The Guyana Marketing Corporation – A case for autonomy

It is not too early, we believe, for the Stabroek Business to restate its position that there is everything to be gained from removing the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) from within the ambit of the Ministry of Agriculture and allowing it to function as a semi-autonomous state entity under a management structure that is far more suitable to enhancing its role as an agency responsible for providing critical services to the private sector.

As it stands, much of the work of the GMC has to do with supporting the promotion and marketing of farm products and agro-produce so that its relationship with the private sector is critical to the effective execution of its primary role. The GMC’s services are exemplified in the roles that it plays in facilitating the export of farm produce cultivated by private farmers to the Caribbean and further afield; accelerating the promotion of local agro-processed goods on the local market; interfacing with small farmers and agro-processors on support services which the agency provides; and planning and executing public events that contribute to the public promotion of goods produced mainly in the agriculture and agro-processing sectors.

One only has to take a look at the role played in private sector product promotion by the Guyana Shop – which as we have said quite a few times is badly in need of upgrading to a modern facility with key showroom responsibility for local product promotion to determine that its close relationship with the private sector more than entitles the GMC, as a whole, to freedom from the constriction of a Ministry of Agriculture which is charged with an entirely different clutch of policy-related responsibilities as far as the sector is concerned.

Operationally, key decisions made by the GMC are subject to the veto of a Board of a Ministry of Agriculture-appointed Board of Directors. More recently, there have been indications that the work of the GMC, which continues to provide useful services to micro- and small-business sectors, particularly in the area of agro- processing, (a great deal more can be done with increased resources) will fall increasingly under the direct purview of the Minister of Agriculture. The reason for this seeming shift in direction is unclear, though the proclivity of ministers for accumulating more and more authority is a well-known phenomenon in Guyana.

Government ministries in Guyana have a reputation for being hopelessly convoluted institutions in which size and complexity breed inevitable inefficiencies, not least of which are tendencies for some parts of the whole to become forgotten and consequently marginalised. Some of those parts (of the whole) eventually atrophy and slip into redundancy. Those that do their best to wade through the controlling ministerial bureaucracy frequently end up in combative circumstances with public servants and even ministers brandishing circulars and other directives that do no more than put the nonsense into perspective but with which the frustrated ‘semi-autonomous’ agencies have no option but to comply.

Since government ministries tend to be hopelessly ponderous and muscle-bound in their decision-making, agencies like the GMC will always be constricted in their capability to perform at the peak of their potential.

There are signs, very early ones, that the new Minister of Agriculture seeks to draw even tighter the reins of ministerial control that already fetter the GMC to the Ministry. This raises the issue as to whether questions are not being raised about the capacity and competence of the GMC to manage itself and whether the solution in this instance is to go down the same old familiar road of concentrating even more authority in the hands of Ministers, leaving entities like the GMC unable to make critical decisions that derive directly from the competence of its appointed functionaries. A well-managed GMC, run by competent professionals with a clear understanding of its role in working with the private sector to aggressively promote local products both at home and abroad is probably likely to do the nation much more good than one that continues to make its way in the constricting embrace of an overarching Ministry of Agriculture, which, frankly, has more than its fair share of other demanding responsibilities to bear.