Facilitating a robust private sector: Our vision

May 08, 2011 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

---

(This week we feature an excerpt from the speech delivered by Presidential candidate Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan at a luncheon hosted by the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association at the Pegasus on 27th April 2011)

Master of Ceremonies thank you very much for your kind words of introduction. Honourable men of business, Esteemed guests, Friends all.
I feel honoured to have been given such an important platform to deliver the Alliance For Change perspective on facilitating a robust private sector in Guyana. Not only does it reflect an open new consultative trajectory on the part of our business community; it also shows an unshackling of the timidity by the business community in demanding a direct examination of those desirous of leading this country. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
For Guyana to move forward economically there must be a transformation of the existing approach towards wealth creation. Our history, since Independence, has seen an approach which emphasized a State-led growth and development path. This history no doubt was as a result of the ideological underpinnings of both the political parties which dominated political life for the last half a century. It is a history which has suffocated the blossoming of an entrepreneurial class.
The hard cold facts as to what were the bitter fruits of this history were strikingly revealed in the Guyana Investment Climate Assessment Report No. 35951 – GY dated June 21, 2007, a document of the World Bank. This Report revealed why, although so many hundreds of millions of US dollars were poured into this country, the benefits of growth (which averaged a paltry 3% per annum) were non-existent.
This Investment Climate Assessment saw over 164 Guyanese manufacturing firms being surveyed and 32 hotel and tourism establishments participating.
This is on page viii of the Report.

1. Pervasiveness of money laundering through banks – Guyana’s ranking – 117 out of 117 countries;
2. Brain drain – Guyana’s ranking – 117 out of 117 countries;
3. Reliability of police services – Guyana’s ranking –116 out of 117 countries;
4. Centralization of economic policy-making –115 out of 117 countries;
5. Irregular payments on public contracts – 114 out of 117 countries;
6. Macroeconomic Environment Index – Guyana’s ranking –113 out of 117 countries.

And it may cause you to suffer indigestion if I gave you for that same year the Getting Credit Index (a ranking which turned out to be 145 out of 155 countries) and our Corruption Perception Index – it was 121 out of 163 countries surveyed! The source was Transparency International.
These statistics are a consequence not of our entrepreneurs, but of our present and past political leadership. It is very well known, given half a chance, once our Guyanese entrepreneurs go overseas, as so many have done, they perform and they accomplish, generating great wealth for themselves and those other societies.
The Alliance For Change supports an approach which is private sector led, and State facilitated. It has a team which is committed to ridding the major and minor irritants of businesses – the red tape, a sluggish bureaucracy, arrogance of officialdom, arbitrary use of discretion rather than adherence to a rule based system, and corruption from on high as well as low.
It has a team which believes that the business community as a collective must be integrated into the decision making process at the highest levels. A team which will pay respect to icons of industry, like Mr. Yesu Persaud, and not flatten them with “champion” remarks like “You are ignorant!” only to be embarrassed thereafter and too full of ego to apologise.
To fast track, so that Guyana can reach those countries which have galloped past her since the ‘60s, we must not only learn the new market driven approaches, to services and industry. We must also unlearn the stifling regimentation of what we used to have over these fifty years or so. Indeed, there have been some moves to advance the private sector but the unlearning process of our present political leaders – with a mindset that distrusts businesses – has not been quick enough. So a deformed, decelerated movement is the result. Guyana has to do better.
The AFC understands the dilemmas and challenges which will face the maturing of a robust private sector in Guyana. But the AFC will do what it takes, both at the general level and at the specific.
Indeed, there are certain general things to be done to facilitate an accelerated advance.
Firstly, there will have to be a more secure, stable environment, rather than the present crime-ridden one where almost daily businessman are killed or robbed. The resources offered by both the USA in setting up a DEA office here and the British Government for a Security Sector Reform will be accepted. Our Police Force needs an infusion of professionalism, and an appreciation of human rights, and better working conditions.
Further, the more efficient, just and expeditious resolution of disputes, especially concerning commercial transactions, will be demanded of the Magistracy and Judiciary by satisfying their request that there be the appointment of the full complement of Magistrates and High Court and Court of Appeal Judges, with the accompanying support staff and resources to move cases along. Of course, an AFC Government will in turn request of Magistrates and Judges that they deliver. The AFC believes that there is a fundamental nexus between the rule of law and growth and development. A certainty and confidence is instilled in businessman, and indeed the whole society, when this branch of Government functions properly.
The other important general condition to be fixed which will accelerate progress is the production through our University of Guyana, and vocational/technical schools, of better and more relevantly educated graduates. These institutions must be geared up for our development needs. Some vocations we will emphasize include agriculture, agro-processing, landscaping, carpentry, welding, auto mechanics, refrigeration, electric technicians, and jewellery-making, among others.
The University must be restructured to produce more science, technology, business, engineering and math graduates, all of whom at the end of their graduate years must develop better critical-thinking, and cross-cultural understanding, and a range of language-skills, especially Spanish and Portuguese. I am reminded on this score by the words of President Obama “The nation that out-educates us today, is going to out-compete us tomorrow.”

---

---