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THE VOICE OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS… By Sase Singh INTRODUCTIONIn July 2015, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Winston Jordan, at the Shipping Association of Guyana (SAG) Annual General Meeting, pledged to partner with that organization to use a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to dredge the heavily-silted Demerara River “in the shortest possible time”. I cannot find any evidence of this SPV ever being established or any ongoing dredging activities since that promise was made almost a year ago.  This ought to be of great concern to the business community as they continue to be left with this great handicap.THE COST TO GUYANA FOR THIS LAPSEPort Georgetown is almost at the bottom of the global shipping infrastructure ladder, and is known as an ordinary service port, not a sub-regional hub like Port of Spain in Trinidad or a global hub like Kingston, Jamaica.There is a clear reason for this situation – the Demerara Harbour is under-maintained and there are no concrete and bankable project plans on the table to design, construct and finance a deep-water harbour in Guyana. Therefore, we can only expect abnormally sized small ships to dock in Port Georgetown.The channel has a chart datum draft of about 7.4 metres and is expected to have a pier draft of some 6 metres in most places.  Today, most piers and even the channel have lost much depth due to siltation and a very poor maintenance schedule.  This only directly contributes to the Guyanese business community becoming even more uncompetitive and further marginalized.Every serious port authority around the world is upgrading to cater for bigger ships, because if one looks at the global order books for new ships since 2011, some 77 percent of that order book is for ships that have a capacity larger than 6,000 TEU ((Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit); the bigger “boys and girls”.According to the latest available public data, Port Georgetown struggles to accommodate ships that are sized larger than 2,600 TEU, and the situation continues to get worse by the day.  This situation need not be; save an except for Guyana having a very poor record of maintaining the Demerara Harbour.This exposes a real developmental challenge, as a result of this policy and execution paralysis coming out of the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD), the shipping regulators in the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, since its formation about a decade ago.  We have not had any systemic and sustained dredging schedule during most of this period, and this has only translated into Port Georgetown being pushed further to the margins as a failing port system. Every year it becomes more expensive to do business with Port Georgetown and the pool of ships available to offer efficient service to this port continues to decline. The end result translates to a suffocation of the local business community. Are we really serious about new investments?THE COMMITMENTCredit has to go to former Minister Robeson Benn for coordinating, in February 2013, a national concept paper for the improvement of Port Georgetown.  The path set out by that paper did have great ideas at reducing the challenges for port users and the cost of doing trade with Guyana. But since then – Nothing!In the 2014 PPP Budget, there were funds allocated for this venture, but these were not used.  Then again in both the 2015 and 2016 Budgets passed by this Coalition Government,Wholesale China Jerseys, there were funds set aside for dredging activities, but again, it was all words and no action. Mr. Desmond Sears, an experienced shipper was quoted in the press as saying that “local producers have lost markets in the Caribbean because cargo vessels could take out only limited volumes of cargo”.Many others in the shipping sector have spoken out against this “inflexible muddle” from the two respective governments, but it all fell on deaf ears. But when we expected a breath of fresh ideas and policies from the new government, all we have gotten is fewer progressive ideas, less public policies, more aloofness and apparently less technical talent.  Absolute silence and no action seem to be the order of the day on this issue, with no care for the adverse impact on legitimate businesses as a result of the condition of Port Georgetown. What is even worse is that the trickle-down effect continues to adversely impact the entire economy.  Is this how we plan to run this country?POSSIBLE SOLUTIONSThere was always a plan to establish a Private-Public Organization (PPO) under the Companies Act, (the SPV), which was going to be established to raise the capital from many sources to dredge the Demerara River navigational channels.  Score Card – Not Done!One cannot find one concrete action from the Ministry of Public Infrastructure on this matter. What is even more disgusting is that MARAD seems to be totally asleep at the wheel. Clearly the leadership of MARAD does not have their feet in the right place and thus cannot stand firm on this issue to enhance the competitiveness of the trading sector.So as a top priority, the private sector should have lit a fire under the slothful attitudes inside MARAD and called on the relevant Minister to put those funds approved in the 2016 Budget to work.  To the credit of the Minister of Finance, he has caused some G$200 million to be placed in the 2015 and 2016 Budget for dredging activities, but without a work plan from the MARAD, he cannot release those funds.Since those budgets, there have been zero updates and I am being advised, there is no work plan in place.  So can the business community expect relief?  You be the readers be the judge.The Steve N, the primary dredger in Guyana, is over 25 years old. We were advised that the Coalition government is in negotiation with the UK Government to secure financing to acquire a new and bigger dredger to add to the fleet. Again, no updates!As background information, I was advised that the current bill to fix the channel is around US$10 million, which is very possibly if this SPV is established. We can learn much from the Surinamese, who in 2012 issued an international tender to dredge the Surname River and has successfully concluded that job.  This initiative needs leadership.CONCLUSIONThe time is long past for us to not have a comprehensive, overarching investment strategy for the Demerara Harbour using this private/public model.   We can charge a small fee as a partial cost recovery initiative towards the rehabilitation of the Demerara Harbour but unless the SPV is in place, we are wasting time.  This situation demands leadership.This is an economic emergency that has been recognized since the PPP’s time, but because of a lack of strategic high-level intervention, not much was done.  So today Port Georgetown continues to actively add to the cost structure that makes doing business with Guyana pretty uncompetitive. For that exclusive reason, the economy and the people continue to lose.