Utility companies, banks urged to offer COVID-19 cushion to small businesses

PATRICIA GARIB, CEO of the Kaluga Institute and general manager for Kaluga Group of Companies, is calling on the Government, financial institutions and utility companies to give small businesses a lifeline to survive the coronavirus pandemic, which has been dealing a severe blow to the global economy.

Commending the State’s COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) Programme, she said that she would also like for something as meaningful to be done for small businesses to stay afloat.

Garib said that initiatives such as tax relief and incentives could be given to businesses hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis.

In March, Garib and her team, who work in the food-service industry, had to find creative strategies to handle challenges because of restrictions on gatherings curfews imposed to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus on the island.

But the ‘COVID deals’ and delivery services which they began to offer could not match up to a further punishing blow with the St Catherine lockdown.

“The sudden lockdown of St Catherine makes it even more overwhelming, as the bills were climbing and suppliers came calling,” Garib told The Gleaner, adding that they lost a portion of business offering corporate lunch packages to other restaurants.

Garib said that it was hard to put a dollar figure to losses the company has already racked up but, based on purchases, stocks and other expenses, they are looking at an estimated $2 million.

As such, she would like to see utility companies, and even the National Housing Trust, reaching out to offer a cushion in these uncertain times.

“Apart from just a moratorium on loans for employers, a pandemic loan offer from financial institutions to business persons, to offset their immediate expenses and get back on their feet as soon as this has passed, would be great,” she said.

Banks, according to Garib, can do so much more for business owners: such as offering loans with affordable interest-rate payback or a waiver on interest rate with the loans granted.