-Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation report says inefficient financial systems compromising private sector growth
The Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation 2010 Index of Economic Freedom in Guyana has said that the country’s financial system is plagued by inefficiency and a poor institutional framework that continues to compromise the growth of the business community. According to the WSJ/Heritage Foundation study the local financial system continues to be undermined by “high credit costs and scarce access to financing,” impediments which it says “remains a barrier to more dynamic entrepreneurial activity.”
The report notes that Guyana has been moving towards what it describes “as a more welcoming environment for foreign investors” but pillories what it describes as “the intense political scrutiny” which major foreign investments must undergo and the “burdensome and non-transparent” approval process to which those investments are subjected. The report, published in January, says that while there is no mandatory screening of foreign investment “the government conducts a de facto screening of most investments to determine eligibility for special tax treatment, access to licences, availability of land and approval for investment incentives.
Meanwhile the report says that investment in Guyana continues to be hindered by crime, corruption, inefficient and burdensome government bureaucracy, non-transparent regulations, a weak and burdensome judiciary and an inadequately educated work force.
In its section titled ‘Freedom from Corruption’ the report says “corruption is perceived as widespread… There is extensive corruption at every level of law-enforcement and government. Public officials are required to disclose their assets to an Integrity Commission before assuming office but the Commission had not been constituted as of mid-2009. Widespread corruption undermines poverty-reduction efforts by international aid donors and discourages foreign investors.
