Legitimate concessions, incentives were not priorities for PPP

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Legitimate concessions, incentives were not priorities for PPP – Business Minister

Sep 24, 2016 News

– Government now putting systems in place

Faced with the question of why Go-invest has not been forthcoming with information on the number of foreign investors in Guyana, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin, told media operatives that the entity has been very busy.
There were queries about other aspects of the local investment climate but the answers were not forthcoming.
Why? Because the entity has been on its feet since the coalition government took office. The agency is now working on putting systems in place to measure the impact and to monitor the activities of investors who would have been granted concessions through Investment Agreements with the Government.
These measures, Gaskin said, never existed under the former administration – the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and because of this, a foreign investor would go in and say, “I want to invest $100M and I will create 300 jobs”. That information was noted and would become official “record.”
No monitoring was done to actually ascertain whether these companies would have fulfilled their promises and if anyone actually benefitted from their presence in Guyana.
“This is clearly something that we don’t want to perpetuate. We are putting in place a more responsible system for reporting,”
The Minister added that these systems will account only for investment agreements made between the current government and investors.
He added that Go-Invest has nothing to hide and in the near future, it can be expected that representatives of the agency will be engaging the media.
On the topic of incentives being granted to companies, it is the Minister’s view that incentives granted to investors must be reviewed constantly – at least annually to ascertain their impact. And like the concessions, there was no “real” measure in place prior to 2015 to do so.
“We are now attempting to do that, so that we can say that the incentives given out…during this particular period, produced these results – X amount of jobs were created; X amount of new taxes paid into the system; etcetera.”
Guyana is no stranger to foreign investors coming into to the country with sugar-coated promises only to fail to fulfill these promises which result in the populace feeling the squeeze. In terms of investment, the Business Minister said that the government “has not inherited a well oiled machine” to handle investments regarding Public-Private Partnership.
No framework, he said, was in place throughout the years.
“We have to now put in place systems, including legislations to deal with the kind of proposals being submitted,” the Minister said.

1 thoughts on “Legitimate concessions, incentives were not priorities for PPP – Business Minister”

rs dasai September 24, 2016 at 11:33 am

And how does Gasi know that these were not priorities? Did the PP tell him? Or is he trying to pass blame in trying to look good and competent?

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