Why the deafening silence from the Ministry of Business?

Mar 06, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I thank your newspaper for its indulgence of this follow-up to my letter on the parking meter situation of March 3. For one thing, the Town Clerk blundered seriously when he failed to answer the fundamental question: Smart City solution is the best option compared to which other solution? How can he claim that with such arrogant certainty when he did not even look at alternative solutions, or what other metered parking providers have to offer?
One of the many benefits of public tendering is that you have options and you can rate objectively the best option available. And so get value for money.
The Town Clerk has also claimed that Smart City would be investing over 10 million US dollars in the metered parking project. If that were true, wouldn’t the ministries that publicly pronounced on the project have given a more favourable evaluation of the project? Is there a Letter of Intent or a Memorandum of Understanding that supports that claim? Has anyone seen such a document? Was that proposal ever submitted to Go Invest?
Would not such a huge investment fall within the purview of the Ministry of Business? Go Invest? Why the deafening silence from the Ministry of Business? Is silence here ‘golden’ or just plain ‘yellow’?
Businesses invest in a new market based on measured and calculated risks with their eyes firmly fixed on the Return on their Investment (ROI). Understandably, when Smart City was asked about their anticipated Return on Investment, it deftly deflected the question.
Only stupid people would disclose that. Usually, when businesses are venturing into a new market they first carry out certain analyses of the potential market. For example, the economic situation: level of disposable income, level of corruption etc., Did Smart City solutions carry out any such study? Would not carrying out such a study be considered foolhardy, reckless in business circles? Did SmartCity make a dumb move?
Certainly, Smart City would have been aware of the huge number of forensic audits and commissions of inquiry that are taking place in the country. Didn’t that mean something to them? In the case of Smart City, based on admissions made during a television interview, no feasibility study was done.
A feasibility study would have included an evaluation, at the barest minimum, of the needs, interests and preferences of the major stakeholders involved, namely city businesses, organizations (schools, churches, government ministries, public utilities,) residents, workers and commuters.
When confronted with a sustained vocal and vigorous response from the stakeholders, Smart City went into scramble alert mode to make adjustments to their implementation strategy. Here certain inferences can be made: that Smart City solutions felt, probably based on certain assurances given to it by a third party that it would be a slam-dunk situation in Guyana.
Are there any inferences that can be drawn not only from the steep, sharp reduction in the size of the parking fees but the time sequence of the concessions? Yes, there are. And they indicate a predatory approach to the market. Businesses use a certain methodology for evaluating a potential market. What are some of the factors a legitimate business considers before venturing into a new market? These are political, economic, social and technological. Did Smart City solutions consider Guyana’s political, economic, social and technological situation and decide to take advantage of it and go for the jugular and make a killing? There seems to be some indication that they are aware of Guyana’s lack of technological sophistication when they made vague references to other features of the parking meter machine.
Smart City has repeatedly claimed that there is a positive correlation between metered parking and businesses generating increased sales. Smart City alludes to thousands of cities where it claims that has happened but, again predictably, cites no specific instances.
Is Smart City solutions not aware that correlation does not mean causation? Metered parking does not generate increased sales. Increased sales are generated by other factors.
Would the Smart City metered parking solution weather the storm and succeed in being implemented? Or, would the Movement Against Parking Meters (MAPM) ‘Starve the Beast’ strategy prevail and score a major victory – the triumph of the ‘power of the people’ over the ‘people in power’? My guess is based on probabilistic thinking and playing the percentages. I give the ‘power of the people’ a very good chance of winning.
Business Consultant

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