Business Editorial

One of the articles published in this week’s issue of the Stabroek Business addresses the efforts which we stated are being made by Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST) Dr Peter Ramsaroop and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hugh Todd, to draw attention to the government’s efforts, through the vehicles of their respective portfolios, to create a climate more convivial to attracting foreign investment.

The bountiful spread of fruit and vegetable ‘markets’ that manifest themselves across the country including evidence of a marked increase in the number of new vendors at various vantage points across the capital and in parts of other regions, is one of the many manifestations of the aggressive pursuit of entrepreneurial options arising out of the economic squeeze created by the onset of Covid-19.

This is not the first time that the Stabroek Business has commented on official pronouncements on economic diplomacy and the particular role of the Foreign Service in pursuit of the goals of attracting external investors, creating openings for the growth of markets for goods and the marketing Guyana as a haven for external investment.

There being no clear indication up to this time as to just when there will be a measure of respite from the COVID-19 pandemic, the restraints that continue to harness the business sector grow increasingly worrisome.

It may have come as a surprise to some of the representatives of the mainstream private sector when representatives of the small business sector put in an appearance at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Monday to further make a case for far greater attention to be paid to their growth needs in order to better position them to, among other things, benefit from some of the promised spinoffs from the oil & gas sector and to otherwise consolidate their operations.

Sufficient time has elapsed, we believe, for the new government to provide a clear policy picture in relation to the level of support that the local small business community can anticipate from it in terms of initiatives that can help to strengthen the sector if only on account of the substantial job-creation and poverty alleviation weight that it carries.

The prospects that could accrue to the local business sector arising out of the Local Content opportunities deriving from anticipated oil and gas-related foreign investor pursuits was one of the focal points of last Thursday’s address by Dr Ashni Singh at the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce’s 131st Awards Ceremony, unsurprisingly so, since Local Content and what it could mean for the fortunes of the Guyana business community has, for the most part, been uppermost on the agenda of our Business Support Organisations (BSOs).

The recent release by the Ministry of Public Works of a statement on the subject of an “Update on Emergency Repairs to MV Kimbia & MV Barima” indicates that “remedial works” on the two vessels “are still ongoing and will be completed soon.”

A recent visit to the ‘spread’ of a fruit farmer in Berbice revealed a phenomenon that is almost certain to shock those of us whose day-to-day experiences do not bring us into contact with the general environment associated with fruit farming.

This newspaper well remembers the May 2019 passage in the National Assembly of those key amendments to the 2003 Procurement Act which (we had thought) paved the way for suitably equipped small businesses to have access to 20% of state contracts.

Since the World Bank has as many tools as any other organization with which to fashion projections regarding the likely behaviour of the global economy, going forward, it is altogether reasonable to assume that some measure of seriousness will be attached to its projections and predictions in the period immediately ahead.

Whatever predictions and projections we might have as a nation for the year that begins today, these cannot fail to take account of the formidable imponderables with which we are confronted.

While the appeal by the President of the Tourism & Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG), Mitra Ramkumar, for a reopening of the various entertainment spots was entirely predictable, even understandable, the point cannot be made too strongly that such consideration as is given to THAG’s appeal must be set against the objective conditions that obtain, that is to say, those conditions that have to do with the circumstance of the pandemic and the threat that it continues to pose, on the one hand and on the other, the situation in which the entertainment sector finds itself.

Every year, we get these routinised seasonal pronouncements from the Fire Chief that target both private homes and the commercial sector, cautioning  against the customary Christmas time indulgences like the additional consumption of power against the backdrop of what has been, for years a decidedly unreliable electricity supply regime,(and a failure over the terms of office of several  political administrations) to fix the faults that obtain at a perpetually-in-crisis Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL).

President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Dr Warren Smith was not the only senior official in recent times to use a public forum to allude pointedly to the propensity in developing countries for funding provided by international lending agencies to disappear down dark, corruption-infested holes even as those awaiting the suffering-alleviation measures that these funds are intended to bring, sink deeper into destitution.

The disclosure earlier this week that quantities of Colgate toothpaste that expired eighteen years ago were still being sold on the local market and that this scandalous circumstance was only brought to the attention of the Government Analyst–Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) through a consumer complaint, is a manifestation of just how ineffective our consumer protection mechanisms are, how completely disregarded the attendant laws have become and how low some ‘business houses’ can stoop in their quest to ‘turn a dollar.’

Only time will tell whether the recent visit to Suriname by President Irfaan Ali would have marked a definitive and – for both Guyana and Suriname – mutually beneficial turning point in bilateral relations between the two countries.

In The tumult attending the March general elections and its eventual outcomes there had been something of a lull in reporting on the work of some key state agencies, an understandable circumstance since public attention had shifted in altogether different directions.

In a country of incremental advances in media freedom arising through no effort on the part of government but rather on account of the gradual rolling out of an increased number of media houses and advancements in enabling technology, the various publics have, over time, become more vociferous, more empowered in ‘talking back’ to  government.

As this newspaper has said several times before, we have every reason to be exceedingly proud of the various small economic ventures in the agriculture, agro-processing and the creative sectors.