Recently elected Chairman of the Essequibo Chamber of Commerce Aadil Baksh has told the Stabroek Business that numbered among his priorities as head of the Business Support Organization (BSO), is to create an environment in which key state institutions tasked with providing services that have to do with the well-being of the country’s business community are suitably responsive to the needs of the Essequibo business community.
In a telephone interview with the Stabroek Business earlier this week, Baksh, who serves as Chief Executive Officer of Imam Bacchus & Sons, of Affiance, Essequibo Coast, says that he is seeking to “start a conversation with the government about our bureaucratic and legal foundations and about how these can better serve the Essequibo business community.
Baksh says that his intended discourses with the authorities will be informed by an agenda that includes “the rate at which government transactions get done, the speed with which, for example, National Insurance Scheme (NIS) compliances and Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) compliances are expedited. The Essequibo businessman told this newspaper that the current regime for expediting these procedures “leaves a lot to be desired” adding that he was hoping that that the outcome of his exchanges with the authorities results in a “reduction in the hassle that companies have to go through to get things done.”
Speaking in his capacity as a substantive businessman, Baksh noted that all too frequently “a lot of my time is spent trying to get compliances. Not only is it difficult to secure compliances, but it is also difficult to retrieve monies from the National Insurance Scheme. Workers must sometimes spend days, time and money, in order to complete what should be straightforward transactions and time is money for both the workers and the companies.” The new Essequibo Chamber President also had similar concerns over what he says is the lack of timeliness with which compliance-related matters are expedited by the Environmental Protection Agency. (EPA).
Baksh said that whilst some of these services have been decentralised, resulting in some measure of improvement in service-provision, “there is still more that can be done to make it more efficient and effective. It is important that we speed up “the bureaucratic system in Guyana,” the businessman urged.
“A company may be waiting on a court decision to commence building on a disputed land. That decision may take years to be reached. There must be a way to reduce that time, I have heard of cases that take between five to twenty years to be settled… the law and the bureaucracy should act in a timely manner, so we can get on with the business of being businessmen and women.”
Baksh told Stabroek Business, meanwhile, that during his tenure as Chamber President he will be seeking to use his office to “create a community of businesses in which we can come to know and understand each other better. I believe that businesses can learn from each other and can actually grow together where there is a sense of community. We can also work together in our production pursuits driven by the reality that our products and services are unique to Essequibo. I believe that businesses that are local to Essequibo must start networking among themselves before they begin to network outside of their community,” Baksh told Stabroek Business.
Meanwhile, Baksh told this newspaper that while the advent of the pandemic had placed restraints on the kinds of interaction among businesses that can result in collective gain for the entire business community, he had, during his three months in office begun to interact with local business owners and now wished to move beyond that stage and in the direction of developing an agenda that embraces the building of a better business community. In this regard he envisages initiatives in the area of business training that can enhance the existing competencies that are already present in the business community. The Essequibo Chamber currently comprises approximately seventy five (75) members.
Stabroek Business was also informed by Baksh, that his company, Imam Bacchus & Sons, was moving to provide material incentives to residents of the community who are prepared to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
