For now at least, we must accept as made public, information provided by Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (G-Invest) Dr Peter Ramsaroop and reported by the Department of Public Information (DPI) not just that “the government has held talks with members of the diaspora in Texas and Florida, USA on the roles they could play in Guyana’s development” but also that “many overseas-based Guyanese have expressed a desire to return home.”
The note of caution sounded here has to do with the fact that these are just the kinds of ‘soundings’ regarding the interest of overseas-based Guyanese that we have heard from respective political administrations. Those official assurances have, for the most part, not been attended by a profusion of migratory traffic back to Guyana by nationals, many of whom have spent most of their lives out of Guyana.
Contextually, one of the things that Dr Ramsaroop must understand is that beyond the report that he is presumably obliged to prepare and submit, somewhere along the political/administrative food chain, it would be desirable, as well, to cause the country as a whole to be made aware of the thinking of Guyanese in Texas and Florida on issue of investment and remigration.
The simple even if unpalatable truth about Guyana’s lack of success in creating an enabling environment that allows for a sustained remigration trek and/or serious investment inquiries, has to do with the view of many of those who have sought to ‘test the waters’ of both remigration and investment that they are, invariably, choppy and in not a few instances decidedly inhospitable.
Loathe as we are to admit it, we have never really been able to fashion a remigration template that is underpinned by expeditiousness and simplicity and which seeks what are sometimes absurd hurdles to rendering processes as quick and as painless as possible. We have always been inclined, in our conceptualisation of these templates, to create what one might call tiers of authority so that, all too frequently, there arises the necessity to resort to the highest authority in the land in order to have some issues expedited. Here, access can give rise to awkward and unpalatable bottlenecks.
Once the need to ‘go to the top’ arises, other demons, like sellers of access, thereto begin to give rise to an altogether different type of hassle that often push potential re-migrants and investors in the direction of packing their bags and returning from whence they came.
As things stand, the situation could change for better or for worse. Oil and the attractions and prospects that it offers, as much for expatriate investors as for Guyanese who may now finally believe that there is good reason to return home, has meant that issues pertaining to either re-settling or investing here and perhaps even seeking out investment possibilities that are yet to emerge has meant the issues of migration and overseas investment have enhanced their respective positions on the public policy food chain.
Truth be told, clouds of doubt have long billowed over the ability of G-Invest to effectively administer all of the considerations associated with issues of migration and remigration. Numbered among the likely reasons are, first, the issue of whether or not there exists within G-Invest, a cadre of functionaries, willing though they may be, to effectively engage eager and expectant re-migrants on the one hand and high-powered and demanding foreign investors, on the other. Whether or not, beyond the appointment by the current political administration of a new CEO there has been any attempt to strengthen the delivery capabilities of the remaining staff is unclear.
Secondly, the view has long persisted that G-Invest is no more than a ‘show window’ rather than the real source of authority insofar as expediting issues pertaining to investment in Guyana are concerned. Further, it is decidedly doubtful, now that the reality of oil and gas has increased the significance of those portfolios that have to do with migration and investment that those that occupy positions of real power – political power that is – will allow themselves to be left out of the loop.
There exists, at the present time, every reason for both overseas-based Guyanese and non-Guyanese potential investors to persist beyond the walls that have been set up. The main problem here is that we continue to have to deal with the vicissitudes of a political culture that has been unsparing in its ability to drag race and parochialism behind it wherever it goes and the available evidence would appear to suggest that we are not ready to leave that badly soiled baggage behind.
