– 68 more pending

UNDER the Small Business Bureau (SBB) Fund, 153 grants have been awarded to small businesses in Guyana, amounting to $30.6M. There are 68 more of these grants, capped at $200,000, pending approval for disbursal.

SBB Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Lowell Porter told the Guyana Chronicle that these grants were processed between late 2019 and present-day. These funds are separate from the 91 COVID-19 relief grants disbursed by the SBB, and the 30 more pending.

To be eligible for an SBB grant, those who apply must be owner(s) of a business, or seeking to start a business; registered client(s) of the Small Business Bureau, and must submit a string of documents related to their business registration, National Identification Card, certificate of Tax Identification Number and more.

On the SBB’s part, several checks made, such as a site visit of the business, monitoring and evaluation visits of business and the applications are submitted to the Grants Committee for review and approval. Added to this, client(s) must submit receipts of items purchased with grant funding.

Meanwhile, Dr. Porter updated that the public can expect to hear the names of the businesses shortlisted for the Green Business Technology Fund by the end of this week.

“We’ve just looked at some of the submissions last week, and the committee is still [developing] a shortlist, and then we’re going to see who are the clients that have met the requirements,” the SBB CEO said.

He last told the newspaper that a total of 27 businesses have submitted proposals to become possible million-dollar winners of the fund set up by the SBB. The fund, for which submissions closed on July 30, invited small start-up and existing businesses with innovative ‘green’ business ideas and solutions to apply to be one of 12 lucky winners awarded up to $1 million to assist with the development of their business.

To apply, applicants had to submit a typed business proposal of not more than 20 pages, detailing their idea, a development plan of the solution, implementation strategy and outreach strategy, among other criteria.

The submissions will now be reviewed and sent to a panel of judges, who will further select the lucky 12. However, applicants will be required to make an in-person pitch before the judges. The proposals will primarily be judged on innovation, strategy and potential growth to a sustainable business enterprise.

The SSB is a semi-autonomous agency established under the Ministry of Business, based on the Small Business Act of 2004. It was established in 2010, and became operational in 2013, with funding from the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), for the ‘Micro and Small Enterprise Development (MSED Programme).