–Hire Purchase Bill sent to Special Select Committee

By Rehana Ahamad

THE National Assembly on Thursday evening passed a Bill to amend the Small Business Act of 2004, thereby paving the way for small businesses to compete on a more level playing field. This is according to Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Oneidge Walrond, who presented the amendments to the House, on the grounds that the Act, in its current form, puts small businesses at a great disadvantage.
She said that presently, businesses are only mandated to satisfy two of the three criteria before being qualified as a small business. Those criteria are: “…That the small business has to have less than 25 employees; that it has to have less than $20 million in assets, and has to have less than $60 million of annual profits.”

In trying to bolster her arguments, the minister presented two hypothetical scenarios, where a business that has 16 employees, $19 million in assets and $40 million in its annual revolving fund has to compete with a business that has the same 16 employees, the same $19 million worth of assets, but rakes in a whopping $250 million as part of revolving fund. In the foregoing scenario, both businesses would qualify as a small business, but the latter would have the upper hand, having had access to more finances.
“The amendments will have the effect of enhancing and enlarging secured markets within which our small businesses may thrive and grow,” Minister Walrond said.
She reminded the House that the Small Business Act was birthed from a need to provide more support to small businesses, in that “special incentives were developed, and a small business council was formed to nurture entrepreneurship, and to institutionalise support for a sector that contributes significantly to the GDP [Gross Domestic Product].”
In addition to leveling the playing field for small businesses providing goods and services, the amendments to the Act also pave the way for small construction companies to be included and considered as a ‘small business’.

This means that small contractors would benefit from a legislation that seeks to ensure that they are able to compete in a level playing field. This, Walrond said, is especially important, given Guyana’s current status of being an investment magnate. She made specific reference to the government’s transformation agenda, and the various projects that that agenda would encompass.
“We heard His Excellency [President Irfaan Ali] speaking of all the major transformational infrastructural changes that are going to happen in Guyana: The new Demerara Harbour Bridge; the Corentyne Bridge connecting Guyana to Suriname; the Linden Aerodrome Development, [are] just a few of the large capital projects to come,” Minister Walrond posited.
She further indicated that with the amendments, “our small businesses will be able to access opportunities for downstream contracts, for works under these and other large capital projects.”
Walrond’s proposed amendments were supported by her colleagues on the government side of the House, including Minister within the Ministry of Public Works Deodat Indar, along with Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall and Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson. Eventually, the Bill was passed, unopposed, while the government’s landmark Hire Purchase Bill was deferred to a Special Select Committee for further considerations.