Three small business owners in the agro-processing sector have told the Stabroek Business that official support for struggling small and micro businesses has to go beyond the grants currently being offered by the state-run Small Business Bureau (SBB) since these are unlikely to make a significant impact on the survival of enterprises that are now on the brink of total collapse.
Expressing concerns that they may be tagged as ungrateful for comments on the grants currently being distributed by the Bureau, the three business owners, all of whom have realised some measure of success on the local market, are of the view that while the Bureau is doing what lies within its power, given the extent of its financial circumstances, more has to be done by the central government as well as other agencies to ensure that those small businesses that are threatened by the impact of COVID-19 on the economy as a whole, remain viable, since these have a lesser capacity to survive the onslaught of the pandemic.
Conceding that they have no “ready formula” for responding to the problem, all three of the small entrepreneurs share the view that it might take “some kind of getting together” between government and the private lending agencies, including the banking sector to “put together a package” that will help rescue those struggling concerns about to go under. And given the fact that many of these small businesses, in the agro-processing and other sectors are, in some instances, the sole source of family income, the three business proprietors believe that a plan to ensure that these businesses survive that goes beyond the help currently being offered by the SBB has now become an urgent necessity. One of the three pointed out that there may well be cases in which some businesses are close to collapse so that whatever help is forthcoming from the SBB may be seen “more as an income subsidy” than as an investment in re-building the stricken business. She said that in the present circumstances it has now become a question of doing more than just writing a cheque. “Apart from more financial help, those struggling small businesses will need some kind of guidance about how to go about rescuing their businesses,” she suggested.
Conversations which this newspaper has had with recently-elected president of the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) Shyam Nokta, suggest that the Business Support Organization (BSO) is prepared to work with stricken small businesses to help fashion a plan for seeking to restore their fortunes though there are no immediate plans at this stage for a meeting between the two sides to discuss a strategy.
Any plan to rescue struggling small business must address first, financing their capability to restore their production to commercial levels, and secondly, to work to restore lost markets resulting from the impact of COVID-19.
Checks with the Guyana Marketing Corporation’s Guyana Shop, the major local outlet for the range of food products and condiments produced by local agro-processors, have revealed that sales have reduced considerably as the effects of COVID-19 official strictures on trading have kicked in. The Guyana Shop has also told this newspaper that the consequential reduction in patronage has compelled the entity to reduce the volumes of stocks being ordered from agro-processors, a circumstance which some agro-processors have confirmed. This newspaper has also observed that many agro-processors who vended their produce on the streets prior to the advent of COVID-19 are yet to return to their routine trading pursuits. “Every day that we don’t work brings fresh challenges,” one of our informants lamented.
And while this newspaper understands that possible plans to stage a series of Farmers Markets in an attempt to stimulate demand for products manufactured by small businesses have been discussed, the social distancing and other constraints arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic have meant that official approval for the staging of such events have not, up until now, been secured.
Beyond the strengthening of the local market, the three agro-processors with whom the Stabroek Business spoke, said that what the COVID-19 crisis should have taught us is that the modest local market for the products being turned out by local agro-processors is no longer sufficient to sustain them. “We are seeing what is happening in the rest of the world and we need help in finding markets for our produce outside of Guyana and even outside of the Caribbean. We think that that is a role that government can play,” one of the three informants opined.
Meanwhile, each of the three informants, in turn, told the Stabroek Business that apart from the challenges resulting from COVID-19, the ongoing political impasse surrounding the outcome of the March 2 General Elections continues to serve as a serious distraction from what one of them described as “getting on with the important business of running the country.” She said that it is possible to sense that while the rest of the Caribbean is now preoccupied with post-COVID-19 recovery pursuits it was clear that we in Guyana are not functioning in what she described as “a normal situation.”
