Official culpability in under-performance of agro-processing sector
It is probably unlikely that another country in the Caribbean can be found that surpasses Guyana in terms of the proclivity on the part of its political administrations to embrace a governance process that appears to favour the making of empty promises. Where such promises are concerned, they invariably target groups that are most in need of fulfillment and where the absence thereof usually have the most damaging consequences.
Across political administrations, promises have been made to create the requisite infrastructure to facilitate the growth of a robust agro-processing sector which, of course, has implications for alleviating poverty, further enhancing food security as well as maximising exports. Any public official who seeks to make an argument to the contrary is undeserving of the time it would take to prove him or her wrong.
The case for the agro-processing sector to be awarded a far more generous measure of state support is an unchallengeable one, so rendered by the generous returns that come mostly from women-run small businesses which government continues to be decidedly stingy in supporting. The agro-processing sector is undoubtedly the busiest, most creative of the small-business sectors in Guyana. It goes about its business in a manner that reflects a mixture of dedication and determination, never seemingly stopping to murmur over the fact that the state agencies that exist to serve them have, on the whole, been largely neglectful and ineffective.
It would, for example, be the devil’s own job to point to a state agency that has made what one can honestly call a truly ground-breaking contribution to the elevation of the agro-processing sector; certainly not the underfunded Small Business Bureau nor the historically leaden-footed Ministry of Agriculture which continues to be always ‘off the pace’ as far as taking the sector forward is concerned. In the instance of the Guyana Marketing Corporation, the entity, frankly, appears to lack the creative ‘oomph’ to go much beyond periodic mundane product displays that never appear to be attended with any diligent follow-up that can result in longer- term pleasing end results.
In the instance of the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, it remains the view of this newspaper that its turning down of a request to provide a measure of material support to agroprocessors seeking to participate in the recently executed Florida Trade Fair hugely overlooked the disparity between what would have been the modesty of the investment that would have allowed for local participation in the event, on the one hand, and the potential gain that might have derived from making that investment.
Two points should be made at this juncture. First, successive political administrations have been no more attentive, one than another, to the need to strengthen the ago-processing sector. The other point that should be made here is that the efforts of the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association, largely through the efforts of Shyam Nokta and Ramsay Ali, did manage, for a while at least, to engage high level government officials on the issue of providing more resources for the agro-processing sector. What has come out of those engagements is of course another matter.
It is not, of course, as if the agro-processing sector has been sitting, waiting for handouts from the state. It is difficult to find a more industrious, more creative sector. No sector across the entire spectrum of the Guyana economy has accomplished so much with so little and even now that the national circumstances allow for the extending of a far greater measure of generosity to the agro-processing sector, the incumbent political administration tends to look elsewhere when it comes to making meaningful investments.
Contextually, one of the stories published in this week’s issue of the Stabroek Business is instructive. It concerns a Trinidadian business entity, SARR distributors, which through its subsidiary, PLANS, recently made an offer to local (T&T) small and medium enterprises in the agro-processing sector that includes the rental of work stations, rental of cold storage for products, consultations, marketing solutions and business development strategies, precisely the support services which the local agro-processing have been needing for years and which would almost certainly have advanced the development of the sector far beyond where it is today.
Interestingly enough, it appears that matters pertaining to the ‘advancement’ of micro and small businesses in the agro-processing sector in Guyana fall (in one respect or another) under the purview, simultaneously, of the Ministry of Business, the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, and the Ministry of Agriculture. Then there is the Small Business Bureau which, insofar as this newspaper is aware, has a responsibility of sorts for the wellbeing of small businesses in the agro-processing sector that includes financing and training. Here, however, it has to be said that where the various types of responsibilities begin and end is decidedly unclear.
One of the positive outcomes of the widespread international attention which Guyana has realised from its oil and gas sector is that it has opened the door to exposure for other sectors of the economy, not least the agro-processing sector. These days, agro-processing is beginning to attract global attention particularly in terms of the role it can play in alleviating a food insecurity circumstance that exists (and in some instances is becoming worse) both here in the Caribbean and in other parts of the world. Agro-processing can add another string to the country’s food security bow whilst simultaneously, developing another lucrative economic platform that can create many meaningful job opportunities for locals and boost the earning power of ordinary people in various sectors of the country’s economy. It is government, over a protracted period and mostly through a lack of vision and a proclivity for unmet promises, which is largely responsibility for the still underdeveloped nature of the sector.