The new minister of Home Affairs seems to be taking his role seriously in upholding law and order, now is the time for the private sector to become more dynamic.

This last week a delegation from St. Kitts travelled to Georgetown to meet with me on a business problem they were having with their government. The St. Kitts businessman and delegation described that his company employs mostly Guyanese and is concerned that his government's control and competition in his sector will eventually shut him down. He wanted to discuss how our company has handled government intervention, how best to solve the issues and whether private sector organizations across CARICOM are in any regional discussions on interrelated issues.

It's a fact that many of our governments in the region control major components of businesses that should be privatized. I have personally experienced the inability to compete against a government entity. It brings to the forefront an important factor, that there is a need for a regional private sector organization to look at issues that affect us across the region.

Dynamic private sectors are an essential component of prosperous economies.

The implementation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), should not only proclaim a major change in the way we operate in the region but more importantly the need for the private sector to recreate itself and how it relates to governments and civil society as a whole. The CSME presents both an extraordinary opportunity and a massive challenge to all Caricom economies.

One only has to look at the continuing upheaval in the European Union to see the enormity of the challenges facing governments and private enterprise when single markets are created. There are challenges certainly even in the developed world, and our own environment in the Caribbean with less flexible labour markets and governments that are inexperienced at best in economic matters.

In Guyana, we must also face the fact that the public sector thinks of the private sector as the evil empire and thus presents challenges to the success of the CSME. From the immaturity of our financial infrastructure to the protectionist spirit demonstrated by private sectors leaders in last year's Ansa McAl controversy and the public sector's demeaning comments about the way we operate makes our future interaction a challenge.

Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur noted that Governments do not compete, but rather businesses do and it was essential that the private sector gear itself to economically lead the modern Caribbean.

In Guyana, public sector leaders certainly can learn from Prime Minister Arthur's simple statement. Often it seems that the public sector feels as if they were the private sector! By touting private investments as Government successes, stifling the private sector by an inadequate investment code, and sustaining an unfriendly business climate, little is being done positively by the public sector to encourage free enterprise in Guyana as noted by public comments at the recently concluded GuyExpo and the political intervention in the telecommunications and agricultural sector.

The Prime Minister also said, "Indeed the Caribbean of the future must be driven by a private sector. It is also the private sector that must gear itself to fill the gap in capital accumulation through both indigenous investments and through the attraction of requisite direct foreign investment to our shores".

As we see the need for private sector energy and entrepreneurship, there is a need also for a new spirit of technological innovation to provide the means by which we can build competitive domestic and regional economies in a global economy. The Public-Private Partnership (P3) Initiatives that were discussed last year by many of us in civil society with the Georgetown City Council are now taking shape such as the potential sale of derelict properties.

The CSME will also drive the emergence of indigenous Regional Companies - where will Guyanese companies stand? As has been seen in Europe, waves of corporate consolidations can help make Caribbean companies more competitive on a global scale. Guyanese producers of agricultural products when linked with other producers and their customer base across the region may fare much better than they do at present on their own. In manufacturing and industry though, it may be necessary to attract regional companies to Guyana given the relative disrepair of our capital stock after many years of disinvestment. This also serves to highlight past short-sightedness in the Guyanese private sector. Where our physical plant has deteriorated, we must encourage local entrepreneurs, financiers, and visionaries to right the course and reinvest in building the future of Guyana.

The relative paucity of internal investment means we may risk being left out of the benefits of the CSME. Our financial sector reserves and the amount of capital that is year after year not invested in building Guyana's future serves to demonstrate the banking sector's lack of dynamism and faith in ordinary Guyanese, yet we continue to support these banks. It may also be to our advantage to actively court global economic players to acquire Guyanese interests. This must be well orchestrated and not politically motivated as in the case of GT&T. Our nation holds massive opportunity for the minerals, tourism, transport, and agribusiness industry giants. Why not actively pursue investment and sale of our companies? If we have the resources and the businesses, these types of relationships should not be feared but rather welcomed as recognition of our vitality and capabilities. Both public sector and private sector alike should throw out the welcome mat to international investors and major companies! This must not be done in isolation but in a well coordinated and integrated economic plan for our nation.