Business community says…New Govt. must provide vision for private sector

Apr 13, 2015 News

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By Desilon Daniels

“There is a lot of work that we have to do in terms of growing the economy and moving forward and I think if we’re going to ask our potential leaders anything, it is to provide that vision and that picture in terms of how we move forward and what do they see as the role of the private sector.” – Lance Hinds

With the highly anticipated announcement of the nation’s next government about a month away, the business community has opined that the new government must plainly state the role of the private sector if Guyana’s economy is to grow and live up to its potential.

The community also declared that the government must allow the private sector to take up more economic space and “grow unfettered”.
The assertions were made during yesterday’s broadcast of the radio programme “Hard Talk” which featured President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI) Lance Hinds, Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Ramesh Persaud and President of the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) Clinton Williams.
During the hour-long programme, Hinds asserted that a clear plan of action is needed for the private sector to move forward. Hinds said that one of the country’s main interests should be to clearly see the roles both the private sector and the government play. He said too that the government occupies “a tremendous amount of economic space”, a situation that needed to be addressed.
“The question is whether the government would become more of an enabler on the policy section and the policy side and allow the private sector to grow unfettered and fill these areas they are currently occupying,” Hinds said.
Hinds further said that Guyana’s current economic situation could be much further along, especially when compared to other economies. Currently, he said, Guyana’s economy stands at a value of $3B. In comparison, Suriname’s economy is $5B while Barbados has a $4B economy “even with its difficulties”. Both countries, he said, are small in population and geographical size.
“I’m not even going to speak about Trinidad and Jamaica; Jamaica is a $15B economy in terms of GDP,” Hinds said.
“There is a lot of work that we have to do in terms of growing the economy and moving forward and I think if we’re going to ask our potential leaders anything, it is to provide that vision and that picture in terms of how we move forward and what do they see as the role of the private sector.”
Hinds said that the next leaders must have a plan on how they can remove some of the bugbears and difficulties experienced by the business community on a regular basis.
“There are things that have been on the table for years that we have been asking for…and some of those matters are still outstanding. We would hope that in this next iteration of government that whoever is in power, far more attention will be paid to the concepts and the operational matters that are critical to the growth of business in Guyana,” Hinds emphasised.
Similarly, Persaud agreed that though much had been done to improve Guyana’s economy, the country still had more to achieve.
“The general environment for business and the growth and development of business may not be as perfect as we would like it to be, but the environment still was adequate and sufficient to nurture some level of growth and development in business…We would like it to be much more enhanced and much more improved and we’re saying that in the context of when we compare ourselves with many other countries, there are lots that could have been done,” Persaud said.
Persaud was also questioned on the public’s perception on the business community’s failure to hold the government accountable. In response, Persaud indicated that simply because the private sector was not confrontational did not mean the body was not attempting to promote pro-business policies.
“The public is always entitled to views; from where we sit we know that we do a lot work, not only to shape the opinions of the people, but we do a lot of work behind the scenes in promoting pro-business policies,” Persaud said.
“We only take public positions when we can’t get things done through negotiations and through the normal course, and the mere fact that we have not been very vocal on things that people might deem to be negative and want us to be confrontational on is that many of the times we are working through the process, through discussion and through negotiations with the various stakeholders to solve the problem.”
The PSC head admitted that covert operations did not always work and public declarations would in turn be made to apply public pressure.
Persaud said that in terms of controversial issues, including the Amaila Hydropower Project and the Anti Money Laundering (AML) Bill, the private sector had made public pronouncements.
“To some extent, we complained about progress not being made,” Persaud said before adding, “Unfortunately, some of those issues were affected by the entire parliamentary process and so forth. For those issues, the behind the scene work could not resolve the problem…we were vocal on them because they are important to us and we weren’t making behind the scenes progress.”
GMSA President Williams emphasised that issues needed to be consulted on with full participation by all relevant stakeholders. However, he said, lack of compromise continues to be an issue plaguing progress.
“In every instance where those fundamental policy issues were being discussed, we always suggested that there should be compromise. Unfortunately, the concept of compromise doesn’t seem to exist at all and that has forced us into a corner into where we would have to think seriously about the way policies and strategies of that nature are derived and consummated,” Williams said.
He said too that if the community is moving forward with policies it  needs to be clear.
“Certainly, the conversations have highlighted the issues that we think need to be addressed. How well they have been addressed – how well they have responded to those issues – is still a mixed bag but we need to have that conversation in terms of whether we are listened to,” he added.
The private sector is paying keen attention to the outcome of the upcoming general and regional elections, which are to be held on May 11. The business community has long since indicated that the economy is oftentimes destabilized due to elections.
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Picture saved in Monday as:

Hard talk
Caption: From left: President of the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) Clinton Williams, Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Ramesh Persaud and President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI) Lance Hinds

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