Survey finds 91% of city chamber members showed profit in 2012

-corruption perceived as high, Marriott not seen as priority

A Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry survey has found that 91% of its members showed a profit in 2012 but a significant number also perceived corruption as high and the controversial Marriott Hotel project was not seen as a priority.

Clinton Urling, President of the GCCI, yesterday noted that the second Attitudinal Survey revealed that none of the participants recorded perceived corruption in the public sector as being low or somewhat low. In fact 74 percent of members reported that perceived corruption was high in the public sector. He said that only five percent of those surveyed felt like the government was actively tackling reducing the perception of corruption compared to the 88 percent who stated that the government was doing nothing. The GCCI president revealed the findings of the survey at the umbrella organisation’s headquarters.

Clinton Urling
Clinton Urling

Sixty-five members of the Chamber responded.  Of these, 87% said that business activities were either “strong” or “very strong” last year. Seventy-one percent expected to see increased revenues this year. Fifty-four percent of the respondents said that the cost of doing business had risen somewhat while 29% said it was up significantly.

Around 8 out of 10 of the respondents were optimistic about the economy this year, none had a negative outlook. Financing was sought in 2012 by 58% of the respondents for expansion of their businesses, working capital and capital investment among other reasons.

When prompted with various responses on the main difficulty they experienced, 42% of the respondents cited finding and keeping good employees followed by “high tax rates” at 31%, “high cost and unreliability of electricity” at 22% and “crime and security” at 16%.

In terms of government support, 45% of the respondents said that the administration was either “very supportive” or “moderately supportive”. A little over a third said that the government’s attitude was neutral and 19% offered that the government was either “moderately unsupportive” or “very unsupportive”.

Urling said that while the perception of corruption would not negatively impact growth he did note that “there is definitely a correlation (with)  decreased economic performance when corruption occurs”.

He stated that corruption and not just perceived corruption had to be identified by the government, the private sector, the political opposition and all stakeholders with tangible evidence produced and documented.

Urling said that presently “we don’t have any evidence of corruption, we don’t have any high evidence of corruption, [and] we don’t see many prosecutions of corruptions, I am not saying that it does not exist”. As a result Urling noted that the survey conducted by the GCCI was not empirical in its nature but that when businesses felt that corruption was pervasive, negative effects could be tracked in the lack of developmental growth.

The recently-re-elected GCCI president stated that “elimination of corruption could potentially raise economic growth by two or three percent”. Urling stated that from the survey it may be necessary to no longer focus on the perception of corruption and instead focus on building the necessary institutions to curb corruption. He said that there has been genuine dialogue on the creation of both the procurement and integrity commissions. Neither has been set up as yet. Urling noted that having institutions in place that held independent mandates were necessary to deal with tangible corruption.

Urling stated that “if you do not have the institutions and there is no disincentives to act corruptly, persons are going to do it regardless…the important focus should be on our institutions and not the whole issue of corruption per se.”

Urling stated that the issue was not a black and white one and as a result the survey did have a large percentage of respondents who refrained from answering the question in the first place. Approximately 22 percent of the 65 businesses surveyed responded that they had neutral feelings as regards to perceptions of corruption. The GCCI president stated that “some felt like they best not answer it because they can’t tell whether it is high or if it’s low so they avoided the question…avoided answering the question based on limited information”.

He said that with little actual evidence many respondents did not want to record an opinion.

Future projects

The survey also recorded that businesses felt that political and economic stability was the most important issue to furthering Guyana’s competiveness on the global scale.

For future development and projects the GCCI survey revealed that the Marriott Hotel project had the lowest priority ranking although the government has continuously pushed the project forward. Respondents also ranked the Suriname-Guyana Bridge low on the list of priority projects. Urling noted that for many businesses, securing future energy needs fell in line with supporting the Amaila Falls Hydro project. The Lethem road and other interior road construction followed closely on the list of necessary projects.

The survey findings were that the GCCI did perceive the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri expansion necessary for economic development. Urling stated that the airport expansion could be tied to facilitating the export of unprocessed agricultural products which was noted as a strategy to improving global competitiveness.

The survey was aimed at gauging the opinions of members and how to effectively engage government and all relevant stakeholders.