When was it your last time hearing, watching or reading about enterprise
finance made easy? Chances are it has not been long. But, then, how
useful is it to those in need of it?
Many
start-up businesses are in dire need of capital and but are told they
either do not qualify for it or need to have collateral and security
before they could be listened to. Then if not that, you hear of sayings that aspirant businesspersons are too choosing when it
comes to sectors they want in, something that comes naturally with politicians and cadres deployed in business financing and funding institutions.
This,
springs to mind what I heard on the radio that our fund-seeking youths
are not willing to get their hands dirty; they choose same sectors that are
not industrialized. What these utterances mean is that it’s okay
by the government for big financing businesses to class us as same and to apply a
one-size-fits-all approach when answering to almost zero funding of black businesses. Thus, leaving us out of the funding line, and having to settle on looking on as immigrants go on
taking all the funds deemed “industrialized”. Enough about heads of states' refusal of their failure to create jobs and economic development they promised.
Back
to the business of this article: If one chooses a specific field to
offer their services to, then to some it’s a problem. I then ask myself
– what happened to freedom of choice we so much hear of?
We have many finance vehicles of which some one doesn’t even know what their acronyms stands for ‘cause it still
won’t be any effective which are in our vicinity
but to date I can’t point a finger in lay of claim that the
fingered individual or group of persons have been assisted by them. It goes to show how bad things are. A lot could have
been achieved if only they had given a chance to ideas that they
encounter from time to time instead of pushing political agendas.
The
other thorny issue is that of rental space for businesses. They claim
to be housing businesses with dignity at reasonable rates but just go
to their offices to enquire about office space you’ll come out
reeling with shock. To me, I believe had they thought of developing
smaller players from the word go, then there would have been
provisions for start-up rental to encourage longer stay in the rented
spaces and proper growth of businesses locally, of which a different
case applies.
Many
a small business fail due to rental being the core of their fall. If
space could be affordable, we won’t witness the rate in which shops
opens and closes.
Enterprise
development corporations or institutions should employ people who
have first-hand experience in administration, management and other
related skills sets needed to run a business as their analysts,
advisors and consultants. Thing is, it takes a brave man to go
against the comfort of conformity and security to go into business.
Don’t get me wrong here – it’s just that it’s not that easy
to start a business and some fail in their attempt in it because of
their quick buck making thoughts. If you want quick money, you’ll
lose out dismally.
So,
it is very paining and discouraging the way in which this brave job
creators are handled at the so-called “business financiers” at
the hands of inexperienced personnel. We have high unemployment rates
and yet those offering a way out are shunned out as “clever ones”
as some of our presidents labels them, and as such receive a cold shoulder by
the less clever ones for their creative and innovative solutions.
In conclusion: as
citizens, we ought to give pressure to the government to relax the red
tape that’s hampering job creation attempts and to also stop
fooling us with tax coffers eroding schemes of playing around with
new institution names with but same faces and bad ways of poor
service delivery.
Perhaps
one day those in the hot seats of financing institutions will wake up
and have a change of heart as regard the power of small businesses in
their ability to turn the tide of unemployment. But, for now, it
remains a case of maybe one day there will seat someone who will make
it easier for businesses to obtain finance without being sent from
one useless face to another clueless one...dp