GUYANA’s premier investment agency, Go-Invest, is set to undergo major reform, with strong attention being placed on fairness, transparency, good governance and aggressive promotion of the agency, both locally and abroad.
Under the new Government, Go-Invest will cease being an agency under the Office of the President and will now fall under the purview of the Ministry of Business.

In an exclusive interview with the Chronicle last week, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin said the focus and mandate of Go-Invest at the time it was established are still relevant, but the agency has been beset by a number of challenges.
Go-Invest, he said, was not adequately resourced to achieve what it was designed to achieve, and as minister he would pay strong attention to performance and not to anecdotal information, but hard, reliable data.
“One of the things I want with Go-Invest and the ministry is to have data that is reliable and regularly made available to the public that would indicate performance and inform investors and the business community.
“Transparency has been very dear to us over the years. We constantly lamented the lack of information available to the public and we realise too that in the absence of hard data, it gives rise to speculation and most of the time speculation is not healthy. It does not help Guyana; it does not build confidence in the system and in our institutions. The thinking is if people have information, people can know what we are doing,” a confident Gaskin said.
For the time being, the challenges facing the entity are being identified. These will be fixed and the agency will begin to set benchmarks to be achieved. It will be guided by a strategic plan, which will soon be developed by Go-Invest Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Keith Burrowes and his technical team.
Minister Gaskin is not pleased with the way Go-Invest is currently operating, more particularly the level of investment it has attracted over the last decade.
But he pointed out that he is not certain if Go-Invest is to be blamed directly for this, noting that this happened probably because the agency was not adequately resourced and by virtue of this, it was unable to operate as it should.
To increase and promote investment here, Guyana will be moving to ensure Go-Invest has a vibrant presence in all the major countries where it has diplomatic representation. It will also establish investment desks at all its foreign missions.

CANNOT SIT BACK
“We can’t sit back and wait for people to show an interest in Guyana, we have to go out there and sell Guyana as a venue for doing business and as a venue for making profits. The agency responsible for doing that is primarily Go-Invest. We need to be strategic; this is something that we will be working towards to achieve over the next five years,” Minister Gaskin told this publication.
These efforts will be aided by a strong online and social media campaign, publication of magazines and a closer relationship with all private-sector agencies.
Go-Invest is not too well known outside of Georgetown, and the various chambers of commerce will be targeted, so as to get their members sufficiently informed about Go-Invest and what it does.
The intention is also to get them to spread the word on the services of the investment agency and how businesses can benefit from it.
Under the former Administration, the handling of Go-Invest was criticised; all investors did not go through Go-Invest. The then Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) also engaged investors.
Minister Gaskin told the Chronicle that this will stop, stressing that the first stop for all potential investors will now be Go-Invest. There have also been allegations of Government interference in Go-Invest. Instead of some investors’ applications being processed by the investment agency and other lawful agencies, the potential investors went to higher authorities and instructions were then passed down to Go-Invest and other agencies to see these applications through. Some of those Go-Invest was unaware of.
“It should not matter if you are investing in the extractive mineral, banking or manufacturing sector and you are looking for an investment agreement and if you want certain concessions, Go-Invest needs to be your first stop,” the minister said, pointing out that there have been a lot of allegations over the last few years about the lack of transparency in the awarding of concessions to certain companies, which on the surface looks more generous than what were received by other companies in the same line of business.

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
“We need to look at this and have a level playing field for investors. A lot of what attracts investors has to do with investors’ confidence, which is brought about by fairness, transparency and good governance and respect for the law. Respect for these contributes to a more investor-friendly climate,” Minister Gaskin noted.
Go-Invest does not have the authority to issue tax concessions, grant duty waivers, lands for development projects, mining concessions or any other leases.
Granting of these concessions is spelt out in legislation and they are administered by designated agencies such as the GGMC, the Lands and Surveys Commission, the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).
The minister emphasised that it is important for Go-Invest to have a close relationship with these agencies, so that there will be harmonisation in the interpretation of the law to avoid confusion in the granting of concessions.
“Go-Invest has to be familiar with the laws, so that it can say to the investor, this is what you are proposing, these are the requirements under the law and these are the agencies that need to process our applications or endorse your application in order for you to access whatever concession you want.
“All of these should be confirmed by Go-Invest at the first interaction, thereafter, they should advise the investor on what supporting documents are required to get the concession.”
Efforts will be made to process those transactions electronically to speed up reliability in service, Minister Gaskin said.
By Tajeram Mohabir