Still to emerge from a testing tunnel of tough times, including sustained underfunding and more recently, a drastic decline in business growth arising out of the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country’s small and micro businesses are likely to have to dig even deeper in the period ahead in 2021, based on the early signals sent during a recent interview with Chief Executive Officer of the Small Business Bureau (SBB) Dr. Lowell Porter.
On Sunday, Porter was quoted in an interview with the state-run Guyana Chronicle as saying that the focus of the Bureau in the year ahead will be on seeking to “ensure that businesses understand the environment in which they are functioning at the moment,” presumably a reference to the strictures that have been imposed on business growth by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Porter alluded to “measures” which he said the Bureau had put in place, underlining the importance of micro and small businesses adapting to that environment.
Local micro and small businesses, from the advent of the SBB in 2013 have been vocal in their view that the extent of state funding available to the Bureau is inadequate to meet the continually growing needs of its members, a position that Porter himself has previously endorsed.
In his interview last week Dr. Porter is quoted as repeating his position that funding “is the main issue for small businesses.” but added that the Bureau was also interested in having its clients “understand the value of that money.”
Towards the end of May, Porter announced that the Bureau would have been offering COVID-19 grants to persons registered with the institution and that those grants would have been focusing on “those who are in the food business, agro-processor [and], value-added.”
Since then, small business owners with whom this newspaper has spoken have said that while, in the circumstance of the pandemic, the gesture was welcomed, the amounts disbursed to beneficiaries were inadequate to salvage many small and micro businesses, which in the face of the economic strictures created by the pandemic were already on the verge of collapse.
Over time, Porter himself has been known to express views to the effect that the financial allocations assigned to the Bureau were insufficient to adequately support the steady growth of the micro and small businesses sector.
Setting aside the inadequate flow of business support funding, vending-related small businesses, particularly, have felt the considerable impact of the strictures that have been applied by the authorities in an effort to check the spread of the virus. Interviews with four Georgetown-based agro-processors hitherto involved in street trading have revealed that restrictions on this method of trading have resulted in them having to trade from their homes.
Porter, as this newspaper has previously reported, has also expressed disappointment over the fact that up until now small businesses have been unable to benefit from the provision enshrined in the 2004 Small Business Act that affords them access to up to 20% of state contracts.
His interview with the state-run Chronicle appeared to point to the Bureau’s planned focus on placing increased emphasis on undertaking initiatives designed to help its members adapt to the challenges that have arisen out of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is quoted as saying that the Bureau plans “to ensure that businesses understand the environment in which they are functioning at the moment, so we have a lot of precautionary measures that were implemented, and it is important that as small businesses, you start to look at how [you] can adapt to that new environment.”
Adequate funding aside, several small businesses have told this newspaper that they also face difficult marketing challenges associated with the removal of the exposure that had previously been afforded by Farmers Markets and other public events that customarily attract significant patronage.
