Dear Editor,
Letters to Stabroek News by Mr Wesley Kirton and Mr Nizam Hassan have defended Minister Robert Persaud’s presentation and the execution of the forum in Florida to promote investment in Guyana’s agricultural sector. The effort by the Guyana goverment to actively participate in these investment forums shows good intent. However, good intent alone is not enough to have successful outcomes -good intent must be welded with a staff, which has expert knowledge of the target market being pursued and is capable of executing the plan to sell investors on Guyana.
It may be easy to produce an agri-product in Guyana. The difficulty lies in marketing this product in the United States to the big retailers like Wal Mart, Publix et al, and employing the infrastructure, staff and just-in-time inventory distribution system to succeed. While Mr Kirton defended every aspect of the 1 November forum, Mr Hassan seemed open to new ideas.
The effectiveness of this forum needs to be properly and professionally assessed to see how effective it was. The management guru Peter Drucker once wrote: “Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information”.
Ultimately the Guyana government will need data to show whether the investment forum was a success or failure.
With hundreds of millions of dollars (US) investments flowing into Guyana over the past 14 years, the Guyanese people should be discussing the net benefits to the country. Unfortunately, these receipts to Guyana’s treasury are inadequate and the Jagdeo government had to implement a 16% Value Added Tax which has hurt all working class Guyanese.
Investment in Guyana should be beneficial to both the investor and also the Guyanese people. I wish the Guyana government much success in its outreach for foreign investments.
Yours faithfully,
Narinedat Harripersaud
