Latest update December 4th, 2024 2:40 AM
Minister of Business commits to reducing red tape, hassle
– as Guyana slips further on ‘ease of doing business’ global rankings
As local businesses continue to lament the difficulties in doing business and the hassle experienced with regulatory agencies, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin has noted that developing a reputation as a country with ‘red tape’ is literally bad for business.
This comes at a time when at least two economic indexes used to rank countries based on how easy it is to conduct business within their respective economies, have shown that Guyana’s position has actually deteriorated for the year 2015 compared to preceding years.
“Red tape is not what we want to promote,” Gaskin said in a recent interview with Kaieteur News. “We don’t want to develop a reputation as a country that has heavy red tape. We will be making a serious effort to improve the ease of doing business in Guyana.”
Gaskin noted that this was something the international community was keeping an eye on and that Guyana had already received a harsh ranking on one global ‘ease of doing business’ economic index.
“That’s clearly not good,” Gaskin said. “There are a number of areas that are taken into consideration which create the ranking. We have to do work in all those areas, including the red tape to ensure that Government transactions with businesses are smooth, quick and efficient. “
A chart from Trading Economics
Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin
The ease of doing business ranking system looks at regulatory environments in countries and how conducive it is to starting and operating a business. Economies with a high rank (under 20) are considered to have simpler and friendlier regulations for businesses.
A perusal of the World Bank group index ranking system will show that out of 189 countries, Guyana is ranked at 137 as of June 2015 for its ease of doing business. Out of the 189 countries studied, Guyana was more positively ranked at 92 for its ease in starting a business. However, under securing credit Guyana was ranked at 167.
Meanwhile, the trading economics index also placed Guyana at 137 in 2015 out of 196 countries, showing that Guyana’s position deteriorated from 132 in 2014. Last updated earlier this month, it also shows that ease of doing business in Guyana averaged 115 from 2008 until 2015. In 2008 it was a record low 98.
“So we are aware of the problems and (more) solutions are still to be developed. But by the end of next year, you will see an improvement in reducing red tape, and within our term in office, we will be pursuing and will complete the implementation of computerized/automated processing of transactions between Government and businesses.”
He added that Government was also aware of the corruption that accompanies many transactions between Businesses and Government regulatory bodies. Gaskin noted that it has been something ongoing but that Government is working to reduce it.
The recently released Ministry of Business 2015-2020 Strategic Action Plan outlined five goals in order to ensure that local business growth is on a more sustainable and inclusive basis. Included in that plan is how the Ministry plans to eliminate red tape.
One of these strategies is to strengthen support systems available for small businesses through the Small Business Bureau (SBB) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with regulatory agencies such as the Deeds Registry, the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Another plan is to integrate the Small Business Bureau (SBB) and GO-Invest with the e-governance database and to publish guidelines on co-operation between Ministries, in order to ensure members of the public are better informed. There is also the plan to publish the Ministry’s statistical agendas. However, one of the major plans is for technical improvements and the speed of the Ministry’s import-export licensing process.
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