The Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) Development and Building Alternative Livelihoods for Vulnerable Groups project, the first to be administered under the institutional framework created by the Small Business Act of 2004 has had to significantly reduce its originally set job-creation targets under its Credit Guarantee and Interest Payment Support Facility as well as its Low Carbon Grant Scheme designed to assist beneficiaries with seed capital to start up or expand their businesses.
Stabroek Business has learnt that the originally envisaged 2,200 jobs which were expected to be created under the project over two years ending in March 2016 have now been reduced to 530 over the same period. One hundred and thirty two grants valued at approximately $38.5 million have been disbursed by the Bureau and a further 168 remain to be disbursed. Stabroek Business has also learnt that 23 loans have been approved under the project by participating banks, the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry and Republic Bank and the Institute for Private Enterprise Development (IPED).
Stabroek Business has learnt that the slow pace of the disbursement of loans to applicants through commercial banks may have to do with difficulty being experienced by potential borrowers in meeting the borrowing criteria. The project allows for the Bureau to provide up to 40 per cent of the collateral support required by the lending commercial bank and this newspaper understands that some potential borrowers have difficulty securing the remaining 60 per cent.
When this newspaper spoke with Small Business Bureau Chief Executive Officer Sven Wills he said the entity was currently engaged in accelerating the process through which prospective beneficiaries of project funding would benefit from training in the preparation of business plans, an area which, this newspaper understands, may have inhibited the acceleration of the release of funding for the support of individual small businesses. Wills explained that while in the past the Bureau had been focused on specific training programmes in areas like business plan preparation for its constituency it had now shifted to having them sign on the ongoing programmes in order to accelerate the process.
According to Wills, the Bureau was also focusing on monitoring the progress of up and running business pursuits that had already been recipients of funding in order to seek to ensure that the project did not fall further behind in terms of its job-creation targets.
