Small and medium-sized businesses in the country’s agro-processing sector have told the Stabroek Business that government can best support the development of the sector by paying greater attention to “what the sector says it wants”, rather than simply making decisions in isolation from any meaningful consultation.
Beginning with the UncappeD event at the National Stadium earlier this year, the Stabroek Business has been engaging agro-processors from various parts of coastal Guyana in order to determine the extent to which they are “comfortable” with the relationship between the sector and government. Over the course of a number of random interviews, medium and small businesses in the sector have told this newspaper that for several years government has been ‘missing the bus’ insofar as the nature of its response to the needs of the agro-processing sector is concerned. “The problem with government is that it never really listens to the agro-processors. It makes decisions and goes off in directions without really finding out what we agro-processors need. For example I can tell you that as it is, the Small Business Bureau cannot meet the needs of agro-processors,” one agro-processor told the Stabroek Business.