President’s foreign investment commitment will challenge his administration
One of the important takeaways from the visit to Guyana by a Ghanaian delegation led by that country’s Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, and which included members of the Ghanaian private sector was the overwhelming emphasis which the public side of the engagements placed on a strong private sector-driven investment regime between the two countries, particularly the public pronouncement made by President Irfaan Ali on the subject of the importance of creating a convivial investment climate here.
What should be particularly noted were the emphatic pronouncements made by President Ali on the role which he sees the private sector playing in the shaping of relations between the two countries, going forward.
For his part, the Ghanaian Vice President used the forum of a high-level bilateral engagement that formed part of the agenda for the visit to declare that the success of what he sees as a growing strategic partnership between the two countries will depend, considerably, on the productive participation of the private sector in both countries. Taken together, it would appear that the pronouncements, first, by President Ali, and afterwards by Vice President Bawumia, are underpinned by a common understanding of the direction in which relations between their two countries are headed.
What, in the opinion of the Ghanaian Vice President, has been the catalyst for the recent acceleration of relations between Guyana and Ghana has been the upsurge of growth in the respective economies and the enabling environment which this provides for the respective private sectors to enhance business ties between them. For his part, President Ali sought in his own presentation on the prospects for enhanced private sector relations between Guyana and Ghana, to seek to expunge the bogeyman of official ‘red tape’ and other non-official stumbling blocks that have historically blighted external perceptions of the country’s investment regime.
The standout feature of the bilateral engagements arising out of the Ghanaian Vice President’s visit has been the voluminous expressions of intent on both sides that, going forward, relations between the two countries will be driven by the private sector. This undertaking even went as far as identifying some specific likely investment-related areas including mining and tourism. Here, one expects that the two countries will move in the direction of creating specific frameworks within which the various investment initiatives will proceed and that these will be shaped in such a manner as to ensure that investors derive meaningful returns therefrom and, crucially, that they redound to the benefit of the respective economies in the areas of job creation and economic growth.
It is, however, not so much the shaping of what one might call the rules of engagement (an Investment Code) that becomes an issue, but the manner in which those rules are administered that has long been the real challenge for Guyana. Over time the burdensomeness of ‘red tape,’ bureaucratic stumbling blocks and convoluted anomalies that depart sharply from documented procedures have served to make a nonsense of laid down investment rules and procedures that are intended to guide exchanges with would-be investors.
Unfortunately, all too often, mountains of ‘red tape’ militate against expeditiousness and radical departures from the laiddown investment procedures send potential investors in directions that vary from the original brief and which, frequently, are undocumented adds-on put there for the material benefit of ubiquitous middle men. We have grown used to stories told by potential investors about the sudden appearance of ‘watchers’ boasting possession of ‘green lights’ that open closed doors through which investment ‘traffic’ must pass before they secure ‘final’ approval. The view that these ‘diversions’ from the path along which investment transactions are intended to proceed are, for the most part, conduits for kickbacks have never really been seriously addressed by government.
When the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) was established in 1994 as a semi-autonomous body under the Ministry of Business, it was publicly declared that the body was answerable to a Board of Directors which included representatives of the private sector and that its function was to facilitate access to “Guyana’s diverse investment portfolio.” No one any longer makes any pretence that GO-Invest, working within the strictures of clearly laid-down rules, any longer represents the last word in the green-lighting of investment applications. GO-Invest, to be honest, has long been buried under various other ill-defined ‘back door’ arrangements that have seen the ‘farming out’ of authority for clearing various types on investments to assorted ‘gatekeepers’ who understand the strategic significance of the authority ‘vested’ in them.
The opportunity afforded by what one might call ‘the Ghana opening’ can only be optimised if President Ali’s administration is able to create an investment climate that offers potential investors ample and unimpeded opportunity to take full advantage of the commitment which he personally gave to the visiting Ghanaians. To do so, the President will have to provide ironclad assurances that the system is no longer dotted by obsequious ‘middle men’ armed with influence pedalling prerogatives that supersedes the authority of the state agencies legitimately and possessed of the authority to entertain and expedite matters pertaining to foreign investment.