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Ft. Lauderdale – Guyanese entrepreneur Capt. Gerry Gouveia has called on the U.S. government to re-examine the process for the granting of visas to entrepreneurs and business executives in the Caribbean so as to make that process more efficient and less time consuming and humiliating.
Gouveia, chief executive officer of the Roraima Group of Companies and a member of Guyana’s Private Sector Commission (PSC) made the call last Wednesday in his presentation as a panelist at the 2nd Florida Conference on Current Caribbean Issues: The Diaspora Discussion which formed part of the Florida International Trade Conference and Expo (FITCE 2016) at the Ft. Lauderdale Convention Center in Florida.
Admitting that his knowledge of the problem was based on the Guyana experience, he urged that in the event the process is the same in the rest of the Caribbean, that efforts be made to make the system more user friendly and dignified.
“In the case of Guyana the process is humiliating and I can tell you it is time consuming. There are long lines and up until not so long ago visa applicants stood in lines and were exposed to the elements without any shelter. We made representation to the US ambassador and there is now a shed for all visa applicants,” he said.
Gouveia also identified other aspects of the process which need to be re-examined so as to improve on the delivery of visas to businesspersons who have qualified for the issuance of visas.
During his presentation Gouveia also pointed to the impact of climate change and the fact that “Guyana is doing its part” through its low carbon development strategy.
He also made reference to the issue of correspondent banking and the de-risking of indigenous Caribbean banks and expressed the view that there is still much work which needs to be done to ensure full compliance on the part of some countries in the region and that these countries needed technical and financial assistance to move them to a position of full compliance.
