In a bid to grow eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in East Port-of-Spain mi­cro-busi­ness­es, start-ups can re­ceive a grant of up to $20,000 in fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance.

This ini­tia­tive is be­ing done by the East Port of Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EPOS) through its new Com­mu­ni­ty Busi­ness In­cu­ba­tor (CBI) Pro­gramme.

In an in­ter­view last Fri­day with Sun­day Busi­ness, EPOS chair­man Hillan More­an said one can­not hide from the fact that crime im­pacts the 19 com­mu­ni­ties that are in East Port-of-Spain, and do­ing such ini­tia­tives to help fi­nance a mi­cro-busi­ness or start-up can as­sist with em­ploy­ment and re­duce crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

More­an sought to de­bunk so­cial me­dia posts that pro­grammes like these are giv­ing mon­ey to gang­sters in the area.

“Why is the as­sump­tion every time that pro­grammes will go in­to the pock­ets of gang­sters and gun­men? So, I want to re­fute that cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly be­cause the pro­gramme is meant to help thou­sands of peo­ple who have an en­tre­pre­neur­ial mind­set.

“I was dri­ving through Pash­ley Street, on Thurs­day, where I saw a young la­dy, who had set up a tent sell­ing food. Our com­pa­ny could im­pact peo­ple like her. She could put in a re­quest for sup­port. We can help im­prove aes­thet­ics. She needs some equip­ment that will help her have a good busi­ness. We will work with them to reg­is­ter their busi­ness­es, if it is not al­ready, and pro­vide men­tor­ship on how to run the busi­ness,” the chair­man ex­plained.

More­an not­ed that $3 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed for the pro­gramme and more will be al­lo­cat­ed once the de­mand is there. The aim is to help up to 150 busi­ness­es in the 19 com­mu­ni­ties.

Asked where the fund­ing was com­ing from, he in­di­cat­ed that the gov­ern­ment pro­vides the al­lo­ca­tion un­der EPOS’s So­cio-Eco­nom­ic Project.

“We are hope­ful that the pro­gramme can run for up to 10 years with the Gov­ern­ment’s as­sis­tance and we have reached out to two in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions for help, and we are ap­peal­ing to oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions to come on board for this im­por­tant pro­gramme,” he said.

More­an al­so point­ed out that this ini­tia­tive is the Eco­nom­ic Im­pe­tus for So­cio-Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (EISED) and is in­spired by the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals – par­tic­u­lar­ly, Goal 8: Pro­mote sus­tained, in­clu­sive and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth, full and pro­duc­tive em­ploy­ment and de­cent work for all and Goal 10- Re­duce in­equal­i­ty with­in and among coun­tries.

“This is al­so tied sig­nif­i­cant­ly to our Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy 2016-2030, par­tic­u­lar­ly Theme 1 –Putting Peo­ple First, Nur­tur­ing our great­est as­set.

“But most im­por­tant­ly, it is tied to the vi­sion of the res­i­dents, who, from Beetham to St John St, from Nev­er Dirty to Mal­ick, Cale­do­nia to Gon­za­les, Sea Lots to Bel­mont, have called for more sup­port and in­vest­ment to help res­i­dents self-ac­tu­alise. Many of them have won­der­ful busi­ness ideas and lack the ca­pac­i­ty and sup­port to turn those dreams in­to re­al­i­ty.”

He out­lined that go­ing for­ward the state or­gan­i­sa­tion will bring on a re­search of­fi­cer, as the EPOS does not cur­rent­ly have one and the goal for the re­search of­fi­cer is to go in­to in­ten­sive re­search of the 19 com­mu­ni­ties to guide the pro­gramme.

“The aim is to cap­ture how many peo­ple are un­em­ployed in the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties, see how many are un­skilled and need train­ing. Cap­tur­ing the da­ta from them would help guide us on what pro­grammes we should fo­cus on, and what ar­eas of train­ing should be ze­roed on. The com­pa­ny is go­ing in a very re­search-dri­ven ap­proach.”

More­an not­ed that re­search showed sev­en out of every 10 dol­lars spent in Trinidad and To­ba­go, is spent in the pub­lic sec­tor with a sub­stan­tial amount ded­i­cat­ed to wages.

“Any shock to that sys­tem, such as that which oc­curred in the lat­ter part of the decade 2000-2010, can lead to de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects such as lay­offs and in­creased un­em­ploy­ment. By en­cour­ag­ing a more thriv­ing pri­vate sec­tor in and through­out East Port-of-Spain, an en­vi­ron­ment of com­merce, sta­ble hu­man re­la­tions, and there­fore peace­ful out­comes can be en­cour­aged by help­ing those in need to ac­quire mean­ing­ful and sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment.

“Across the 19 com­mu­ni­ties of East Port-of-Spain, over the next 10 years, busi­ness­es can be de­vel­oped as part of a long-term vi­sion for eco­nom­ic en­hance­ment and so­cial in­ter­ven­tion through tar­get­ed and well-man­aged com­mu­ni­ty in­vest­ment. We in­vite all to join us on this trans­for­ma­tion of East Port-of-Spain,” More­an added.

Ap­ply­ing for the grants

More­an said in­ter­est­ed per­sons can vis­it the East Port of Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny’s Face­book page for more in­for­ma­tion on the CBI Pro­gramme, on the cri­te­ria, and in­struc­tions on how to ap­ply.

He not­ed that ap­pli­ca­tions have been opened since May 2 and as of 4:17 pm on Fri­day 71 in­ter­est­ed en­tre­pre­neurs ap­plied.

“That rep­re­sents an in­crease of 31 ap­pli­cants over last Wednes­day and Thurs­day. So, there is a strong in­ter­est in the pro­gramme. The ap­pli­ca­tion process will be closed on June 2.”

Fur­ther, More­an said while ap­pli­ca­tions will be ac­cept­ed from all in­dus­tries, spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to the fol­low­ing ar­eas: agri­cul­ture, crop pro­duc­tion, an­i­mal pro­duc­tion as well as and hy­dro­pon­ics, man­u­fac­tur­ing in­clud­ing agro-pro­cess­ing, tool­ing, house­hold fur­nish­ings, jew­ellery fur­ni­ture and leather.

“We al­so have food ser­vices, so peo­ple in any food ser­vices in­dus­try, peo­ple in the cre­ative in­dus­tries, in­clud­ing cul­ture and per­form­ing arts, peo­ple in tourism, de­vel­op­ment as­pects of things, tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal ser­vices can al­so ap­ply,” he re­vealed.

The chair­man stat­ed that the $20,000 is not hard and fast. De­pend­ing on the kind of equip­ment or in­vest­ment the busi­ness own­er en­gages in, it can be more or less.

Sun­day Busi­ness reached out to Michelle St Paul of Bel­mont who sells food every week and she said “This pro­gramme is good for per­sons like me who want to ex­pand their busi­ness by buy­ing more food warm­ers and oth­er ap­pa­ra­tus so that I can ex­pand my cater­ing busi­ness.”

Keisha Thomas from Mal­ick who sells pep­pers and sea­son­ings wel­comed the pro­gramme.

“A friend told me about the pro­gramme and I ap­plied. The process was easy and not like oth­er pro­grammes that want you to ap­ply for the grant, and place a lot of red tape for one to ac­cess any kind of fund­ing to ex­pand one’s busi­ness,” Thomas stressed.

John Michael from Sea Lots, who is a car­pen­ter, said, “I on­ly heard about the pro­gramme last Wednes­day but will sure­ly put in an ap­pli­ca­tion as I would like to pur­chase new ma­chin­ery as my clien­tele is grow­ing. This grant will be very help­ful.”