THE government is not “waiting on oil” or the petroleum sector to begin addressing main challenges in the energy sector such as cost and efficiency, says Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge.

At the time of the remarks, Greenidge was responding to several questions posed at the Annual General Meeting of the Small Business Development Finance Trust (SBDF) at the Regency Hotel on Wednesday.

Present were the Board of Directors, several clients of the SBDF and Bank of Guyana Governor Dr. Gobind Ganga, who was also invited to speak.
Greenidge established that several of the country’s main sectors are heavily influenced by the price of energy, which is higher in Guyana compared to some of its Caribbean counterparts.

“We have suffered pretty severe damage because of the high cost of energy in Guyana…unless that is fixed, many of the challenges faced by agriculture, all of the challenges faced by manufacturing and processing, much of the challenge faced by the agro-industry will not be solvable without a resolution of that problem.”

As such, he assured that the government has made it one of its main priorities to make energy more affordable, not only through the approaching petroleum sector, but through fixing inefficiencies in the existing system.

This includes the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) where there is inefficient generation of electricity and significant losses in transmission which have affected citizens for years.
“Even before petroleum starts flowing you have to fix the existing system and part of that existing system is associated with the distributional transmission of energy,” he said, later adding:

“Even before 2020, we are working with partners such as the Japanese who also have provided assistance in terms of preliminary work on an energy plan to ensure that, systematically, we can look at problems of the energy sector and try and bring solutions on stream.”

But when it comes to petroleum production in 2020, Greenidge reminded that apart from natural gas which will be available for cooking, Guyanese will be able to receive some 200MW of power when the excess gas is brought onshore.
“When that starts to flow we expect that the highest priority will be given to a project that will utilize the gas that is associated with the petroleum exploitation to land it on the East Coast somewhere in the vicinity of [Mahaica] with the purpose of driving turbines that can generate electricity for domestic use,” he said.

Other plans for energy production in coming years include solar power; the use of byproducts and waste source to generate electricity and hydropower plants.
Greenidge also addressed questions related to the creation of roads and other infrastructure to benefit small businesses by speaking of the number of projects the Ministry of Public Infrastructure has planned for execution.

Some of these include the creation of a new bridge across the Demerara River; several by-pass roads and the Linden-Lethem Highway which he said will help to boost the agriculture sector through both local and international means.

In his remarks, the Foreign Affairs Minister encouraged small and medium enterprise business owners to take advantage of the developments occurring around them.
“There is also work to be done on your side to ensure that when these things are in place you are able to take advantage of the markets…It is not only the Government that needs to do things in order to take you forward. You have to do some things yourself and of course you have to pay attention to your needs to ensure that the Government takes account of your needs,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ganga presented on the role of small and medium enterprises and views on the future economic development of the Guyanese economy.
Ganga stated that small and micro businesses employ hundreds of persons locally and help to form the backbone and engine of the economy.

However, he said that as Guyana’s economy is expected to grow with the production of oil, the necessary stakeholders must be wary to ensure that their decisions work in the best interest of the average Guyanese.

“I believe that expectations are high with the impending production of oil…The Bank of Guyana is aware of the impact such an inflow can have on the economy including an impact on inflation and the exchange rate.

“Like all Guyanese small-medium enterprises could be impacted negatively if inflation is left to rise uncontrollably and if there is a major appreciation of their dollar,” he said.
As such, Ganga recommended proper management of the new sector and encouraged small-medium enterprises to take advantage of the many opportunities which will follow.

During the meeting, SBDF revealed from its 2017 annual report that last year it granted 439 loans which helped to sustain and create 2,869 jobs.
Some 45 percent of the loans financed by the SBDF went to the agriculture sector; 30 percent to the retail trade/services sector; 10 percent to the consumer sector and the remaining percentage to fisheries, livestock, manufacturing and others.