Era of opportunities – Finance Minister on more employment, entrepreneurial prospects

…urges young Guyanese to take advantage

Guyana’s economic growth has resulted in the creation of an unprecedented wave of opportunities for all citizens, especially the young people who are being encouraged to grasp them. This call was made by Senior Minister with Responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh during his recent appearance on the BBC World Questions programme, which was hosted in Georgetown last week. The podcast, which was hosted by BBC’s Jonny Dymond, was streamed on Saturday and featured Minister Singh alongside Opposition Member of Parliament Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, Secretary of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Clinton Urling and businesswoman and activist Ayodele Dalgety Dean.

According to the Finance Minister, there are more employment and entrepreneurial opportunities available to Guyanese today than ever in the country’s history. In fact, he noted that young people are even better positioned to benefit from these opportunities. “This generation of young Guyanese is the most fortunate generation of all generations because we are literally living in the era of opportunity…
If you consider educational opportunities, this People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has made education free at all levels and has gone further in incentivising participation in the education system including by giving cash transfers to parents and students. There are more employment opportunities and there are more entrepreneurial opportunities available to young people than at any other time in our country’s history. And I want to urge young ladies and gentlemen to take advantage of those opportunities,” he posited. Dr Singh was at the time responding to a young audience member who had asked about the opportunities here that would keep young people in the country rather than looking abroad for betterment. He pointed out over the last five years alone, approximately 104,000 new jobs were created. A key factor in the creation of these jobs, the Minister noted, was skills training for young people to be able to take up these employment opportunities. “We have 6,000 persons now working in the oil and gas sector who were not working there before. Many of them are engineers, they’re working on the FPSOs (Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessels), they are working in highly skilled areas, technical areas, in jobs that simply did not exist before. We have more people working as engineers, we have more working as architects, we have people working as skilled professionals,” Singh stated.

More labour needed
Even as the Government continues to buildout opportunities for training and upskilling, there is still a labour shortage in the country – something which the private sector has been complaining bitterly about. In fact, Urling explained during the panel discussion that the lack of human capital is the number one binding constraint for the private sector. He cited a study done by the Centre for Local Business Development about two years ago, which found a shortfall of skilled professionals in the oil and gas sector alone of some 52,000. Against this backdrop, he urged young people to stay and upskill themselves to take up these opportunities. The PSC Secretary went onto joined Minister Singh in imploring with young diaspora members to also return and participate in Guyana’s development.
“Right now, our private sector is struggling to find employees. And that is a reality that every person who’s in the private sector will tell you. That’s not just me speaking as a private sector leader. In fact, sometimes I’m hesitant to invest in any big, huge project because it’s difficult to find skilled employees. And that is why I would encourage the folks who are thinking or who have left or who are thinking to leave to look where those opportunities are. Try to upgrade your skills towards that so that you can meet that demand that the private sector wants and from the Government’s perspective, the Government should focus on investing more into vocational and technical skills and some of the skills that are required in the industry, not just skills training for skills training sake,” the businessman asserted.

Similar sentiments were expressed by another panelist, Dalgety Dean, who underscored the need to build out the mechanisms that will see not only the needed skills being development but the opportunities are there to retain young Guyanese – a responsibility she says that the Guyana Government is already taking on.

Elevated standard of living
In fact, Minister Singh stated that in addition to job creation, the Government has also undertaken interventions that has elevated the standard of living of citizens. These include over 50,000 Guyanese receiving house lots and increases in disposable incomes that saw almost 15,000 persons becoming vehicle owners, among other tangible benefits that can also be extended to. But even with these opportunities, concerns were raised by an audience member and Sarabo-Halley about the low salary in the country especially within the private sector. Additionally, the rising cost of living in Guyana was another issue that was raised.
In response, the Finance Minister went onto defend his Government’s management of the country’s resources, largely generated from its burgeoning oil and gas sector, noting that the focus is to build out opportunities for citizens now while simultaneously laying the groundwork for long-term prosperity and sustainability. “As a responsible Government, having discovered this resource endowment, what are we trying to achieve? The first is to improve the lives of all Guyanese people in a tangible way in the shortest possible time…addressing the short-term and very legitimate imperative and expectation of improvement and well-being.” “At the same time, with the benefit of the accumulation of global experience with resource-rich economies, we have to ensure, first of all, that we protect the resilience of the growth of our economy, it’s sustainability for the long term, and we have to ensure that we invest in the things that matter for long-term competitiveness, long-term resilience, long-term well-being and indeed long-term prosperity,” Dr Singh posited.