Dear Editor,
I have followed with interest the comments of Winston Jordan, former Finance Minister under the previous PNC-led government, questioning whether the black pudding vendor in Buxton will ever benefit from the newly established Guyana Development Bank and its loans of up to GY$3 million without collateral and without interest.
Mr. Jordan raises a legitimate question, but I believe his characterization of the black pudding vendor does the entrepreneur an injustice. The vendor should not simply be presented as an example of someone unlikely to benefit. The economics suggest otherwise.
Consider a basic business plan. A properly organized 100-pound production could cost approximately GY$85,000, including ingredients, labour, utilities, packaging and transportation. At a selling price of GY$1,500 per pound, that production could generate approximately GY$150,000 in revenue. That demonstrates the potential for a viable enterprise, not merely a roadside hustle.
With proper management, accounting and access to markets, that small operation could become considerably larger.
What could GY$3 million do for such a business? It could provide commercial cooking equipment, refrigeration, food-preparation facilities, storage, improved packaging and transportation. It could allow the entrepreneur to purchase ingredients in bulk, employ additional workers and increase production. It could help transform a roadside food vendor into a properly registered food-processing business capable of supplying supermarkets, restaurants, shops and other retailers.
That is precisely the kind of transformation a development bank should seek to facilitate.
The fact that Mr. Jordan repeatedly invokes a black pudding vendor from predominantly Afro-Guyanese Buxton makes the question even more important. These entrepreneurs should not merely be political examples. They should have a genuine opportunity to become beneficiaries of economic development.
The Development Bank requires viable business ideas or plans and provides training and mentorship to help entrepreneurs become loan-ready. The real question, therefore, should not be whether the black pudding vendor can benefit, but whether the system will give that vendor a fair opportunity to prove what the business can become.
Let the black pudding vendor in Buxton be measured by the viability and potential of the business, not dismissed because of the size of the operation. If the Development Bank succeeds in turning that small enterprise into a sustainable business employing Guyanese and reaching wider markets, the vendor may become precisely the success story the programme was designed to create.
My grandmother made the best black pudding; I have never eaten any other that comes close. As such, I would add intangible value for patent rights!
Sincerely,
Keith Bernard
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