Against the backdrop of government’s assertive advocacy of entrepreneurship as an employment option for Guyanese, President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vishnu Doerga has told Stabroek Business that it would be useful to secure a prior understanding of just what the incentives are for pursuing the entrepreneurial option.
Noting that the failure rate among startups is “very high,” around 80% in first 5 years, Doerga said that one possible stimulant for persons opting to pursue entrepreneurship could be “a significant reduction in self-employed taxes.” This, he said, would also “encourage a higher level of compliance and allow existing self-employed to hire more employees.” Tax incentives, Doerga said, can become an “employment generation tool,” while providing even further tax incentives for additional employees hired can also reduce unemployment.
The comment from Doerga, sought by the Stabroek Business in keeping with its quest for more vigorous outcome-oriented public/private sector discourse on economic and business issues, came in response to last Monday’s Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) Initiative Award Ceremony held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
President Vishnu Doerga
In his address President Granger had alluded to the launch of the Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) initiative which he said “emphasizes his administration’s policy by encouraging entrepreneurship, particularly for young people.” It is a policy, the President said, that “contradicts the criticisms that the administration has no employment plan for the unemployed and the underemployed” and is part of a broader initiative that “reinforces the administration’s efforts to stimulate economic development in communities, especially at the grass root level.” SLED, Granger added, has also provided training, mentorship, business development skills and start-up grants to individuals and groups. The GCCI too has been seeking to provide critical resources, including training to various sectoral groups involved in entrepreneurial pursuits and against this backdrop, Doerga, in his comment on President Granger’s address sought to reinforce the critical importance of training as a prerequisite to providing exposure to entrepreneurial opportunities. The Chamber President told Stabroek Business that the pursuit by government of worthwhile employment-creation initiatives should not be taken to mean that we can continue to see entrepreneurship as “as an avenue for dropouts, or even as a basic self-employment mechanism.” Business, Doerga told this newspaper, “is competitive and can easily result in a significant disadvantage to such entrepreneurs who have to compete against competent national and international rivals,” adding that “even our established businesses in Guyana are feeling the squeeze when pitted against such competition.”
The Chamber President declared, meanwhile, that “while healthy competition can be beneficial, the lack of urgency in seeking the required business education and support may leave us with a vastly different (good or bad) economic structure in the future.”
In his presentation on Monday, President Granger had also alluded to a Government of Guyana $155 million subvention allocated to the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) in the 2015 budget which had enabled 40 “youngish entrepreneurs” from the Upper Demerara-Berbice Region to secure loans to further facilitate existing business enterprises.
