The Struggles Of Small Business Owners In Suriname || Valuable Actions Matching Empty Promises

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We live in a weird world, where leaders and institutions say one thing and act in a very different way than what they are saying. Governments are the biggest villains in this story. Saying what the people want to hear and doing something else. Something I've also noticed here in Suriname in this trend is that the government and banks are always stating that to get the economy up and running small local business need to be supported. This is to combat import of products by producing as much as possible locally.

This is all fine and well said. But not all entrepreneurs trying to start small business seem to have an easy time trying to start up. First you have all the bureaucratic hoops they have to jump through. A recent story I've heard of locally is about a local smart and very business minded guy trying to start a poultry farm to supply consumption of local chicken meat. His business plan involved doing this sustainably and with as little waste as possible. Getting investors interested wasn't as easy, but once he got everything ready to get started, he got a tax bill from the government before he even had any income to declare. Property taxes, etc. Doesn't seem very supporting.

Another thing people with unique business ideas have to worry about is banks trying to steal their idea when they go to ask for a loan. The bank then either denies the loan or gives a low offer, but then they already have the full project plan. The law does not provide much protection from this either.

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Another thing they want is a smooth and efficient flow of money. This means to transition to digital payments as much as possible. Banks are the ones that are the biggest supporters of this goal. Well, in theory at least. But not so much in practice. When it comes to small business, the service of certain banks is far from what it should be.

The local butcher where we go to had to wait about 6 months on the bank's response after their request for the service of being able to accept card payments. And just today I went to a store owner who used to offer the card payment option, who has been waiting 3 months on the bank to fix the machine they provide, because the previous one wasn't working anymore.

Small business are encouraged on paper, but in practice they are the second-class citizens of businesses here. The big companies on the other hand don't seem to have those problems as much. Coincidentally some of those have quite some political influence. This is probably not just an issue here in Suriname, but in other countries as well. Which is why I have a lot of admiration for those small business owners that keep on doing what they are doing and strive for success, despite all the hurdles. They are what will save the economy, because their valuable actions actually match the empty words of those that try to con us.

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