By Nazima Raghubir
Nancy McKenzie reaches for a pack of exercise books, her customer is a teenager shopping for school supplies, “this is what I live on,” she quips, “I came here to make a living.”
McKenzie operates a small shop on the Kumaka Waterfront in Mabaruma, Region One. The mother of two inherited the shop from her mother who started that business in the 1990s. But McKenzie is worried about the threat to her business particularly from supermarkets owned by Chinese nationals. There are now two supermarkets owned and operated by Chinese nationals in Mabaruma. These sell groceries including food and beverages, clothing as well as stationery, “the only thing the Chinese are not selling is the creole food,” McKenzie said as she lamented the “threat” to her and other business operators, “these supermarkets are selling everything cheaper, they have their own boats doing transportation, their own porters,” she said, “it is different for us, we have to pay for transportation and that affects our prices.”
Evelyn Melville who operates a small store selling school uniforms, stationery, cloth and other supplies in Kumaka explained that the issue was raised with the government. She explained that one government official’s response was that there was little the government could do but encouraged businesses to be “versatile”.