The Ramps decision
The fact that the Chief Executive Officer of the Trinidad and Tobago-based company Ramps logistics opted to cite what he saw as the fairness of the judicial system in the aftermath of the court’s ruling that deemed as unlawful the decision by the Local Content Secretariat to make available to the company, by yesterday, a Local Content Certificate for which it has properly applied and was legally entitled to, was good for the country’s judicial system no less than it was for the overall image of the country, not least, external perceptions of the integrity of its business culture.
This development, it has to be said, comes against the backdrop of a view held in some quarters that in Guyana, political veto can and often does supersede considerations of fairness, a view which, at a time when Guyana is open for major international investment, can cast the darkest of shadows against the country’s business/investment profile. It can do untold damage to the compelling attractiveness which the country now enjoys as the premier investment haven in the region and even one of the most convivial in the world at this time.
Anyone who had followed the comings and goings of the Local Content Secretariat in the process of the to-ing and fro-ing that attended the dragging out of what ought to have been a straightforward procedure in the matter of Ramps’ Local Content application, would have detected in the process what appeared to have been a dilly-dallying that appeared to bear no relation to any kind of procedural anomaly insofar as the company’s adherence to the application procedures were concerned.. Indeed, the situation had appeared to reach a point where the Local Content Secretariat appeared to have run out of anything even remotely resembling a legitimate reason for not acceding to the company’s application and had resorted to simply affording a jittery Ramps Logistics the proverbial runaround.
By delivering the decision that it did the Court did not just send a message about the integrity of the judicial system of which Guyana, as a whole should be proud, it also sent another critical message to an external business community that has its collective eye fixed on investment prospects here. That critical constituency would have found the assurance that when it comes to the integrity of our judicial system investors can anticipate more than just a ‘fair shake,’ Here, it need hardly be said that where, in many countries, the judicial system is perceived to be ‘dodgy’ or subject to arm-twisting or cajoling outside of the confines of the law, serious investors are likely to run a mile in some alternative direction.
In circumstances like ours, where, these days, we never cease to promote ourselves as being open for business, one of the first considerations that is likely to come under the scrutiny of the shrewd potential investor are the bona fides of the country’s judicial system. Where there exist manifest assurances that the law of the land is there to, among other things, protect the legitimate rights of the investor, it is the country, as a whole that benefits from the vote of confidence that influences the investor’s decision to choose Guyana.
It reflects poorly on Guyana if the worthwhile business opportunities that repose in choosing Guyana are compromised either by evidence or by suspicion that to do business here one is required to be formidably ‘lawyered up’ against a judicial system that is subject to manipulation outside of the paradigms of the law itself. Nor, for that matter should potential investors arrive here with the understanding that where ‘palms’ can be suitably ‘greased’ corners can be cut’ in the process of ‘deals’ done.
One feels, it should be said, that both the country’s already on-board investors and those who may be contemplating coming here would probably have been following this case as a kind of marker, a precedent, if you will; and while we will probably never know the number of would-be investors who may have been monitoring this case as a kind of template through which to influence their own investment decision-making, we can be assured that our judicial system sent them all a reassuring message.