The feedback that has been received arising out of the December 2 webinar hosted by the Small Business Bureau suggests that despite the persistent media attention being focussed on the circumstances of small businesses, government continues to ‘miss the bus’ insofar as their growth requirements are concerned.
Feedback from participants in the forum suggests that while the discourse featured exchanges with representatives of various state agencies including the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), National Insurance Scheme (NIS), Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), and the Commercial Registry, all of which are concerned with compliance by small businesses in one form or another, there was “little or nothing on offer” with regard to such support that the state and the lending sector can offer small businesses that can contribute to their growth and development.
“There was really little in it for us as far as I gathered,” Hector Prince, a Berbice cash crop farmer, told the Stabroek Business. Prince pointed out that one would have thought that “in these difficult times” any meeting with small businesses would have focussed on dealing with issues that would help to “see them through” the present crisis. He said that at a time when small farmers and agro-processors, among “small businesses that are under pressure,” are “literally fighting to keep their heads above the water,” this is “really not the ideal time” to talk to small businesses about compliance. In response to a question from this newspaper, Prince said that while urgings from state agencies about the various forms of
compliance were important, it is the survival of small businesses that is paramount.
Prince, who originally comes from Essequibo, told the Stabroek Business that he did not believe that the agencies that provided advice about compliance were “on the same wavelength” with the small business owners. He said that in the current circumstances, people who are uncertain as to whether or not their fragile small businesses will survive “the crisis” are not going to want to be told about compliance. “I don’t think that the people who were there to tell us about compliance at this time are on the same wavelength with us,” Prince told Stabroek Business.
Sandra Craig, another small business owner, whose fruit-flavoured barbecue sauces are a favourite with consumers, told this newspaper that while compliance with the various regulations was important, how to help small businesses sustain themselves by continuing to open opportunities that allowed them to thrive was also important. Craig, who has been awaiting a shipment of bottles from the United States in order to resume the re-stocking of supermarket shelves with her Barbecue Sauces, told this newspaper that the virtual forum should have included “people who can offer us help with what we need to take our businesses forward… finance.” Asked about the GRA’s undertaking given at the forum that registered businesses that import raw materials for use in their production processes as well as packaging material can benefit from tax concessions, Dave, another agro-processor said that one of the problems associated with taking advantage of such concessions had to do with the “hassle and red tape” associated with getting them. “Sometimes you think that it is better to do your own thing and don’t bother. These things are just bare hassle,” Dave told Stabroek Business.
This newspaper has published various articles about the need to remove the red tape and lengthy procedures associated with expediting processes at some state agencies through the creation of one-stop agencies, where this is possible. Earlier this week, some agro-processors echoed this view, asserting that they were far too busy with their survival to listen to what they have heard repeatedly in the past. “When banks and other lending agencies start listening to us and when we get better, faster treatment from places like NIS, we will start listening more,” a Soesdyke/Linden farmer told Stabroek Business.
It will be recalled that just recently, the opportunity for local small businesses to benefit from a significant allocation of state contracts was missed on account of both the sloth of the state bureaucracy and blockages in the system. Since then the issue has not been raised again.
The Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) representative at the webinar provided details of the agency’s training facilities through which it seeks to equip business owners with knowledge on the role of standards in enhancing efficiency and improving the quality of the services that they provide.
