It is by no means uncommon for there to occur some kind of event that draws critical attention to small businesses in Guyana though whether those events, have, for the most part, resulted in any really meaningful enhancement for the sector, as a whole, is an altogether different matter. On the whole, the development of the small business sector has been incremental, more gradual than their owners would have liked to be the case, and whatever support for small business growth becomes available from the state, it is almost invariably disbursed in strictly modest amounts, through state-controlled entities and from behind bureaucratic barriers that can often be much more a frustration than anything to seriously take the support-seeking small business forward. There can be no question than that the whole infrastructure for small business growth in Guyana, including funding, production-related infrastructure and opportunities for product-promotion, both at home and abroad, needs to be re-examined and restructured.
What would certainly be a good start is if, for example, state funding for small business and other requisites for small business growth could be disentangled from state control, filtered through autonomous entities established to address issues like loan and grant allocation for small business development. This newspaper has said before, and unapologetically, that the placing of even a modest measure of responsibility for small business growth in the hands of state agencies has proven not to be the wisest of ideas. What can sometimes be the infuriatingly bureaucratic mindset of state entities, functioning from behind mindsets that are driven by bureaucracy and burdensome rules and procedures, and which, all too frequently, amount much more to form than substance, continues to be a talking point among would-be business startups and emerging enterprises seeking real support. Criticism of the modus operandi of state entities serving as administrators for state support to small business ventures continues to be both persistent and profound.
At both the Ministry of Business and the Small Business Bureau, persons seeking state support for business growth have ‘complained’ about the dead hand of bureaucracy, seemingly designed much more for show than for substance, and expert in few other skills, save and except articulating thickets of what, all too frequently, are ponderous rules and regulations that narrow rather than broaden access to services that enable small business growth. Where business support is concerned, it is, truth be told, a matter of horses for courses. Where, for example, the rules cannot be flexible enough to allow for access by individuals and groups that are manifestly capable of running successful businesses, it is the constricting rules that really ought to be made to ‘stand down.’
All too frequently, it is the hapless small business aspirant that is the victim of pushback. At this juncture it has become more affordable than it had been, even four or five years ago, for the government to meaningfully invest in small business growth. In these changed circumstances, what it must do is to seriously revisit the whole modus operandi that applies in state-run entities that are, in one way or another, responsible for providing support for the growth of the small business sector.
Here, one wonders whether the historic bureaucratic armour with which government ministries are, for the most part, clad, does not render these decidedly not fit for purpose insofar as administering any aspect of the vital interests of the small business sector is concerned. Beyond that, we need agencies that are intimate with the entrepreneurial mindset and which are prepared to disrobe themselves from their state-tailored bureaucratic apparel and simply get on with the business of small business growth.
Here, it has to be said (and we have said this before) that an eminent case exists for hiving off some of the administrative and procedural responsibilities that currently fall under one state entity or another to Business Support Organizations (BSO’s) like the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. As small Business Week unfolds, we are already witnessing serious efforts by the Chamber to generate an enhanced sense of interest in raising awareness of the importance of small businesses and small business owners.
Now that the mindset of the ‘big players’ in the new oil and gas-driven Guyana economy would appear to have put what had once been their limited entrepreneurial ambitions behind them, it is high time that government make a more profound and meaningful commitment – backed by meaningful operating to allow for small businesses to grow and to prosper. Enough of that is not happening at this time.
