Even before Guyana’s Local Content Policy is complete, Trinidadian firm Ramps Logistics is already demonstrating its commitment to Guyana by not only using as many Guyanese as possible but by also making a concerted effort to invest in its local staff’s development and readiness for the oil industry.
Speaking with Guyana Standard recently about the progress made thus far was Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the region’s largest logistics solutions provider, Shaun Rampersad.
Reminding a bit about the company’s start here, the COO said, “When we came to Guyana in 2013, bear in mind, there was no oil and gas industry at that time. And we didn’t know there was going to be one. We came because Guyana was identified as a market with high potential GDP [Gross Domestic Product] growth coupled with a high risk of doing business.”
While most firms would see the “high risk of doing business” as a major red flag, for Ramps it was a silver lining. Rampersad explained that “high risk” actually kept a lot of its global competitors out of the market. And being a Caribbean company with over 30 years of industry knowledge, the COO said that Ramps was confident that it would be able to successfully make its way around whatever barriers were ahead.
“So we chose three places to do business: Suriname, Guyana and Haiti…We have since exited Haiti and are focusing on the other two and Guyana has been doing fantastically well. We moved from having two persons in 2013 to more than 300 Guyanese today,” shared the Trinidadian.
Rampersad said he is confident that by 2023 there will be more than 500 Guyanese working with the Ramps team. Further to this, the official said that the local Ramps team will soon benefit from a few exercises that will sharpen their abilities to address logistical issues from a global and more professional perspective.
He said, “What we realise is that a lot of the young Guyanese need more coaching or mentoring. What you tend to find in Guyana is that there are a lot of young people who are dedicated and smart but they haven’t had that multinational or global experience and one of the reasons for that is because you don’t have a whole lot of multinationals working here. So you have to make the extra investment and I can tell you, it is so worth it.”
The Ramps COO said that while his company might be Trinidadian in origin, it is more than committed to seeing young, smart Guyanese make it to the executive leadership positions of the oil industry.
“We are already playing our part in making that a reality,” Rampersad concluded.
