Latest update May 5th, 2026 12:35 AM
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Attracting better jobs
If this year is to be any better than the last, the bottom line is that we will have to attract companies that will pay better wages than presently prevails. The present dominant employers will just not cut it. For instance, it’s a crying shame that sugar remains our largest employer. Sugar in Guyana never did – and never will – pay even a living wage for its average worker. Increased mechanisation, which is demanded by the present circumstances, will ironically not deliver increased wages, and in fact, may even depress wages further as the machines compress our water-logged soils and compel shorter ratoon periods.
But even before the present administration was ushered in it was acknowledged that we had to secure massive “foreign direct investment” if we were to significantly raise wages and our standards of living. And we had the fabled “potential” that could be exploited, but the local business class had neither the capital nor the “guts” to develop that potential.
The world has acknowledged that there is a existential “food security” problem which will only increase as paradoxically, nations such as China and India become wealthier. As a country with huge savannahs eminently suitable for agriculture, why hasn’t the investment been pouring in? The US Geological Survey confirmed before 2000 that huge reserves of petroleum and natural gas lie off our Atlantic shores but we have not seen the commensurate activity to tap into them. Why? Etc. Etc.
The number one reason has been our inability to create a secure political environment. Study after study of the behaviour of multi-national firms have demonstrated that they will not risk their investment funds if there is no guarantee that those investments will be safe. But we really did not need all those studies: which one of us will plunk our money into a country where at any time there may be riots and violence that could see it all go up in smoke in an instant?
While there has been a lot of talk about the democratic credentials of the government – or the lack thereof – the sad fact of the matter is that foreign direct investment is more interested with stability than democracy. Not that they may not prefer the latter but it is not a paramount requirement. So while foreign companies overtly encourage what is dubbed a “rule of law” framework, they are willing to close their eyes if stability can be guaranteed.
There has been a commendable effort by the government to confront other shortcomings that deter investment into underdeveloped countries. Foreign companies prefer to work with educated workforces. The latter can more easily grasp the new technologically advanced work techniques. The old days of expatriate firms flooding the third world with their own workers are over: the locals are expected to provide the bulk of the workforce. While we still have a far way to go, even the fiercest critic of the government will acknowledge that educational standards have improved. But the companies have not been exactly breaking down our doors in a rush towards investing.
Investors also demand transparent processes while establishing and conducting business in foreign climes. While there is even more needed to be achieved in this area, there has also been progress in the last decade; to the point where we are comparable with many of our faster developing neighbours. Another factor is the presence of basic infrastructure. Nowadays it is not only the presence of water and electricity (both of which are still problematical) but of secure and reliable communications. In all these areas there has been progress – or it is in the offing.
There’s not much the government can change immediately in the year ahead in those areas, but in the critical one of political stability – which trumps all – it certainly makes a quantum leap. Shared governance will remove the political uncertainty that has so frequently descended into the debilitating violence that scares away foreign investors. The major opposition has already signalled its preference for this innovation. Will the government rise to the occasion for the betterment of Guyana?
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