By Fareeza Haniff
[www.inewsguyana.com] – Popular businessman and supporter of the governing People’s Progressive Party government, Dr Peter Ramsaroop is of the view that the government should not be involved in business relating to the Private Sector, making reference to the administration’s decision to construct two multimillion dollar call centers.
During his appearance on the radio programme, ‘Hard Talk’ aired on 90.1Love FM on Sunday, January 11, Dr Ramsaroop supported the view of Social Commentator and award winning Guyanese Author, Ruel Johnson, who pointed out that even though the government is yet to find an investor for the call centers, it still is being constructed.
“We don’t have the investment yet, but we’re hoping that after we build it, the investment will come…we see it in a lot of projects, example the Marriott,” Johnson said.
In support of this, Dr Ramsaroop said, “Government should not be involved in Private Sector business….so a call center…government should come to a guy like me and say here’s the incentives, can you build two call centers and could you make it happen?
“Governmentt needs to step away from economics and let the Private Sector do that.”
Construction will soon commence at Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo and Enmore, East Coast Demerara, for two call centers as Cabinet gave its no objection to hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts.
Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon told reporters at his post cabinet media briefing on January 07 that a $114 million contract was approved to construct a call center at Tuschen while another $116 million contract was awarded for the construction of another call center at Enmore.
The project falls under the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce and iNews understands that construction for both centers is slated to commence on January 15. The contracts were approved by Cabinet in the latter half of December 2014.
Officials from the Ministry told iNews that the call centers are expected to provide approximately 600 persons with employment and construction should be completed within six months of its commencement.
However, the Ministry is not certain as to when the centers will become fully operational, as potential investors are being sought.
Guyana’s private sector have grown larger than the public sector and therefore it is essential for the government to keep up. A good example is the hydro project which is an Investment aim at being an effective alternative for the public if the private entities fails. The private entities can be considered the international fuel suppliers. It is important to maintain level investment between private and public sector because both sectors must be able to resusitate the economy if anyone of them is to face economic downfall.