GO-INVEST Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Keith Burrowes, will retain his portfolio even as the Government moves to appoint an interim board to guide the operations of the investment agency.He had initially resigned following criticism of Go-Invest from some sections of the business community, but has put his resignation on hold following a meeting with Minister of Business, Mr Dominic Gaskin on Thursday.
Mr. Burrowes, who had suggested that his critics should have furnished him with their suggestions before laying blame, said the meeting with Minister Gaskin was cordial and fruitful.
Mr. Burrowes had resigned as a Director of GuySuCo in October last year, and from all indications, his resignation was accepted by the former Donald Ramotar administration.
The APNU+AFC Administration recently asked the Board of Directors to resign in the light of poor performance by GuySuCo.
Mr. Burrowes will continue to serve Go-Invest and has undertaken to improve the reach, image and output of the country’s principal investment agency.
He was reluctant to go into details of the meeting, but pointed out that a number of issues raised by Minister Gaskin to take the agency forward are already part of a current plan he had developed for Go-Invest.
These include working closely with other government and private sector agencies to improve services, development of a six-month plan for the year and examine areas of priority interest in keeping with the vision and mandate of President David Granger.
Mr. Burrowes pledged to work with the new Government to develop and build capacity of the investment agency to provide efficient and quality service to potential investors.
The Go-Invest CEO over the years has developed a reputation as a prudent and efficient public sector manager and a positive agent of change.
Under his leadership of the Health Sector Development Unit (HSDU), and the Basic Nutrition Programme supported by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), he was recognised by the US Government.
The programme was commended for the impact it had in making a genuine difference here in the area of nutrition.
Intent on building on successes achieved in 2014, Go-Invest will be establishing a Research and Development Department to further strengthen the work of the agency as it moves to forge closer relations with the private sector and to more aggressively promote investment opportunities in Guyana abroad.
The Research and Development department will serve both as an intelligence unit and an advisory arm of the agency.
The primary task of the department will be to collect information from the various Government ministries and agencies, analyse project proposals, examine market trends in the Region and farther afield, and provide up-to-date information to potential investors.
In addition, to promote its work locally, more particularly among the youths of the population, Go-Invest will be reaching out to students of the University of Guyana and students leaving secondary school. Those outreaches, the Go-Invest CEO said, are to stimulate students’ interest in business, and to inform them of areas of investment available and concessions to be had.
The investment agency is also working to develop a website which, apart from English, would be available in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and French. A standard application is being developed so that investors could express their interest online.
Staffers of Go-Invest are also being trained in these languages so as to ensure that the agency’s operation is not affected by the language barrier.

By Tajeram Mohabir