Last week’s brief and seemingly innocuous media release issued jointly by the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) was not as run-of-the-mill as it might have seemed. It was intended in large measure to underscore the extent of the weight which the local private sector attaches to having an influential seat at the table when the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the Local Content policy that will attend the anticipated expansion of the country’s economy arising out of the ongoing oil and gas recovery operations are agreed upon.
Between them, the PSC and the GMSA are seeking to position their members, through themselves, to benefit from the ‘spoils’ of a Local Content policy, which can, in themselves, and leaving aside the substantive returns from the oil and gas industry, have a significant transformative impact on the country’s economy. Theirs is an undisguised strategic reminder to the political administration on a matter which they regard as being of the greatest importance of the major players in the local private sector. By extension, the final agreement on a Local Content policy will have a much wider beneficial impact.
It should be noted that the joint PSC/GMSA statement follows a protracted period of razor keen private sector interest in the Local Content dimension to the broader issue of the country’s oil and gas industry since it is in the area of Local Content that the private sector is likely to realize by far the greater direct material gain. Between them, the PSC and the GMSA are only too well aware that if their inputs in Local Content discourses with government can influence the resulting policy, that would provide them with considerable leverage in terms of creating materially worthwhile partnerships with potential non-oil investors in Guyana seeking a firm investment foothold here. That opening could create limitless further opportunities.
Aware as it is of the ‘rich pickings’ that can be derived therefrom, local Business Support Organizations are seeking to influence the fashioning of a policy that will maximize non-oil and gas investments for local businesses. Those prospects hold potential returns not just in the area of significant job-creation but in other areas that could conceivably include technology and skills transfer and training, which will doubtless redound to the benefit of appropriately positioned local business enterprises. One might add, of course, that all of these will benefit the country as a whole.
If, however, a carefully sculpted Local Content Policy that is deliberate in its mindfulness of local private sector interests is a matter of critical importance – and in this regard the undisguised ‘lobby’ by the PSC and the GMSA can hardly be faulted – there are other considerations, including those that have to do with vested interest, that cannot be overlooked. Both the leadership and the membership of the PSC comprise what one might call the leading players in local private sector. To a lesser extent this is also true of the GMSA. As for the large numbers of what are usually described as micro and small businesses (and here it is important to mention that there are local differences in perception between what are small businesses and what are not) there can be no question about the absence of a meaningful place for these smaller businesses at the table insofar as the interests of the private sector are concerned. This much is evident in the official failure so far to regularize the clause in the Small Business Act that ought to afford the said small businesses access to 20% of state contracts under certain conditions, nor has there been any evidence of any serious private sector lobby to have that particular clause actualized.
As has already been mentioned, the timing of last week’s PSC/GMSA media release has everything to do with the broader mainstream private sector strategy for securing a place of meaningful influence at the broader Local Content negotiating table. As has already been mentioned it is both necessary and desirable that if – as we never seem to tire of saying – the private sector is to be the engine room of the economy then it is altogether important that it be allowed to participate meaningfully at a forum that will, potentially, have a hugely significant impact on the non-oil and gas growth of the country’s economy. That is not to say, however, that the question as to whether local small and even micro enterprises ought not to specifically factored into the equation insofar as benefits accruing from a Local Content policy are concerned. There are those who may argue that seats at the table for the country’s major Business Support Organizations ought to be sufficient to ensure that there is some kind of rough fairness in the division of the local content spoils. There are those, however, within the significant ranks of our smaller emerging businesses who may require a greater measure of assurance. The potential returns to be derived from a sound Local Content policy are sufficiently meaningful for our small businesses to have their own voice at the table. That is at it should be.