Council concerned over funds

By DALE LUMA
THE Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME) Council is concerned that the K500,000 in SME (small and medium enterprise) support for districts might not be spent on intended activities.
President Desmond Yaninen said this when responding to queries by The National on Government funding support for businesses following concerns raised by members of the business community with regards to the funding support and lack of consultation.
“We agree on the lack on consultation, particularly with the K500,000 to each district,” he told The National.
“We are concerned that the money allocated to districts may not be spent on MSME-related activities.”
PNG Manufacturers Council chief executive Chey Scovell, while speaking on a radio talkback show recently, said: “One of the frustrations when it comes to MSMEs is that we have to have an intelligent conversation with Treasury and those key economic implementing agencies of the Government as to how they can grow revenue.
“Unfortunately, we have not had a conversation, let alone an intelligent one since we had the Treasurer come in particularly around MSME.
“A lot of my (manufacturers) members are MSMEs as well.
“We have a lot of MSME manufacturers and then we are also a lynch pin for a lot of other MSMEs.
“Even if you take a big cannery or a big biscuit factory or big fabrication business, there are very large consumers of SMEs.
“Their electrical work, their marketing work, even their trainings are all out sourced to MSMEs in PNG.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have that conversation.
“Even when the Government was formulating the current medium term development strategy, all the conversations are primarily with people that are not in the business of doing business.”