Questionable importation policy

The government’s importation policy came under scrutiny this week when one stone producer claimed that the country had more stone than it needed for any number of works that it may be pursuing. However, as was revealed, the government granted a licence to Gafsons to import stone to complement the volume of stone available in Guyana.
There is nothing wrong in importing commodities when such imports are needed. For example, just this past week the Ministry of Trade granted eighteen import licences for chicken, one of the most common sources of protein in the country.  Two years ago local poultry producers, in the face of chicken imports, cried foul. At the time there was a chicken shortage too.
After a while the local producers said that they had everything under control and that there was no need for any more imported chicken. Consumers were worried, however, because they feared that the local producers would hike the price in the face of the monopoly that they would enjoy. Of course the producers, to a man said that this was out of the question. It wasn’t.
Now we have imported stone although there are four quarries in the country and seemingly, not enough work to use all that stone. As one spokesman for contractor BK International said, the President was misguided.
That apart, it turned out that the quality of the stone imported was such that it use would entail even more foreign currency. For one, engineers now say that should the imported stone be used on road projects the contractor would have to use twenty per cent more asphalt. This is an imported commodity.
The engineers also say that the load bearing capacity of the stone is far less that the stone produced in Guyana so that roads, when constructed, would be destroyed long before the known life of roads in Guyana. And the stone is more expensive than the locally produced stone.
One question being asked is why would Guyana import inferior stone?  An example of the extent to which professional contractors would go to avoid using the stone can be found in the Marriott hotel being constructed on Georgetown’s Atlantic coast. The work is being supervised by people from Marriott International. These people are looking at every step of the construction.
Just recently the consultants for the Marriott project instructed that the imported stone must never be used on the hotel.  Certainly the government would not use this stone on its projects.
Imports are one sure way of denting the foreign reserves. Guyana does not make cars so it must import cars. Sadly, most of the imported cars are junk because the importers know that there is a limit to how much they can charge for a vehicle. Similarly, every commodity item is imported. Fortunately, food is not a part of this although Guyana’s imported food bill is higher than it should have been, and all because of the taste of the wealthy.
The economist would certainly prefer to see the country saving money but even here we see the economist encouraging the importation of material that is substandard. This can only happen in a country here there is no communication between the professionals and those who administer the national coffers.
There are other things that should attract governmental attention. One of them is the duration of contracts. At present, every contract is facing cost over runs because of the length of time the contractors take to complete them. We now understand that one set of projects is hindered by utilities planted along the contract site before the contract was ever conceived.
The government is doing nothing to help the contractors who fear legal action from the owners of the utilities. What seems to be clear is that the various Ministers of Government have self interest and therefore cannot find the time to pay heed to the things that affect the smooth operations of the many contractors.
Recently, the Junior Finance Minister went to West Berbice to monitor the [projects there. He left with the impression that the contracts were laggards.  He may not be wrong but then again it may be a question of the release of funds by the government for job done.