Reservations about some type of investors in Guyana

Mar 05, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Most developing countries have policies to support local entrepreneurs and businesses to grow. Some countries even make it mandatory for foreign investors to have local partners. It begs the question, therefore, why in Guyana foreigners are given free rein to do business in all areas of the economy, with privileges that Guyanese do not have.
In recent decades, we have seen an influx of Chinese businesses, which are dominating all sectors. They are in the restaurant, clothing, hardware, mining, logging and contracting businesses, among others. It is in the contracting business that they have done most damage to our economy, for example the poorly built Skeldon factory. Another example is GPL, which is saddled with poorly constructed sub-stations and defective cabling from a US$40M contract done by a Chinese spare parts company.
From press reports, it seems that the same Chinese company has been awarded another contract for US$23M for further work with GPL. Were our people not aware of the reports on the previous job the company did? Are our people so lax or are there dubious occurrences in this deal? Was it not possible for a local company to do this job so that the profits remain here in Guyana? The sad part is that the loans that financed these contracts have to be repaid by the people of Guyana.
Robin Bynoe

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News