— Gaskin to look at speeding up land allocation for investment purposes in Region 10

MINISTER of Business Dominic Gaskin has committed to looking at issues of land for investment purposes in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper-Berbice) and will be meeting Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, Trevor Benn, on the way forward.

His commitment came in the wake of a request from the Linden Chamber of Commerce (LCC) to have the process of land issuance for investment purposes be reformed and placed under the Ministry of Business.

Gaskin said he will be looking at the peculiarities of Region 10 and how quickly investors and entrepreneurs can access lands, after applying for same. Gaskin was at the time speaking at a Linden business outreach where several Linden entrepreneurs and LCC executives were present.

The burning issues that were raised were the bureaucracy and the slothful process in acquiring land for business investment. LCC President Victor Fernandes described Gaskin’s visit as extremely important and timely since over 10 investors have expressed interest in establishing various businesses in the region, but there are bottlenecks in the system holding up their applications.

This is extremely worrying to Fernandes since Linden is pregnant with investment opportunities, but suffers greatly from miscarriages in the process.

“For some reason or the other, the system has not been working… one of the things we would like to see is that there is a reform with regard to allocation of property,” Fernandes requested, citing that many of the investors have to go through a waiting period of many years.

“This has stymied the whole investment in Linden; no investor would have his resource and be waiting 10 years before you can get approval. Naturally, they will gravitate to other areas where they will be easily facilitated,” he said.

A request was made for business lands to be placed directly under the Ministry of Business so that the ministry would directly deal with the process, and maybe this can be a start to bringing a solution to the issue.

POOR SYSTEM
Minister Gaskin said his ministry and the other agencies had inherited a system of poor record management and, to date, there are over 30,000 applications in the system for land allocation.

It is not the government’s intention, Gaskin said, to stymie investment, especially in a town such as Linden where it is very much needed and, therefore, he will commence discussions on how this concern can be addressed.

It is the government’s policy, he said, to see business flourish, as these businesses will, in turn, provide employment for residents.

“I can understand how frustrating it has to be for businesses that have arranged financing that want to grow, or want to start up and can’t find the space to do so… I am giving an undertaking that when I go back to town, I am going to speak with the Commissioner of Lands and Surveys and I am going to see what I can get from him, if not, his minister, something more definitive about your region in particular,” Gaskin promised
He highlighted the unique incentives and advantages that are indigenous to Region 10 when it comes to establishing a business, which would attract investors, and this he believes, should not go to waste.

Minister Gaskin reminded the gathering of the government’s policy of providing 20 per cent of its procurement work to small entrepreneurs. He encouraged young people in Linden to get their small businesses registered and to forge ties with the Small Business Bureau (SBB), which facilitates such registration. The SBB has a help desk in Linden and facilitates training in record keeping and business proposal writing, among others.

After the meeting, Minister Gaskin and team visited several entrepreneurs and small businesses in Linden, mostly those who have benefitted from financing from SBB, to check on how they are progressing and what further assistance they need.