Upskilling aided business growth, citizens’ empowerment

The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has lauded the government for refusing to build a society dependent on oil wealth distribution and instead providing various opportunities for people and businesses to develop.
PSC Chairman, Captain Gerald Gouveia Jr, suggested during an interview with the El Dorado Beacon that a key takeaway from the expanding economy over the last five years is the ability of Guyanese businesses to grow and equip themselves in goods and service provision, while citizens have sought empowerment through skills and knowledge upgrades despite massive oil wealth.
“Whilst we have all this oil wealth being built… the government has not developed a hand out economy as people aren’t necessarily waiting for the next stimulus check in the mail.” He said that while some one-off contributions have been made, citizens are not dependent.
“I like the fact that most of the initiatives are facilitative in nature; its free education, free tradesmanship courses for people to do welding, electrical work offshore, to do the highly specialised courses… or if not, they are giving people scholarships…”
Gouveia said that apart from people’s advancement, new avenues have been opened up for businesses, including new opportunities for accessing capital. He noted that while the private sector has grappled with the major challenge of capital generation, legislative and other efforts are being made to address this matter so that local companies become viable and competitive.
“In Suriname, they are having an oil and gas expo and I spoke to an investor over there who was shocked and impressed to see the amount of Guyanese businesses—local, homegrown—Guyanese businesses that are competing now on a world stage in Suriname for oil and gas. So our ability to now export Guyanese talent into our neighbouring countries for the oil and gas shows a lot about the opportunities that were created over the last five years; the private sector’s capability of sending their people to learn, the greater Guyana initiative; the loans and grants that were given to that initiative.”
Within the private sector, Gouveia said a lot of effort is being placed on allowing small and medium-sized businesses to benefit from arising opportunities. The PSC is also working with its members to ensure their workforce is equipped to harness the opportunities in Guyana’s rapidly expanding economy.