The 2021 Budget - Businesses need more!
After being disappointed by Budget 2020 for its lack of direct support towards businesses, which have suffered tremendously from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collective private sector anticipated with hope that Budget 2021 would contain comparable fiscal measures like the billions granted to households and public sector employees last year. Regrettably, this was not the case. Finance Minister Ashni Singh made no such announcements of relief measures to assist businesses to recover from certainly the worst crisis ever experienced by our private sector.
The Minister, in his budget speech, maintained that “COVID-19 is far from over and much uncertainty remains.” And that is precisely what scares businesses. They see no immediateterm end to the pandemic. Accordingly, they appeared hopeful that government would have done more to cushion the protracted effects of the pandemic. Such support would have been important especially for the micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises which are most vulnerable to such broad economic shocks as those triggered by the pandemic which could deliver potentially the biggest unfavourable impact in terms of employment and stability on the domestic front.
In a year where the nonhydrocarbon economy shrunk by around 7%, and where taxes generated 96% of all government income (with the lion’s share coming from the private sector), it would have been understandable if government had set aside direct measures amounting to around 1 to 2 per cent of GDP to the business sector. This is the sector that many government officials refer to as powering the “engine of growth,” which creates jobs, generates GDP, enhances productivity, earns government revenues, improves human capital and quality of life, and aids poverty reduction by narrowing the gap between the rich and poor.
A significant investment in our business sector at this time would, in both the short and long term, reap dividends for both
government and the citizenry. This is a critical point especially as pre-pandemic concerns such as climate change and structural investments for innovation for businesses to strengthen their competitive capacities in regional and global trade remain priorities. The government could see added benefits by targeting stimulus and relief support that earns “double dividends” by ensuring that long-term policy objectives are not set aside. Such relief would generate further returns on investment as the stimulus would ensure that businesses do not cut into resources that are essential for research and development or jobs training and growth.
One allocation that is indicative of the budget’s inadequacies in terms of delivering on desirable objectives is the $250 million set aside for the Small Business Development Fund. Here, one must take note of the fact that when COVID-19 hit, small businesses were already engaged in seeking to cope with the challenges of accessing financing from the local capital markets along with diminished export capacity, high electricity costs, and lack of entrepreneurial and business management skills. Taking all of this into account, this allocation should have been at least four to eight times greater - $1 billion to $2 billion. This would be sufficient to fund incentives (through loans and grants) targeting unorganized and informal small scale businesses to become registered, provide government guarantees on loans and strengthen and expand the capacity of the Small Business Bureau to develop training curricula with the capacity to meet the demands and needs of trainers and businesses in all of the regions across Guyana.
While the provisions of the Small Business Act allow for small businesses to receive 20% of the government’s procurement of goods and services, the full implementation of this clause would only ensure that a select few small companies benefit, since qualification is based on the criteria of meeting formal requirements linked to eligibility. This reinforces the point made earlier regarding the need for more funding aimed at capacity building and moving small enterprises from the unorganized to the organized private sector so that they too can reap the rewards of government support measures.
This can only occur if there is both a substantial financial allocation and the requisite political will. This is an opportunity not only to address the current crisis but also to apply the lessons for other crises that may in the future generate their own economic shocks.
STEM Guyana, the organization which dramatically raised the country’s technology profile by fielding teams that distinguished themselves at prestigious international robotics competitions in Washington and the United Arab Emirates, earlier this week told the Stabroek Business that it is preparing to distribute nearly 1000 lessons plans to parents & vulnerable students across the country.
This is part of what STEM Guyana Chief Executive Officer Karen Abrams says is a gesture designed to provide official support for efforts to seek to ensure effective continuity to the education delivery in Guyana, the ravages of the COVID19 pandemic notwithstanding.
The launch will be effected during the week of February 20th, Abrams told Stabroek Business.
“The STEMGuyana leadership team has decided to directly alleviate one source of pandemic stress for Guyanese parents by investing in the development of nearly 1000 lesson plans covering Mathematics, Science and English, from Grades I to Ten, Abrams told Stabroek Business. She said that the Lessons Plans “references the worksheets being provided by the Ministry of Education.”
