This week’s disclosure that, in the period ahead, Guyana will be home to a US$75 million Marriott-branded hotel is probably not altogether surprising given what we are continually being told is likely to be the considerable levels of foreign investment that will come on the back of the emergence of our oil and gas industry.
What is much more noteworthy is the fact that the investor is a Trinidad and Tobago businessman, that being so because there has been, for some time now, an intermittent but sporadically spirited discourse about what is believed to be the sometimes coarse assertiveness with which potential investors from Trinidad and Tobago and the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce itself have been honing in on what they perceive to be the heaven-sent opportunities that will derive from Guyana becoming and oil-producing nation.
Foreign investment is going to be one of the vehicles through which the Guyana economy will benefit from the oil and gas industry and in that context one of the interesting disclosures in yesterday’s Stabroek News story on the multi-million dollar investment has to do with the number of jobs (400 in the construction phase and 200 in the longer term, according to the article). Here, the point should be made that while we anticipate that the jobs in the construction phase will go, to a large extent, to entities that are able to mobilize the skills and the resources to create a so-called Marriott-standard Hotel, suitably skilled Guyanese will have access to the longer-term jobs, bearing in mind that there has already been some evidence of skilled Guyanese being able to serve at various levels in a Marriott-brand hotel locally. This, one might add, is a consideration which the local private sector must insist on since, in our view, a second Marriott Hotel provides Guyanese in the sector with a further opportunity to expand their range of experience in the various disciplines at all of the levels of the hotel industry.
One makes this point having regard to what is already a not inconsiderable feeling of an unwelcome assertiveness amongst would-be Trinidadian investors in pursuit of potentially lucrative investments here on the back of the emergence of our oil and gas sector. Here it has to be said that, arguably, there has not been anywhere near sufficient pushback from the local private sector, particularly, to what, on occasion, have been reported instances of coarseness on the part of visiting private sector officials from Trinidad and Tobago in treating with individuals and institutions in Guyana, as though, somehow, we are not fit to run our own show.
A few particular points should be made at this juncture. First, it is no secret that business relations between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have been harboured by the known protectionist tendencies in the twin-island republic (Guyana is not the only CARICOM country that has been a victim of this tendency) that has placed wide-ranging restrictions on imports from Guyana that have targeted our agricultural and agro processing sectors, particularly. Contextually, it is apposite to note that the considerable sealing off of the gates to imports from Guyana continues to coincide with a continual surfeit of lucrative investments here by T&T investors, which investments are likely to become more significant in the period ahead. There are those who might even argue that this is an extension of much more glaring instances of unkindness meted out to us by the Trinis at a people to people level, previously.
The point should be made at this juncture that while the recently announced investment disclosure by the Trinidadian John Aboud is consistent with what is perceived to be the resource needs of the country as its oil and gas economy emerges and is welcome, it is apposite to remind that the Guyanese people, including the local business community are entitled to a reasonable level of reciprocity insofar as receptivity to investors and markets are concerned. This newspaper is aware of instances, quite a few of them, in which local small businesses, notably in the agro processing sector have been thwarted by an assortment of ruses conjured up in Port of Spain to block entry of our goods into Trinidad and Tobago. And while we are aware that there have been, in recent months, bilateral discourses ensuing with a view, hopefully, to resolving these issues, sufficient time has elapsed to allow for at least an insight into just where we are headed on this issue.
What we need, on the parts of both the public and private sectors, is greater evidence of a preparedness to ‘take charge,’ insofar as insisting on an arrangement that is underpinned by a mix of respect and reciprocity and which causes the Trinis and the various other investors, wherever they may come from, to understand that we make our own rules and that we expect that these will be respected.
Meanwhile, we acknowledge John Aboud’s declared investment as a welcome venture and one that fits in with the infrastructural requirements for providing a high standard of service to our oil and gas industry. At the same time, one expects that our CARICOM neighbour will recognize that the investment opportunities that now exist in Guyana represent a new-found leverage and that it is not something that can be simply dismissed nonchalantly.
