The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has said that the relationship between itself, civil society and government has been strengthened, over the years, to the benefit of all.
A section of the gathering at the PSC's AGM Thursday
This comment was made at the 19th Annual General Meeting of the Private Sector Commission, on Thursday, June 02 at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown. Through this collaboration, PSC Chairman Ramesh Dookhoo, who was re- elected unopposed at the AGM, boasts about the re-emergence of a private sector that is confident in the prospects for business, and is well poised for more rapid growth. He believes that this connection has delivered the previously missing links in the regulatory and business environment that would make both foreign and local investments secure that private investment is welcome and well protected in Guyana.
“Given recent trends, the private sector is on the cusp of a take- off to fulfill its true potential as the engine of growth in Guyana’s economy,” Dookhoo stated. He added that, “the private sector has re-emerged from its relative lack of importance in the economy of the past, and is now definitively established as the true engine of growth in Guyana.” Further, he noted that policy changes over the years have been focused and aimed to facilitate the current unprecedented level of confidence which the private sector has in exploiting business opportunities in Guyana.
With increasing levels of local and foreign investment, he said, the sector is also growing exponentially, and has increasingly assumed a dominant position in the economy. This growth and dominance, he indicated, is evidenced by the dramatic increase in income taxes paid by companies over the years. In the year 2000, for example, income taxes paid by companies amounted to some Gy$8.3 billion. By fiscal year 2010, this amount had grown to Gy$21.4 billion, a 159 per cent increase, Dookhoo revealed.
Highlighting that the role of the PSC has expanded since 2006, when the commission entered into a partnership with the government to implement the National Competitiveness Strategy, the PSC chairman also said that the partnership led to the formation of several public/private dialogue bodies. In his address, entrepreneur Captain Gerald Gouveia also noted the connection that exists, not only with the public sector and society, but the deeper collaboration among all private sector entities and bodies countrywide. He also highlighted engagements with the current administration and other political parties, making it clear that the PSC “does not take sides.”
Noting the achievements that have been spurred from this kind of collaboration, Gouveia, a former chairman of the PSC, declared that he is honoured and proud to be part of the private sector of this magnitude and having such unprecedented unity.
He also spoke on the issue of good governance, and on accountability and transparency, noting that the private sector should also practise these and set the example as well.
In this light, he boasted about the PSC being open to audit of its accountability and transparency methods and practices. Once this is maintained, he declared, the private sector would continue to engage the state on issues of national importance, and would not allow politicians alone to run the country.
Apart from the Chairman’s Report and other official presentations, the AGM included elections of the 2011- 2012 executive body to run the PSC. Vice Chairman Yog Mahadeo, Honorary Secretary Andrew Astwood and Honorary Treasurer Chandradat Chintamani were all re- turned unopposed.
