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GO-Invest, PSC seek better relationship

Jul 16, 2015 News

The Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) and the Private Service Commission (PSC) have joined forces to work towards having a better private/public partnership.
The two bodies recently held a meeting at the GO-Invest office and during it they discussed a way forward on how to better their relationship. In attendance were Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GO-Invest, Keith Burrowes, and members of the PSC including recently inducted Chairman Norman McLean and member Clinton Williams.
For quite some time, members of the PSC had been critical of the operations of GO-Invest.
During the recent meeting, Burrowes emphasised that there were no hard feelings. Instead, he said, the two bodies would be burying the hatchet and moving on.
This newfound relationship has seen the PSC offering suggestions to GO-Invest on how to better the operations of the latter. In the past, Burrowes would have called for suggestions, rather than criticism, to come from the PSC.
He added that previous criticisms coming from the PSC would have been individual positions and not something signed off or voted upon by the entire organisation. He said that he welcomes the constructive criticism from the PSC, adding, “We don’t have a problem with that. I want to say however that there are a number of things we could not have done.”
On previous occasions, the PSC had reportedly accused GO-Invest of not making enough meaningful contributions to Guyana’s economy. Though members present at the recent meeting denied the statements, Burrowes nonetheless responded and maintained that previous data from different sectors would have shown that GO-Invest contributed significantly to almost every sector.
Williams admitted that he would have been one of the critics of GO-Invest in the past. However, he said, the issues raised before were now being tackled by GO-Invest.
“For example, they did not have the responsibilities for monitoring all the investments coming into the country so when you had some questions sometimes they just didn’t know.” After outlining other previous shortcomings of GO-Invest, Williams said that the CEO has indicated that these areas will be tackled.
In response, Burrowes said that GO-Invest previously had a limited number of investments coming into the country. These investments, he said, had not been the ones which critically impacted Guyana’s economy. He explained that when questions arose on these specific investments, GO-Invest was usually at a loss for information.
“We never get a number of major investments in Guyana. I only knew of some of our major investments from the papers. Many major investments we didn’t deal with…so sometimes the beating up on GO-Invest is sort of unfair,” Burrowes said.
Nonetheless, he continued, “We are looking forward to working very closely. We don’t have it all and we don’t know it all. You’re the business people and we’d like to work hand in hand with us. We’re putting aside who said what and whatever happened in the past; we’re moving on.”
McLean said that the PSC is expecting a new approach on how GO-Invest will operate. Speaking specifically to proposals put forward by Burrowes, including the monitoring of concessions given to businesspersons, McLean opined that such moves are promising.

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