Enhancing the comfort level of...

infrequently, these seeming administrative/bureaucratic impediments to expeditious access to state funding for small businesses are in no way connected to safeguarding the integrity of the state agency. Some small business owners have described the phenomenon as ‘typical Public Service ‘push around’’. The ‘decorative’ pronouncement made in the 2024 budget presentation (“$450 million for Small Business Fund: $331 million for Small Business Bureau”) is, (as we say in Guyana) all well and good. If, however, the budgetary allocation is to translate into meaningful benefits insofar as growing the small business sector is concerned, implementation procedures must be attended by mechanisms that not only ensure that disbursement of allocations designed to target viable small business undertakings are effected expeditiously but that the procedure must also be attended to by scrupulous examination of the soundness of the application in relation to its worthwhileness for approval.

No less important would be that the procedures associated with the processing of the applications not be encumbered by ‘red tape’ that does little more than frustrate the potential borrower whilst degrading the credentials of the executing state-run institution. What we need to guard against is the danger of the state agencies responsible for administering loans and grants becoming, through the manner of their modus operandi, thoroughly discredited. Entities charged with administering statefinanced resources for small business development must, a priori, offer conviviality while scrupulously seeking assurances with regard to the execution of client responsibilities. What is not acceptable is infusion into the system of unbearable ‘helpings’ of bureaucracy and ‘red tape’ which do not correspond with the weightiness of what is being asked of the institution by the client. This newspaper has engaged several clients seeking statefunded loans/grants who are considerably critical of what they see as frustratingly time-consuming procedures associated with securing state support for small business ventures.

Here one might add that there is a sense in the manner in which budget presentations are structured which is focused largely on throwing ‘numbers’ at audiences in a manner deliberately designed to elicit favourable responses. What is never put before the listeners in the budget presentations’ are the protracted and tedious processes and procedures associated with accessing those budgeted amounts. From the standpoint of official reportage, the amounts articulated in the 2024 budget presentation “reflects the government’s commitment to support small businesses.” The truth is that after the carefully ‘manicured’ presentations (designed to elicit desired responses) are delivered in the National Assembly and buttressed in subsequent state media reports, the realities that often manifest themselves in the matter of actualizing what is set out in the official presentations can sometimes be decidedly frustrating. That has to change if small business aspirants are to have a greater measure of confidence in the preparedness of the state to better their lives. Here, the gap between the articulation of official undertakings and the actualization of those undertakings continues to be, in a great many instances, the real challenge.