Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

A lead­ing re­gion­al ex­ec­u­tive, who has been em­broiled in the on­go­ing tiff be­tween the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties of Guyana and T&T, be­lieves the sit­u­a­tion, while it is un­for­tu­nate, pro­vides a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress all out­stand­ing dif­fer­ences be­tween the two coun­tries.

On Jan­u­ary 11, Ger­vase Warn­er the chair­man of the Cari­com Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion is­sued a “rou­tine in­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion” fol­low­ing an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing where among oth­er things Guyana’s new lo­cal con­tent law was dis­cussed.

The email, how­ev­er, in­clud­ed an email sig­na­ture block with Warn­er’s sub­stan­tive po­si­tion as pres­i­dent and group CEO of re­gion­al con­glom­er­ate Massy, as well as the ad­dress of its head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain.

This led to some strong sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by key busi­ness peo­ple in Guyana about T&T.

Warn­er was yes­ter­day asked, dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia’s Lead Ed­i­tor busi­ness Cur­tis Williams, why he thought the sit­u­a­tion arose.

Warn­er said it was in­ter­est­ing to see the re­sponse to the leaked email and said it can­not be ig­nored.

“Hon­est­ly, I think it is a big op­por­tu­ni­ty. It is kind of in­ter­est­ing how this be­came so ac­ri­mo­nious so quick­ly,” Warn­er said.

Warn­er said with the is­sues, now brought to the sur­face, pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect them.

“There is some­thing that we see that is the en­er­gy be­tween us and all that hap­pened is that this hap­pened to lance that boil. I don’t be­lieve you can ever ad­dress any is­sue un­til it is on the ta­ble,” he said.

He said the two busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties can come to­geth­er to ad­dress their dif­fer­ences.

“I am hap­py the is­sue is on the ta­ble be­cause that re­sponse you can’t step over it you can’t not no­tice it and so I be­lieve that this is a re­al­ly great op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to do some heal­ing be­tween T&T and Guyana, T&T busi­ness and Guyanese busi­ness,” he said.

Warn­er said there is a lot of his­to­ry be­tween the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries and we need to find ways to work bet­ter to­geth­er.

“This did not hap­pen last week, this is decades, scores of years of stuff build­ing up over time,” Warn­er said.

“That had noth­ing to do with that leaked email that has every­thing to do with a his­to­ry of how the Guyanese feel they have been treat­ed by T&T, and T&T busi­ness and quite frankly I think it is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to lis­ten to them and for us to be part of a heal­ing con­ver­sa­tion,” he said.