After he had made an undisguised ‘pitch’ on Thursday, August 3, at the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) Dinner and Awards Ceremony for the GMSA to engage government on the issue of the private sector body interfacing with the state-run Small Business Bureau (SBB), GMSA President, Ramsay Ali, had told the Stabroek Business that there had been an expectation that such a meeting was likely to have taken place “in two weeks’ time.”
We took this to mean that there had been some sort of exchange between the two sides out of which had arrived an understanding (not necessarily a hard and fast decision) that somewhere within (or even just outside that time frame) the meeting would take place, and that at the very least, that meeting would have yielded some sort of understanding regarding a framework around which further discussion can be built.
As the Stabroek Business understands, the GMSA’s interest in engaging Vice President Jagdeo and Senior Minister Ashni Singh has to do with, in the slightly longer term, collaborating with the SBB to help the state entity fashion a profile more suitable to its role of serving the needs of small businesses which need various forms of state support for their pursuits.
If Mr. Ali did not say so, that does not say that a great many people did not understand his motive which was, we believe, to help the two sides, the Small Business Bureau and small businesses, seeking state support in the realisation of their entrepreneurial pursuits.
Whether or not the initiative taken by Mr. Ali had derived from interaction that he might have had with small businesses on the matter, it can hardly be said that in seeking to engage the SBB he was not taking a positive step. After all, it is no secret that small businesses have frequently frowned on the modus operandi of the SBB in terms of the state agency’s expediting of their requests for support. Here we believe that the whole motive behind his wanting to ‘sit down’ with the SBB had to do with what, sometimes, are the ‘knots’ associated with the relationships between the small business community and the SBB.
Two weeks have elapsed since this matter arose and insofar as we are aware, no meeting has occurred nor (again as far as we are aware) has been specifically scheduled.
The fact that the officials designated to meet with Mr. Ali are, as far as we are told, Vice President Jagdeo and Senior Minister Singh, is, in our view, somewhat surprising. Not only are these two officials senior and customarily busy officials, a circumstance that might well make a meeting with both of them difficult to schedule, but, as well, one wonders whether such a meeting might not have been convened with perhaps a minister with a less demanding portfolio and with whom it may well have been easier to schedule such an engagement.
Here it should be stated that we are simply conjecturing. We have no clue as to why the agreed meeting has still not taken place and our concern has to do with the fact that since the meeting has to do with what many believe are important challenges confronting the small business sector, it should be treated as a matter of some importance, nay urgency.
At this juncture we can only make two comments. The first is to express the view that given the persistent official expressions of support for the well-being of the small business sector, that the (apparently already agreed to) meeting be convened in the shortest possible time and that the issues, many of which would appear to be impeding the growth of the small business sector, specifically those that have to do with their interface with the SBB, be ironed out.
This, of course, does not mean that the agenda for the engagement should not, time and circumstances permitting, extend into other important areas that have a bearing on small business development and in the fashioning of the relevant state institutions to ensure the realisation of that goal.
