PRESIDENT Dr Irfaan Mohamed Ali has reiterated his commitment and that of his administration to pursue a pro-people approach to development, one in which people are placed at the centre of all development. Development is about people; it is about lifting the material and cultural well-being of the Guyanese people and the President has made his intentions clear on the approach his administration intends to take as the country moves forward along the development path.

The President was speaking at the Annual Christmas Dinner hosted by the Private Sector Commission (PSC) during which he took the opportunity to challenge the business community to rise to the developmental challenges the country is now experiencing.

The national wealth of the country is likely to increase astronomically with the injection of petro-dollars into the economy. These are no ordinary sums and it is for the business community to position itself strategically to take advantage of these new opportunities. This, as the President said, requires new and bold thinking on the part of the business community.

The government, for its part, is doing all that is needed to ensure that the local private sector is not overwhelmed by the bigger transnational companies. Only recently, the Local Content Bill was tabled in the National Assembly which, when enacted, will make it mandatory for certain categories of goods and services utilised by the oil companies operating in Guyana to be sourced locally. This will certainly give the local business community a built-in competitive advantage. It is now for it to come up with strategies to take maximum advantage of that facility and to build capacity to ensure that it is in a position to respond accordingly.

It is in the best interest of the private sector to align itself with the development plans of the government and to work in a more collaborative way to insert itself in the national development effort. Indeed, the private sector is the growth engine of the country and the main catalyst of wealth generation. It is also the main source of job creation as the government is constrained by the number of employees it could have on its payroll.

It is therefore a national imperative for the private sector to grow and expand, and in the process generate more jobs. Not only must there be more jobs, but more high-paying jobs which would allow for a higher standard of living for those who provide labour to turn the wheels of industry and commerce. The current minimum wage offered in the private sector is significantly lower than that offered by the government. To say that those who earn the private sector’s minimum wage are challenged to survive would be an understatement. It is almost a miracle how workers can manage on the incomes they get in certain low-paying jobs such as those in the private security sector, domestics and as sales assistants. As pointed out by the President, “the intersection between the government and what you do is the people. You don’t have a business if you don’t have people.”

The business community is being urged by the Head of State to implement ‘softer’ strategies which he said are as critical as strategies for profit-making. We cannot build a society in which the family has no place; those programmes are the things that would create a transformative mindset that is greater than the physical road.

President Ali challenged the business community to think bigger and bolder and to see the growth of their business in a more developed Guyana due to the radical changes that are currently taking place. The environment for doing business has changed and local business must adapt to the new and changing dispensation, failing which they run the risk of being pushed in the backwater of economic development.

The private sector and the business community enjoy the support of the current PPP/C administration which has been doing its best to create an enabling environment for businesses to grow and expand. Such growth and expansion,  however, must take into account the overarching goal of the government, which is to ensure that there is growth with people in mind, one in which the benefits of such growth are distributed in a fair and just manner.

Meanwhile, President Ali took the opportunity to remind the nation of an impending business summit hosted by Guyana, which would see the participation of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and other leaders with the aim of developing an energy corridor linked to the deep-water harbour facilitated by bauxite deposits on both sides of the Berbice River. This in turn could lead to an aluminum smeltering plant that supports the investment in the deep-water harbour.

These are all forward-looking and transformative projects, which will catapult this country to a much higher level of economic competitiveness and sustainable growth and development.