Too big for Guyana

May 23, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The scale of the duty free concessions granted to a foreign-owned company, and which was reported on in yesterday’s edition of this newspaper, would tend to suggest that the Chinese firm’s plans may have involved the takeover of the entire economy of Guyana.
How else does one explain the billions of tonnes in cement which were reportedly covered by the concession? How else does one explain the billions of gallons of paint to be granted duty free concessions?
One estimate indicated that the cement alone represented 333 times the annual supply of cement to Guyana. The amount of paint on which concessions would have been eligible would have painted the entire country.
There is need for an analysis as to how Guyana would have benefitted from such a massive investment and whether it would have meant the entire domination of our economy by one firm.
There is need for an assessment as to how Guyana would have benefitted from this investment which has had a very long period of gestation.
The concessions approved but not accessing are staggering in quantum. They are mind-boggling.
Concessions granted are usually based on the projected level of investments. It would be interesting to know just what type of investments the company was planning for Guyana. It would have had to have been multiple times the entire GDP of Guyana to justify that level of concessions. It seems unrealistic that any firm could have utilized such massive amounts of paint and cement as reported in the newspapers.
Revelations like these lead to calls for government to re-examine its relationship with those investors which did business with the PPP. The sort of investment that the concessions suggested would have been much too big and much too dangerous for an economy like Guyana.
The concessions tend to suggest that the entire economy may have eventually come under the control of this foreign firm if the investments did materialize. The Guyanese people are entitled to know just what was planned and just what was being executed.
The present government has had one year to examine the arrangements with these companies. It should report to the nation its findings and its position as to whether it will go ahead with these investments.
This is no longer a case about the construction of the wood processing plant and the exportation of logs, even though both issues are germane to the examination of the agreements reached with the former administration. Based on the concessions granted, there are implications for the scale of investments which require national dialogue, including some form of engagement with the private sector. Because of the level of investment as suggested by the concessions that are to be deployed in Guyana, it could mean that almost all of the major sectors of the economy can be affected and this will have implications for the entire business class.
The government needs to therefore urgently indicate how it will treat with these investments, which we are told involves the building of an industrial park. The Guyanese economy does not have the absorptive capacity for very large ventures. We do not have enough workers for facilities of a certain size and therefore it needs to be asked whether the proposed investment in an industrial park would have involved the large scale importation of foreign workers.
The silence of the government on these issues has been deafening. The public is still in the dark as to just what is the status of some of these investments which were negotiated by the former administration but which have not been scrapped by the present administration.
The PPP had big plans for Guyana. However those plans may have been much too big for Guyana.
APNU+AFC must state where in stands in relation to these investments. The nation is awaiting a reply.

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Too big for Guyana

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