Business Editorial

Food safety: Who cares anyway?

An intense if somewhat muted row  has been ensuing between some local business importers and the Government Analyst Food & Drugs Department (GA/FDD) over what has become the prevalent practice by some distributors of importing volumes of food items that do not adhere to the requirements that obtain under the Food and Drugs Act.

The Small Business Bureau

It is now just over three years since then president Donald Ramotar launched the Small Enterprise Development and Building Alternative Livelihoods for Vulnerable Groups (MSED) project in October 2013, which is intended to support the goals of the Government of Guyana in the areas of poverty alleviation.

Cuba beckons’

Accelerated moves towards a thaw in relations between Havana and Washington (though we must wait and see how the relationship unfolds under the Donald Trump administration) have triggered consequential developments here in the Caribbean where a number of Caricom countries are beginning to take a closer look at the economic opportunities that might be on offer in a liberalized Cuban economy.

Cuba beckons

Accelerated moves towards a thaw in relations between Havana and Washington (though we must wait and see how the relationship unfolds under the Donald Trump administration) have triggered consequential developments here in the Caribbean where a number of Caricom countries are beginning to take a closer look at the economic opportunities that might be on offer in a liberalized Cuban economy.

The RUSAL visit

Not a great deal has been said about the brief and relatively quiet visit to Guyana late last week by two Russian functionaries of the global aluminium giant RUSAL It has to be assumed, however, that their visit here had to do with an attempt to bring an end to the crisis that had more or less been festering inside the majority RUSAL-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) for years.

Public accountability and the Small Business Bureau

In last Friday’s issue the Stabroek Business published a lead story regarding some of the details of the training regime being provided by the Small Business Bureau (SBB) under the Micro and Small Enterprise Development (MSED) project launched by then president Donald Ramotar in October 2013.

Investing in Guyana

Every time a government functionary has spoken publicly on the matter of official policy on foreign investment in Guyana it is always the same unchanging story.

The Government of Guyana and BCGI’s Russian management

The disclosure late last week that Cabinet will now be contemplating the goings-on at the operations of the majority RUSAL-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) is as good an example as one would find of feverishly seeking the close the stable gates long after the horses have bolted leaving in their wake a trail of mayhem and destruction.

GO-Invest and the Brazilian investment team

It made for encouraging news that the GO-Invest Chief Executive Officer Owen Verwey met with a sizeable group of Brazilians, potential investors we are told, at the Brazilian Cultural Centre earlier this week “to explore investment opportunities” in Guyana’s economy.

The Small Business Bureau, again

The news emanating from the Ministry of Business’ recently released 2016-2020 Development Plan pertaining to skills’ shortages in some key public sector agencies extends to the Small Business Bureau, part of the critical apparatus set up for administering the support mechanisms for small business development.

Crime and the public/private sector relationship

It should be said at the outset that the private sector’s recent publicly expressed concern that crime, including violent crime, once again appears to be lurching out of control and its demand that there be a concerted official response to push back the current crime wave is entirely appropriate.

Food and Drugs, Customs and the integrity of consumer imports

All of the evidence bared during last Tuesday’s interface between functionaries of the Govern-ment Analyst Food and Drugs Department (GA/FDD) and the Guyana Revenue Authority – Customs and Trade Administration ostensibly to attempt to refine the relationship between the two state agencies in matters pertaining to the importation of safe foods, drugs, cosmetics and medical devices into Guyana suggested that the engagement was long overdue and ought to have happened much sooner.

Crime and the business community

On Tuesday October 18, the Stabroek News’s editorial titled ‘Crime statistics and public security’ raised the issue of the relevance of the crime figures routinely published by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in the context of the role that the figures play in helping the public to arrive at a reliable assurance regarding just how safe we are.

Mining casualties

It is not the easiest thing in the world to speak glibly about safety in the gold mining sector in circumstances where most of us who dwell outside of that circle do not know much about the associated risks.

Restoring UG

Those who know even a little about the career of recently appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana Professor Ivelaw Griffith, may well be persuaded that he is what one might call ‘the right fit’ for the job as Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana.

Public servants wages and salaries: The rhetoric and the reality

We can probably anticipate an animated reply from the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) to the forthright comment made by Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) President Vishnu Doerga on the 10 per cent salary increase in public servants salaries offered by the Government of Guyana and which the union says it rejects.

An oil economy: Public perception vs reality

One of the things that came clearly across in this newspaper’s interview earlier this week with Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman was the need to separate the idealistic wishful thinking that used to (and still does) inform public discourse about such prospects that might arise as a result of an oil discovery from the very different reality that obtains now that we are actually on the verge of becoming an oil-producing nation.

After the Ogle inquiry

The passage of time and the unfolding evidence of some crucial directions in which Guyana’s development appears to be heading underscores the importance of the country’s aviation sector and more particularly the Eugene F.

The eviction of the Robb Street vendors

The Bourda vendors who ply their trade on Robb Street between Alexander Street and Orange Walk may have been given a directive to resume trading yesterday after being subjected to two successive days of loss of earnings but that does nothing to conceal the continually deteriorating relationship between City Hall and the urban vending community, on the one hand, and on the other the patently quixotic management style of the new municipal regime in matters pertaining to addressing the issue of vending in the capital and more.

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