The regional private sector group which sparked a furore here when it appeared to suggest that Guyana’s local content law violated the Treaty of Chaguaramas visited the country earlier this month in what has been seen as a fence-mending trip and it is seeking to mobilise members.
Representatives from the Caricom Private Sector Organization (CPSO) last week met with President Irfaan Ali, but not the local private sector, and Head of its Secretariat, Dr Patrick Antoine explained it was in no way a snub of this country’s business support bodies, but that the meeting had been long pre-arranged. The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry has signalled that it will join the regional organisation.
“We left feeling extremely welcomed and satisfied with the hospitality, fraternal support that was exchanged by the president and his delegation and we look forward to supporting him with in delivering the 25 by 25 outcomes. We are aligned and committed to be working with him in that regard. We agreed with him early in the meeting that his philosophy of ‘less talk more action’ is agreed with by us and is what is needed, and that is what the CPSO will do,” Dr Antoine told the Stabroek News in a telephone interview.
A leaked email from a CPSO official earlier this year had triggered consternation here when it raised the prospect that Guyana’s local content law could be in breach of the CARICOM-founding Treaty of Chaguaramas and a challenge could be imminent to the law which Georgetown and the business community here see as pivotal to giving Guyanese their rightful share of the oil and gas industry.
The meeting last week, according to the CPSO’s CEO and Technical Director, underscored the organisation’s commitment to ensuring CARICOM’s 25% food import reduction target by 2025 is met and its pledge to work evenly with Guyana’s private sector in ensuring the realisation of set targets.
This is why next month, CPSO’s focus will be on engaging private sector organisations in Guyana so that they can work with it. As the regional business body, it looks at business development in the Caribbean and seeks ways to tackle constraints and impediments to trade and other issues affecting that development.
“The CPSO was established by a decision of Heads of Government of CARICOM… we run through a Technical Secretariat and is driven only on what is good for the region. The Executive Board does not run the institution… it is a very transparent body. Although since 2020 we were established, the Technical Secretariat was not set up until January of this year,” Antoine explained, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors had stalled the organisation’s scheduled plan of activities.
“Because we were established by a body of Heads of Governments, we have to build the membership. So to deal with all the questions which may arise from individual countries, we have been going country by country and in June our focus will be on Guyana and Suriname. The country approach is really big for us. There will be a chance to build the membership on the ground in Guyana. For the small staff we have, we have been growing rapidly. The staff has to be drawn from across the region and I am looking for someone from Guyana, All of my team has a record of supporting small states and defending the treaty,” he added.
Emphasising that one of the things the CPSO is interested in is to have micro and small firms that have potential to access CSME markets, Antoine said such a process requires networking and it is the umbrella bodies that makes that process easier and further reaching.
Prosperity
The Office of the President (OP), on its Facebook Page, had informed of the meeting and stated that President Ali reaffirmed that Guyana is ready to work with all stakeholders and partners in the region to ensure the prosperity of Caricom. Ali, OP said, re-emphasised that “the prosperity of Guyana is the prosperity of this Region” and explained that the intention is for the private sector to be the driving force and to be bold and decisive in their decision-making.”
While he explained that the meeting with President Ali and members of government saw a number of initiatives between this country and the CPSO listed, Dr. Antoine said that announcing them was a task for the leader of this country and not him or his organisation.
CPSO believes Guyana should have a leading role in decisions about issues concerning the private sector in the region as it is the country with the highest growth during the pandemic and projections for this to continue given the economic expansion, and there are implications for pulling along other industries in Caricom directly and indirectly.
During discussions, Guyana’s President, according to Antoine, made known this country’s expectations of the CPSO.
“We felt we had a really good meeting with the president. We felt very welcomed and the meeting carried a spirit of frank discussions.
He was clear in his expectations of the CPSO, and the CPSO made the point that we, our service as a service institution is helping to institute the CSME and are happy to be working with the region. We are happy to work under the guidance and stewardship of the president, as the lead with responsibility for, and (Barbadian Prime Minister) Mia Mottley being Leader of CSME in CARICOM, in delivering the 25 by 25%”
He said that the CPSO has been “really labouring” with those two sub committees and has pledged its support completely, to realising in the shortest possible time frame, the promise the region has held “ particularly in cross border trade and feeding CARICOM people with CARICOM’s foods.”
President Ali expressed, he related, that he believes that the CPSO would need to play “a major role in terms of what he called standardization and harmonization.”
CPSO’s membership drive here already has one local private sector organisation ready to sign up as GCCI’s President Timothy Tucker told this newspaper that realising the value of aligning with regional counterparts through a CARICOM initiative was the reason.
“The CPSO was birthed from CARICOM and in our meeting with the Caricom Secretary General [Dr Carla Barnett], she made it clear that CPSO is an organization that will welcome all Caribbean sector bodies. So we have made a decision to join CPSO as a member. We have not done so as yet we are in a process doing so. We want to represent Guyanese businesses at that level.”
“…We are determined to represent our interest and the interest of Guyanese and that is the reason we are going down the road of joining CPSO. We want to discuss trade barriers, local content, or any other impediments to Guyanese businesses. The GCCI has over 620 members and our interest is vast and wide and it is important we do join. We believe that, like the PSC, your voice only matters when you sit at the table and we plan to do so,” he added.
Guyana’s Private Sector Commission and business persons were critical of the CPSO, following the leaked email from the organisation in January, revealing that it was of the view that Guyana’s Local Content Act might, in parts, violate the CARICOM-founding Treaty of Chaguaramas and it would approach both the government here and CARICOM on the matter.
Head of the Guyana Oil and Gas Energy Chamber, Manniram Prashad, had even met with CARICOM Secretary General, Dr Carla Barnett, and asked that the regional body de-recognise the CPSO.
Tucker had been vocal and said that maybe it was time to leave for Guyana to leave CARICOM if the CPSO saw issues with the law. “If the Trinidad Private Sector or government wants to challenge Guyana’s Local Content Legislation, it’s time for the Government of Guyana to exit CSME (Caricom Single Market and Economy) and review the benefits of Caricom,” he had written on his Facebook Page.
While Prashad could not be reached for comment on CPSO’s soliciting membership here, he had on Sunday welcomed a MoU this country signed with Trinidad and Tobago, saying that CARICOM integration for businesses is most needed.
“Against the backdrop of Guyana being the fastest growing economy in the world driven by the oil and gas sector, Guyana is well positioned to take the lead on regional integration agenda aimed at strengthening cooperation within the Caribbean region through the auspices of CARICOM within the framework of leveraging the country’s aggressive and transformative development agenda. To achieve these ambitious and common regional goals, indeed, it requires strong political leadership. Guyana does not only have oil as its attractiveness to foreign investors and underpinning its regional importance, but it is also endowed with an abundance of natural resources including arable agricultural land and potable water,” Prashad’s GOGEC had said in a statement.
