• 813 grants disbursed 2014 -2019
• 78% of clients still in business
A packed reception hall at the Regency Suites Hotel in Georgetown on Friday, February 14, witnessed the staging of the first ever awards ceremony hosted by the local Small Business Bureau (SBB) just over six years after government had teamed up with the Inter-American Development Bank to unveil a US$10 million initiative targeting local resource-starved small businesses by offering loans and grants to their proprietors and providing guarantees for loans secured from local commercial banks.
Last Friday’s event, apart from affording a measure of public recognition for small business owners who, over the years, have attracted a less-than-deserved level of official attention hugely disproportionate to the contribution that they have made to job-creation, served to offer a measure of emotional reward for a support project which is yet to deliver on what had been promised at its launch almost seven years ago.
The Small Business Bureau has its origins in a project known as the Building Alternative Livelihood for Vulnerable Groups project, funded under the Guyana-Norway partnership. It had been expected that the project would create some 2,200 jobs though it remains unclear just how many jobs have been created so far.
Last Friday’s affair would have been a signal moment in the tenure of Dr Lowell Porter as Chief Executive Officer. Recruited from the United States to take up the position in May 2017 after the project appeared to be falling short of its projected ambitions on account of what was felt to be serious leadership deficiencies and serious administrative glitches, Porter has been credited with re-energizing the institution by raising its national profile.
The falling away of some small business owners who had been recipients of grants and what had been widely believed to be irregularities in the allocation of training contracts for small business owners had earlier been tagged as some of the weaknesses with which the SBB had been plagued.
Dr Porter’s report at the event dealt with both the accomplishments and the disappointments of the Bureau. Perhaps not unexpectedly, he made a point of raising what is generally regarded as the failure of the vast majority of the local commercial banks to work with the Bureau by opening their doors to lending for small-business development.
In his report, Dr. Porter also disclosed that between 2014 and 2018 the Bureau had disbursed 594 grants totalling $177 million while a further 219 grants were allocated to small businesses last year.
Setting aside the disbursement of grants, the Bureau, under Porter, had also stepped up its visits to rural and interior locations to monitor the progress being made by the Bureau’s grantees registrants in pursuit of their respective projects and to undertake project-enhancing sessions in those communities.
On Friday evening he disclosed that more than 800 persons had attended the Bureau’s awareness sessions last year. Those services apart, he revealed that the Bureau attends to approximately 38 persons who visit its offices daily for services and information.
According to Porter, based on information provided in a review undertaken by a consultant, it has been revealed that approximately 78% of the Bureau’s clients are still in business.
In underlining the critical importance of the small
businesses being overseen by the Bureau to the well-being of the owners, Porter told the gathering on Friday that “… most of these clients depend every day on that business because it takes care of their lives and their families,” though he conceded that “some are not equipped with sufficient information and that is what we are trying to address at the Small Business Bureau with our training,”
The Bureau’s support has guided some of its clients to goals that include participation in regional and international trade fairs as well as some markets in the region and in North America.
Towards the end of last year, during an interview with this newspaper, Dr Porter had conceded that the procedural stumbling blocks that had prevented the bringing into effect of a provision in the Small Business Act that allowed for small businesses to secure up to 20 per cent of state contracts for projects under $30 million had been a major disappointment for the Bureau.
The majority of awards bestowed at last Friday’s event went to producers of agro-produce including sauces, condiments, beverages, cooking spices and services.
