of instances – to allow their work to be directed by weighty political oversight.