It is by no means accidental that the beleaguered administration of President Maduro in Venezuela has chosen this particular time frame to make menacing signals towards Guyana specifically – at least so it seems – to seek to disrupt this country’s move to finally begin to initiate its oil recovery efforts.
If only because of its enormous potential for job creation and providing small businesses with a shot in the arm and giving rise to the creation of new ones, it has to be said that it took an inordinately long time to bring the 20% allocation of some state contracts to small businesses into effect.
One of the more important disclosures to come out of the post-budget presentations in the National Assembly last week was the one made by Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin regarding what we hope is a definitive confirmation that the 20 per cent allocation of state contracts to small businesses will take effect in January 2019.
Taken at surface level Minister Keith Scott’s disclosure in his post-budget presentation in the National Assembly earlier this week regarding the creation of an “alliance” designed to help curb the incidence of workplace accidents in the various high risk sectors is an interesting one particularly since, outside of mining and the traditional areas where workplace accidents occur with some regularity, the Minister has also based on his presentation in the National Assembly embraced the oil and gas and aviation sectors, which, going forward will assume an increasing prominence in the country’s economy, as part of the alliance.
Two years ago, almost to the day, Finance Minister Winston Jordan told Guyanese in his 2017 budget presentation that it was the intention of the Government to preside over the full and effective implementation of the provision in the Small Business Act allowing for small businesses to have access to 20% of state contracts which are within their competence to execute.
The legitimacy or otherwise of the adjusted toll rates recently announced for the Berbice Bridge aside, there are, as every rational thinking person would agree, other considerations which are at least of comparable importance.
Against the backdrop of the frustrating ‘on-off’ relationship that has obtained between government and the private sector for many years, one has every right to wonder aloud as to precisely how we should interpret the recent media release from the Private Sector Commission (PSC) arising out of its meeting with President David Granger.
It seems that every time this newspaper visits the Guyana Marketing Corporation’s Guyana Shop several new brands of locally produced agro-products are on display and available for sale to the public.
A few days ago the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) issued a media release that made a few instructive points about aspects of the country’s agricultural sector including its potential to increase its market share for fruits and vegetables on the regional and international markets and the constraints that inhibit the realization of that objective.
It is highly unlikely that there will be anything even remotely resembling a shortage of persons and, it seems, institutions, queuing up to provide evidence in the forthcoming Commission of Inquiry into the running of the Georgetown municipal administration.
As we report in this issue of the Stabroek Business preparations for the materialization of ‘first oil’ in 2020 are witnessing the emergence of local learning institutions as partners in the process of training Guyanese to take up positions alongside their foreign counterparts in the high-skills oil recovery sector.
Any objective analysis of the performance of the Guyana Office for Investment (GO Invest) in its role as the principal facilitator for the creation of an enhanced business and investment climate for Guyana will probably conclude that it has fallen short of expectations.
The disclosure that the Government Analyst Food & Drugs Department (GAFDD) has been awarded the ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Standard is a welcome boost for what, over the years, has been one of the most neglected and maligned public sector agencies in Guyana.
During the course of that portion of his 2018 Budget presentation that had to do with the gold mining industry, Finance Minister Winston Jordan made three important points.
One of the more significant clauses in the 2004 Small Business Act has to do with the provision that it makes to provide access for small and medium-sized businesses to 20% of state contracts for the provision of goods and services.
In the Friday July 20th issue of the Stabroek Business our lead story was based primarily on a brief telephone interview with the President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) during which he told us that a July 20-21 private sector forum at the Pegasus Hotel would have been seeking to move in a positive direction as far as the growth of the businesses participating in the forum were concerned.
We are yet to know how last week’s partnership agreement signed between the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Geneva-based International Trade Centre (ITC) will affect the business community in the Caribbean and whether, specifically, there is room in the arrangement for boosting the growth of the emerging but patently needy small business sector in Guyana.
One good sign in the ongoing discourse on the commencement of oil exploitation in 2020 and the implications of the returns from it for the country’s future and direction of the economy is that it is not being allowed to entirely drown out the urging that other vital sectors not be ignored.
If the recent promotional event at the Marriott Hotel is anything to go by it appears that there is considerable enthusiasm for the September 19th – 22nd Guyana Trade and Investment Exhibition (GUYTIE) which brings together the local public and private sectors in collaboration with the Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export), its mission being to launch an experimental initiative in an effort to kick-start a long overdue project aimed at providing results-oriented interaction between local export-ready entities and buyers outside of Guyana with a view to significantly expanding overseas markets for locally manufactured products.
There is probably a case for suggesting that the current (understandable) preoccupation with the imminent commencement of oil exploitation offshore Guyana and what this could mean for the future economic shape of our country could serve as a distraction from other equally important issues that have a bearing on the economy of our country and the well-being of our people.
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