The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Some 85 percent of a new small business advocacy group’s members have been reduced to “one-man bands” by COVID-19 and its lockdowns, its first proposed president revealed yesterday.

Mark A Turnquest, a small business consultant, told Tribune Business that Friday’s Business Survival march on Bay Street had provided the impetus to form a new organisation that will focus on the needs of entrepreneurs, small and micro businesses.

He added that the 242 Small Business Association and Resource Centre will be formally incorporated, complete with Board of Directors, management team and eight-strong committee structure, by November 30 as its members push for the re-opening of non-essential businesses by the Government.

The crafting and passage of the long-promised Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Development Act, as well as a national development plan for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are among its other objectives with Mr Turnquest describing the Ministry of Finance, Small Business Development Centre and Chamber of Commerce as all “out of touch” with the sector’s needs.

He said the trio all define small businesses as companies with annual turnovers up to $3m, whereas he and others involved with the Association are arguing that micro businesses should be classified as having revenues of $50,000 or less; small businesses having turnover of between $50,000 to $100,000, and medium-sized businesses a top-line of between $100,000 and $250,000.

Suggesting that the Association had received interest from up to 1,000 potential small business members, Mr Turnquest said many did not have plans beyond October 2020 given the survival challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated government restrictions.

“Their cash flow has failed,” he told Tribune Business. “Eighty-five percent of my small business members are one-man bands. They don’t have employees. Only 15 percent of my members in the 242 Small Business Association and Resource Centre have employees.

“All who marched and wanted to march have no employees left. They will hire them back, but after September/October/November/ they will not hire them back until January. That’s why they want to cut loose.”

Philip Curry, the association’s vice-president, told Tribune Business yesterday that his post-secondary IT education business, the Cyber Tech Career College, has seen a 50 percent drop in course registration because attendees and their financial backers simply lack the funding due to COVID-19 related job losses and income cuts.

“Right now we are experiencing a lot of potential students telling us they are unable to pay for classes this year because they don’t have the money or are out of work,” he said. “I would say it’s probably as much as 50 percent. The next couple of weeks will be critical to our survival because most classes start at the end of the month.

“This year we were planning for enrollment to increase before the pandemic started and have a good year. Unfortunately the pandemic happened, and we found out a lot of people are out of work or the mother and father are unable to send their children for post-secondary courses.”

Mr Curry said himself and other post-secondary private education institutes are facing unfair competition because all government grant funding is directed to University of The Bahamas (UoB) and the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI).

Calling for students and parents to be provided with grants in the form of vouchers. he said: “Only UoB and BTVI get the grants. How do you fight, how do you survive that? It’s not just me; there’s ten other institutions feeling the same pinch.

“Even before the pandemic we were at a competitive disadvantage with UoB and BTVI. We really need help from the Government. The Government can give students a voucher, and they can take that voucher anywhere they want to take classes. That will help us but sending everyone to UoB and BTVI for free, how do we compete against free? It’s hard to compete.”