The exclusion of the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) from the group of agencies and individuals comprising the Small Business Council will be formally raised at the appropriate forum since the GMSA considers the Council to be an important forum through which to support small businesses in Guyana, GMSA President Clinton Williams has told the Stabroek Business.
During the course of a recent interview with this newspaper Williams disclosed that the GMSA appeared to have been “dropped” from the Council which has responsibility for, among other things, reviewing draft legislation proposed by government relating to small business as well as private sector and economic development-related matters in which the small business sector is involved or may become involved and submit its comments to the Minister of Business.
“We have a concern about being left off the Council but we are yet to raise that concern. We have always been a member of the Small Business Council in the past and we will be raising our exclusion as a concern because it is through that mechanism that we were hoping to do some of our advocacy for our members to secure access to funds,” Williams told Stabroek Business.
October this year will mark the sixth anniversary of the launch of the Small Business Bureau under the so-called Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) Development and Building Alternative Livelihood for Vulnerable Groups project financed with oversight from the Inter-American Development Bank and funded under the Guyana-Norway Partnership.
During last Wednesday’s event at the La Penitence offices of the Small Business Bureau the agency’s Chief Executive Officer Dr. Lowell Porter told Stabroek Business that while the appointment of members to the Board of the Small Business Council was not the responsibility of the Bureau, he believed that there was still a great deal to be gained from interface with the GMSA, adding that he was personally keen to meet with Williams to discuss how the two agencies could work together in the interest of the local small business community.
During his interview with the Stabroek Business Williams had said that the GMSA was prepared to work with the Bureau to help create enhanced access to commercial bank lending to small businesses an issue which Dr. Porter says remains a challenge for small business aspirants in Guyana.
