The prospects that might accrue to the local business sector arising from the Local Involvement opportunities arising from the expected activities of foreign oil and gas related investors were one of the focus of last Thursday’s talk by Dr Ashni Singh at the 131st Chamber Awards Georgetown Commerce. Ceremony, unsurprisingly, as Local Content and what it might mean for the fortunes of Guyana’s business community have, on the whole, been high on the agenda of our Business Support Organizations (BSOs).
One of the points made by Dr Singh had to do with the importance of local businesses being able to match the expectations of foreign investors related to competence, which is by no means a tangible point because expects outside investors to come here to seek investment opportunities arising. of the country’s oil and gas activities, it will want to ensure that such local partners can contribute to the realization of their goals.
Local content discourses between local business entities and potential overseas business partners have already been following and although it would have been good if we could have learned more about these discourses, one understands, of course, that it is not. . it is normal for such conversations to unfold in full public view.
We know, however, from what seems to be the current interests of the PSC, in particular, that Local Content is high on its members’ priority list, linked, variously, to the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Guyana Manufacturing Association of Services and Services and the extent to which their closeness allows their individual leaders to alternate the chairing of the PSC. The kind of inbreeding, some feel, that closes the door firmly against a single strand of what may be called a mind group. As it is clearly fair to say that these are, in fact, private sector ‘leaders’ then it is difficult to see how the vast majority of contemporary small businesses – and in many cases weak – can hope to exert any influence private sector policy in general.
So while the private sector should enjoy, as a right, such access to local content as they derive from the current external interest that Guyana enjoys as a potential investment target, we rise here, as we have ‘raised before, the question of whether the way our BSOs are structured and how they operate, fitting them properly to ensure that the private sector, as a whole, can do the best of the opportunities that repose in the Local Content opportunity. Here, of course, the point should be made that Local Content’s access to a kind of ‘free for all’ cannot be reduced, because, in the final analysis, the assessment of external partners will be a great boon in determining which potential partners’ do the break ‘and which ones don’t. However, this is not the same as saying that a large number of local businesses, including small businesses, should not be given the opportunity to make that ‘cut’.
Over the past decade, a number of smaller businesses have emerged in various sectors that could probably come into the picture in terms of local content opportunities. However, the question that arises here – and this was addressed by Dr Singh in his GCCI address – must be to what extent these relatively new initiatives, which now represent a significant proportion of the the wider private sector, meeting or hoping to meet, in the near future, the standards demanded by foreign investors. If this is a practical question that cannot be swept aside, it is not the only one relevant. What contribution, one might ask, has the mainstream BSOs made to improve competence in emerging businesses so that, in some sectors, they too could benefit from a share ( even a very modest proportion would, in the circumstances, make a difference) of the Local Content pie?
Followers of the local private sector agenda would no doubt recall that the GCCI had revealed that it intended to initiate an initiative through Chambers in other regions of the country in order to raise standards of business operation in those regions some years ago. Nothing has been heard, as far as we can remember, since that initiative. He may want to say otherwise. Small businesses in Guyana remain weak for several reasons. One of them relates to the limited business acumen of investors, cases where the seal is not matched by the required acumen. There are other limitations too … such as the lending sector’s leverage towards start-ups and what often seems to be the state’s apathy towards small business growth. If there may be (and have been) sporadic attempts by some BSOs to undertake limited initiatives that reflect some sensitivity to the need to support small business growth, the question of whether these, all, designed to make a real contribution to small business growth and capacity enhancement or are they merely symbolic gestures. Is it not desirable, for example, for BSOs such as the GCCI and GMSA to create small and vibrant business lobby groups in themselves whose voices can affect policy within the private sector as a whole? And can this not be done in a way that ensures that even the aspiring street vendor has some kind of voice and is listened to and responded to by organizations such as the state and banking sector?
Here again we believe the BSOs will have to be seen leading those types of lobbies and taking those kinds of initiatives, led by the Private Sector Commission. After all, as we had suggested earlier, it is not our understanding that possibilities for Local Content are completely closed to that part of the business community that for some reason or other together, falls under the umbrella of one other BSO. members come from those private sector enterprises that enjoy the higher profile in the business community.