Chamber collaboration

One of the points made to us by the new President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Mr Vishnu Doerga during an interview published in the Stabroek Business last week, had to do with the focus which, going forward, the Chamber will be placing on reaching out to sister Chambers across the country in an effort to support them in their quest to infuse a higher level of organizational and administrative acumen into the agendas of the business communities in the various regions of the country.

The business houses in the various regions—perhaps there are one or two exceptions—would be the first to admit that some of their Chambers exist in little else but name, have not held elections in years, rarely meet, if at all and therefore cannot really function anywhere near effectively as substantive business support organizations. This newspaper has found this out through its efforts to engage the regional Chambers with a view to securing information on business developments in the respective communities. In most instances (we repeat that there have been a few exceptions) there has been no one in place to speak authoritatively for the business community and while there has been evidence of some measure of business activity in every region there did not appear to exist any overarching coordinating framework.

The immediate disadvantage here, of course, is that whereas business communities require certain common services it becomes far more convenient if—where representation has to be made to central government—there is a body tasked with making that representation on behalf of the group. Even at the best of times some regions, at the level of individual businesses, particularly small ones, lack the skills necessary to enable effective engagement (with government, for example) on important business issues. As an aside the GCCI has, a few years ago, sought to open a ‘window’ allowing membership access for much smaller businesses than had been allowed membership previously. That initiative, insofar as this newspaper is aware, has not met with the kind of response that the Chamber had been anticipating.

What has long been apparent is that if the notion of public/private partnership is to become more than the slogan that it is, there will be need for more engagement between government and the private sector at a formal level and there is no better mechanism to realize that engagement than the business support organizations. Smaller businesses are simply unable to mount effective representation in matters that affect them (the current imbroglio between urban vendors and the Georgetown municipality comes to mind) and which can only be effectively addressed through discourse with the authorities.

Earlier this week the Stabroek Business spoke with Mr Deleep Singh, the newly elected President of the Essequibo Chamber of Commerce and Industry who set out some of the Chamber’s plans for addressing business issues in Region Two. There are challenges in the region mostly associated with the rice industry’s loss of the Venezuelan market and the need to address the economic slump that will arise from the situation. As best as this newspaper can tell, prior to Mr Singh, who is a farmer and hotelier, the previous presidents of the Essequibo Chamber were all (or mostly) officials of the banking sector. We believe that might have been a reflection of a scarcity of businessmen who were either willing or able to serve in that position.

Mr Singh, as we understand it, is ready to give time and attention to reviving the Chamber and creating a measure of cohesiveness at the level of the business community in Region Two. However, two things are clear. First, if the Chamber and by extension the Essequibo business community is to go forward, it will be necessary to establish a collaborative relationship with government in order to ensure the creation of an enabling environment in which the Chamber’s plans for business growth can go forward. Second, and in the absence of the experience available at the level of the newly revived Chamber, the situation would appear to provide the ideal opportunity for the Georgetown Chamber President (whose personal skills as a Business Analyst and Business Coach his counterpart in Essequibo may find particularly helpful) to put his proposed plan for reaching out to sister Chambers into action. This newspaper would go so far as to say that in the circumstances the two Chamber presidents should be talking without delay.

What the Georgetown Chamber president’s offer does as well is to open the door for the creation (or resuscitation if such an organization actually exists and may be dormant) of an umbrella organization ‘housing’ the Chambers across the country that can create a structure through which the respective Chambers can—for want of a better phrase—feed off of each other and become mutually supportive of business growth initiatives in each other’s regions.