The establishment of a special fund for the disbursement of loans to small producers in Linden using the dividends from the defunct Linden Economic Advancement Fund (LEAF) is soon to be realised, President Donald Ramotar told Lindeners during a visit there last week.
President Donald Ramotar inspects products on display by the New Guyana Marketing Corporation
According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) release, Ramotar told residents that instructions were given to Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh to engage in discussions with three commercial banks in the town to support a progamme similar to the Women of Worth (WOW) initiative where small producers can access loans with low collateral.
His promise came while delivering remarks at the opening of the third annual Linden Expo at the Edward Benjamin Conference Hall.
The event, held collaboratively with the Linden Chamber of Commerce, the Tourism, Industry and Commerce Ministry, and the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest), seeks to showcase the potential of entrepreneurship in the mining town.
“We think that when you look around the world, you need both big and small investments. Big investments sometimes act as a pull factor for more investments… but small investments are the ones that sustain development in the country.
“It might be a surprise for you to know that the largest contributor to the most powerful country in the world, the United States, comes from small producers,” President Ramotar said.
He regarded the expo as an event that promotes alternative economic activities that can sustain the mining town which historically depended on bauxite for development. He made reference to agriculture, which he said is a vital, but is an untapped sector in Linden and more particularly the cultivation of crops which are both beneficial to the population and profitable to farmers.
At a juncture where trade relations between Guyana and the fifth largest economy in the world, Brazil are improving, President Ramotar said Linden is at a strategic point and should heighten awareness through Go-Invest, about what it has to offer.
The pledge to reinvigorate micro-credit emanated during the recent negotiations between the president and opposition political parties in the lead up to the passage of the 2012 National Budget, where issues affecting the mining town were raised.
Among them was the Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP), the forerunner to the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) that “awakened the entrepreneurship spirit in the mining town”.
Some Gy$ 400 million was made available to LEAF for disbursement in tranches and, according to the Interim Management Committee Chairman Orin Gordon, the beneficiaries have honoured their obligations to repay, dispelling the suspicions about the smooth flow of the loan process.
It was also agreed that at the end of the LEAF tenure, a special fund was to be established to facilitate further lending to the community, but with that process still to be undertaken, Gordon urged the president to use his good office to expedite the process by removing whatever seems to be hindering factors.
President Ramotar responded with the assurance that the government is open to views and ideas, all in the interest of the future development of the mining town, and especially adjustments residents may have to make in their lives.
The issue of electricity tariffs in Linden, the president addressed forthrightly when confronted by sections of the media minutes after the opening of the expo.
He said the government has not taken away the subsidy from Linden, but reduced it, resulting in Lindeners paying half of what the rest of the country pays, and expressed the hope that conservation will be prioritised given that per capita consumption of electricity per household in Linden is almost three times as much as it is in the rest of the country.
