Editorial
Stabroek News
May 16, 2001

At a time when our economic crisis is only exceeded by our political crisis the securing of new investment must be high on the list of priorities. Indeed we had previously suggested that though not on the agenda listed by Mr Desmond Hoyte this should form part of the issues to be discussed between Mr Hoyte and President Bharrat Jagdeo.

We had suggested that an investment promotion body be formed including go getters from both sides of the political spectrum and from civil society. This body should make trips to selected capitals overseas to meet Chambers of Industry and Commerce and business groups to try to interest them in investing in Guyana. The body should have substantial powers and should be able to deal with issues like the allocation of land, negotiating terms of contracts and so on. Decisions would be made, expeditiously, by the Board of Directors. If government does not want to set up a special body then perhaps the same idea can be incorporated in the revamped Go-Invest to be set up under the supervision of Mr Geoffrey da Silva.

Potential investors in Guyana are still having a very hard time. Many government departments are still not geared to deal efficiently with customers or to make quick decisions and the running around is painful. Mr da Silva and the new body must have the ability to intervene to break bureaucratic bottlenecks and get results. People just will not put up with endless delays and being pushed around from pillar to post.

Lack of economic development and the resulting poverty and unemployment have been at the root of most of our problems. The recovery of sugar and rice gave the economy a little boost for a while but both those industries have faced problems as well as gold mining and major new investment is vital. This needs a concerted effort, especially given the recent political turmoil and the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that left behind. Mere talk is useless. People have to sit down, make plans and get cracking. The obvious areas are resource based development, including tourism (reports indicate that that has virtually ground to a halt in the recent troubles). Some Guyanese businessmen would get involved in new investment too if they could find serious and efficient people to deal with. That is the problem, inefficiency and lack of energy. The new body will have to be geared to tackle this.

It is true that the Caribbean tiger Trinidad and Tobago,has natural gas and oil. But the major investments they have attracted did not just fall into place. Entrepreneurs like Sidney Knox helped to broker them. The ideas for the development of Guyana are there in the National Development Strategy and Guyana 2l. What is needed now is action, preferably with the involvement of all sides.