PERSONS looking to create community small businesses that will contribute to job creation and development, can capitalise on funding towards their business in 2021, as another $180 million has been allocated for the Sustainable Livelihood Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) programme in the 2021 budget.
The SLED programme is an initiative aimed at business and job creation in communities across the country, and provides funding to individual persons or organisations for the support of entrepreneurial activities, particularly in the areas of agriculture and livestock.
The $180 million for SLED in 2021 is part of the “Regional Economic Transformation” project under the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (MoLGRD). It is geared at increasing job opportunities and employment, improving access to training, enhanced skills and competency levels, as well as enhancing social and cultural cohesion. The $180 million will bring the total monies allocated under this programme to $940 million, after a total of $760 million was disbursed from 2015 to 2020 in increments of $115 million, $40 million, $100 million, $150 million, $250 million and $105 million, respectively.

Audits and countrywide assessments are currently being conducted of monies that were expended under the programme from 2017 – 2019. A physical assessment is currently being carried out by the Ministry of Labour (MoL), while the Audit Office is also expected to eventually conduct a financial audit. Based on initial assessments carried out by the MoL thus far, the subject minister, Joseph Hamilton, had reported that assessments of the 2019 projects in Region 10 revealed several alleged instances of ‘fraud’ and ‘criminality’. A similar situation was unearthed in Region Five.
Most of the projects assessed were never completed and are not functioning, notwithstanding all the money being disbursed. Several of the business ventures were done under co-op societies. However, it was discovered that several of the co-ops were not registered with the co-ops division of the Labour Ministry.
Additionally, the minister had revealed that the ministry has had difficulty in locating the documentation that trailed how monies were disbursed in 2017 and 2018.