A US$500 million lending purse has been extended to Guyana by the African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank) to assist this country in hastening its infrastructural development agenda, President of the Bank, Dr. Benedict Oramah announced yesterday.
In addition, local oil and gas support service businesses which currently endure long waiting periods for their cash, would be lent the owed sums in advance by the bank, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali added, as he hailed the initiatives.
Dr. Oramah told the opening of the 2nd AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF), which is being held at the Marriott Hotel that, “For Guyana, here, we have agreed to conclude a five hundred million dollar transaction to support accelerated infrastructure development… We also expect to sign a document evidencing the arrangements we’ve reached with the Government of Guyana for the US$500 million investment bridge financing facility,” he added. Government and the Bank will finalize the terms of the interest on the lending amount, if accepted. President Ali has already said that this country will not accept interest rates higher than 4%.
With hundreds of delegates from Africa and the Caribbean in attendance, Dr. Oramah said that the bank has an agenda to ensure it supports the development of CARICOM countries, and he pointed to support given to Barbados, Grenada and The Bahamas for tourism and St. Lucia for climate adaptation, among other initiatives.
“Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future has been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realised the light of their own freedom,” he said. He emphasized that building strong relationships was needed for the continuing success of a unified partnership between the two sides.
“In a deglobalizing world, small, open economies will suffer if they don’t bind together. And there can be no better binding than that of brothers and sisters, as represented by AfriCaribbean trade and investment integration,” he contended. For his part, President Ali echoed unity and close collaboration, promising that his country will ensure that trust is formed and partnership forged. “In honour of those men and women who we lost in the most horrendous form, we now have the opportunity to rewrite history of collaborating and expanding partnerships for the prosperity of the people,” he said.
“Since our engagement, here in Guyana we have made very strategic decisions as a government. First of all, we have appointed a full-time adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on African investment and Business Opportunity in the form of Ambassador Hamley Case,” he said, while also singling out Merchant Bank owner Floyd Haynes. “Over the last number of months, Floyd has journeyed many times to Africa, and has held many discussions with the Afrexim to do a number of things,” Ali said.
He said that Haynes’ bank is in the final stages of negotiating a US$15 million facility to support local businesses and small and medium scale enterprises. His bank is also working with the Afrexim in supporting the four women who recently won an oil block – with negotiations to follow – in this country’s first auction. Afrexim’s invaluable support to this country, Ali pointed out, is also evidenced when, on hearing of the hardships small businesses here face, the bank stepped up and offered to upfront the monies until the businesses collected on their due.
Payment gap
“Professor Oramah and I would have been discussing, and he has advised, that he would like to see this finalized before the end of the conference. We have talked a lot about the payment gap for the suppliers of services to the main oil companies, the timeframe that it takes and that causes a lot of hardship on the cash flow for local suppliers. Like they did in Angola and Nigeria… they established what is known as a local content facilitation fund that helps local companies with cash flow similarly to what Floyd is trying to mobilize. And before the end of this conference, ladies and gentlemen, we will have agreements for the establishment of your local content’s location here in Guyana,” Ali said to thunderous applause.
“…So, we are making meaningful progress, very strategic alliances, very strong alliances and showing confidence in the Afreximbank and what you have to offer for this region. My distinguished colleague, Prime Minister Phillip Pierre (of St Lucia) spoke about the important cultural, economic and human ties between Africa and the CARICOM region and that must not be taken lightly. For a matter of fact, that is the root of this relationship. That is a bedrock of this relationship. That is the main artery that will ensure this relationship is fueled with the blood that will keep it alive,” he added.
Turning to the private sector, the President urged that they take advantage of the finances being offered for projects, especially to address the age-old problem of a regional transportation system. If they did, he said, they can be assured of the Government of Guyana’s support. “Today I speak to CARICOM, the CARICOM private sector,” he said and called out the Caribbean Private Sector Organization head, Gervase Warner.
“I will consider it a severe missed opportunity by the regional private sector if they cannot form a consortium and use this opportunity that Afrexim is offering to end our regional transport system failure and I speak specifically about our maritime transport infrastructure. We can plant and grow as much as we want. We can do agro processing, manufacturing, industrial development, we can reengineer the supply chain, but we have to move things; we have to move things throughout the region. We must find the solution,” he stressed.
“Afreximbank has assured us that they are ready to examine a proposal from the regional private sector to present this solution. Every single state in CARICOM has made it clear that we will give all the incentives necessary to facilitate the building of a regional transport infrastructure system to solve the problem of regional transport. It is in your hands now, and we will champion it. We will champion it with Exim Bank,” he added. The President said that businesses can come together and “form a consortium between the providers who are under the Afrexim Bank portfolio and the regional consortium.”
“We are too small to think and act in silos. We have to learn to remove the imaginary barriers between ourselves and act in a collective, in consortiums, bringing together our collective capital, our collective talent, our collective structure so that we can make use of the largest scale opportunities that exist within the region. We can’t tiptoe around this anymore. The private sector has failed us in this endeavour. This is a business opportunity, not a state opportunity. This is a business opportunity that governments in the region are ready to facilitate and support to the right incentive and fiscal system. We have made it very clear. You need now to be what you always demonstrate yourself to be; the engine of growth. The government are the facilitators of growth,” he emphasized.
The conference ends today.