In a telephone interview with the Stabroek Business on Wednesday Abrams said that over the past four months STEM Guyana had been working with counterparts to prepare Lessons Plans integrated with Scratch and Arduino coding technology. She said that a representative sampling of the lessons plans had been reviewed by curriculum specialists and teachers and that the finished products are targeted at STEM club leaders and parents. The goal, she said, is to “help parents to better understand and explain concepts to their children.”
Abrams says that the lessons plans which will be delivered “via web and mobile app” will track and reward student performances with points which students will be able to use to acquire school supplies.” The lesson plans, she said, are part of a larger national programme being sponsored by ExxonMobil and Tullow Oil” and are designed to support soon to be launched “lessons pod programmes” across nine of the country’s ten administrative regions via web or mobile app or on flash drive. These can be viewed via television or computers. STEM Guyana, Abrams says, also plans to conduct weekly Zoom classes for parents to help them “navigate the app and reinforce the concepts with their children.
Abrams told Stabroek Business that STEM Guyana had recently analyzed results of an online survey administered to 328 parents who were “part of a weighted sample reflecting regional populations in all ten (10) of the country’s administrative regions.” She said that, worryingly, 66% of the parents interviewed had responses ranging from “not very well,” to “completely stressed.”
“We found that the pandemic has caused parents to have to play the roles of both parent and teacher while dealing with reduced incomes, poor or expensive internet service, uncooperative children, lack of access to computers or tablets, and a general lack of ability to guide their children through worksheets,” Abrams said.
The lesson plans created by STEMGuyana will be made available free of charge and the goal is to help place in the control of parents a tool which directly provides explanations and which references the worksheets provided by the Ministry of Education. Abrams said that while the lessons’ plan learning tools are designed specifically for the soon to be launched learning pods program for vulnerable children, they will, nonetheless, be made available to all parents, since 100% of the parents who responded to the STEMGuyana parent survey requested convenient access to the lesson plans.
A pleasing afternoon in the company of one of the current key players in what is almost certainly the most enduring eating house in contemporary Guyana, Clinton Urling, was sufficient to send a message that the onset of COVID19 has done little to dampen the entrepreneurial spirit of the second-generation owners of German’s Restaurant.
Just over an hour of conversation with Clinton served to persuade me that the lean days which the restaurant, known for its soups and stews wherever Guyanese reside, have, like other enterprises, had to endure over the past year or so, have done nothing either to staunch the determination of the proprietors nor to dampen the enthusiasm of its patrons.
More than remaining rock solid at its ‘Tiger Bay’ location, German’s has moved on. Over the course of our discourse Clinton disclosed the strides which the enterprise has made. German’s today, is one of the few indigenous enterprises, which has spread its proverbial wings overseas, navigating, over the past three years or so, the intricacies of establishing its first restaurant in Brooklyn, New York.
It started, Clinton said, “in a leased space” and has now “moved to its own purchased permanent home.
The Brooklyn ‘branch’,
Clinton says, is located in an area that is heavily populated by New York-based Guyanese and Caribbean nationals.
Relocating from rented space to premises of its own, during the peak of the pandemic, Clinton says, was far from a walk in the proverbial park. That, however, is now behind German’s.
These days, Clinton asserts, the New York facility thrives in its new environment and has received attention from the mainstream and culinary New York media including, the New York Times, New York Magazine, ABC Television News, Eater, and Gotham magazines,” among others.
Soups, Clinton assures, remains Germans’ flagship offering, although he assures that the New York branch has been able to ‘brand’ other Guyanese favorites including egg ball, pepperpot, and cookup rice. He disclosed that an influential Wall Street publication, “Plate”, has picked the egg ball as its favorite winter snack.
The company has done a lot to raise the profile of Guyanese cuisine, which is often overlooked overseas in favour of Jamaican and Trinidadian dishes. “German’s has the history and unique products which has caught the attention of people of non-Guyanese background and persuasion living in New York to notice and patronise the establishment and by extension expose the culinary traditions of Guyana to a wider demographic in New York,” says Clinton.
Partnering with his brother, Clinton has led the second generation family business for the past 21 years, since the passing of their father and company founder Hubert ‘German’ Urling.
He assures that with the Georgetown premises, completely transformed more than a decade ago and German’s having retained the high standard which the current proprietors have set, both the reputation and the service
have grown. Surely, it is more than worth applauding the sustainability of an enterprise that has survived and grown significantly over more than half a century and of which the Urling siblings remain understandably proud.