Readers will recall that the Stabroek Business’ sustained appeal for disclosure on Guyana’s intended participation in the 2024 Barbados Agro Fest fell on deaf ears for a protracted period and that the first official public disclosure appeared in the print media on February 22nd, the day prior to the actual start of the event. The Stabroek Business has already pointed out that our earlier efforts to secure pertinent information on Guyana’s intended participation in the event were responded to with rather unconvincing responses from G-Invest, revolving around the relevant functionaries being either ‘out of office’ or ‘in meetings.’ Nor were our specific requests for information on Guyana’s participation in the event ever responded to.
Frankly, we remain curious, up to this time, as to why the details of Guyana’s participation in the event, were seemingly never placed in the public domain until the day in which the event ‘kicked off’? If there is some logic to what appears to have been a decision to keep the participation details quiet we would dearly wish to have it explained to us. Surely, given some of the rumours that have previously attached themselves to issues like criteria for participation in events which are funded, either fully or partially, with state funds, why, for example, can we not be provided with, prior to the staging of the event, a list of local Agro Processors participating in events like the Agro Fest? The obvious benefit here is that early disclosure allows for media houses to set up interviews both before and after the event itself.
Those responsible for making the various arrangements for the Guyana contingent in terms of the movement of their goods to Barbados, particularly, must surely have been in advance possession of such information so that this newspaper cannot think of any good reason why the actual lists of the intended participants and information on the particular products they were taking with them, as well as information on their travel arrangements, could not have been made public. Truth be told, the ‘optics’ of what appeared to have been a deliberate and determined attempt not to make that information public certainly appeared unsightly. What good reason could there have been for what certainly appeared to have been a deliberate decision to keep the details of the country’s participation in the Agro Fest quiet?
It turned out that the Stabroek Business was able to secure some information on a particular aspect of Guyana’s overall participation in the Agro Fest event, post facto. From the standpoint of the particular Guyanese participant in the event, the outcome was pleasing. On the basis of the behaviour of those responsible for the planning and execution of Guyana’s participation in the 2024 Barbados Agro Fest event, we are not hopeful that there will be a great deal of worthwhile information placed in the public domain on Guyana’s participation in the event and outcomes thereof. The objective of local participation in such events is to offer our Agro Processors the best possible opportunities to expand their market share. It is not in our interest that an event of this kind be handled in such a matter so as to create an impression that – as Guyanese are given to saying – there is more to it than that.
