Now that Guyana has gotten the attention for reasons that have to do with matters that do not always, unerringly, target both our historical and our contemporary socio-political glitches, there is a case to be made for utilizing our now wide open window on the world, not just to expose the intrepid to the beauty of the country and to attract eagle-eyed investors here to ‘cash-in’ on the investment openings arising out of our petro state status but our condition must also play a role in raising standards of living across the board.
We have not, up to this point, been able to create a reliable link between the country’s oil and gas bonanza and effecting a radical turnaround in the lives of ordinary Guyanese. There have been a handful of very modest gestures in the form of initiatives like modest increases in old age pensions and subsidies to parents to help meet the costs associated with financing their children’s education. The nation’s teachers still await word on their deserved salary increases to which, truth be told, they are manifestly entitled. Here it has to be said that the government’s response to their demand is, to say the least, altogether quixotic. As we say in Guyana, there are other mouths to feed and here the considerable numbers that comprise the various other sectors, not least those that have to do with Agriculture and Agro Processing.
Political administrations in Guyana, over time, have developed a ‘talent’ for peddling eye-catching but undelivered promises and, in our opinion, those that have been made by the Minister of Agriculture, in recent times, ‘take the cake’. Those that come readily to mind are, first, the repeated promises regarding the readiness of a ‘network’ of Agro Processing facilities for use by farmers. The second was the promise made three years ago, in 2021 that “farmers, agro-processors and exporters” would have been “linked to the most lucrative markets, locally, regionally and internationally” in the same year. While this newspaper has already raised these issues and, unsurprisingly, had no official response, we raise them again in order to provide context for the substantive issue being addressed here.
The 2024 Barbados Agro Fest may have been the vehicle through which the efforts of the proprietors of the local company, Tidy Up, have been able to ‘sign on’ to a deal that appears likely to create a partnership with the Barbadian company, Kemarone Enterprises which, an official report says, has resulted in the development of a line of cleaning solutions under the ‘O’Clean’ brand which includes laundry detergent, fabric softener, carwash, and degreaser. Two observations should be made at this juncture. The first is that ‘deals’ like the one now shared by Tidy Up and Kemarone Enterprises altogether justifies the opportunity being afforded for business-to-business interactions across the region. Indeed, the announcement is, in itself, a justification for Guyana’s participation in Agro Fest. The second point that should be made at this juncture is that what now appears to be Guyana’s now enhanced ability to support the participation of local manufacturers in regional and international product promotion events should be exploited to ensure that increasing numbers of local enterprises, not least Agro Processors, have an opportunity to access external markets.
In the instance of the Tidy Up breakthrough in Barbados, there is an opportunity for government to engage with the local company to provide such support as it can to ensure that the envisaged ‘deal’ with Kemarone Enterprises is suitably facilitated in order to ensure that it is ‘sealed’ and effected at the earliest time. The other point that should be made here, of course, is that government, through G-Invest, should vigorously persist down the road of such options since it may well pave the way for other kinds of breakthroughs.
