Top candidates picked

 THE National Development Bank Investment Ltd (NDBIL) was forced to accept a limited number of applicants for the Stret Pasin Business Scheme due to funding constraints, an official said.

Chief executive officer Desmond Yaninen, when responding to concerns on why most applicants would not benefit from the scheme, said they had to select only the top candidates from each regions. 

An applicant and small business owner Sammy Mankera had raised concerns about the K5 million allocated to start the scheme.

Mankera, a resident of Lae, Morobe, said the scheme was not really focusing on helping bulk of the population.

He said more than 4000 people nationwide have applied as per the notice from the government.

However, Yaninen said: “The process was we would select only the top candidate from every region.

“It cost a lot of money to set up one shop so that’s why we were only able to pick out the top candidates from the regions, we rank them by their scores.

“We would have loved to increase it up to the top 20 or top 40, top 50, top 100, but we don’t have funding.”

Yaninen added that setting up of shops under SPBS was very expensive.

“If we buy a shop and stock it, it’s going to cost about K2 million per shop.

“Just to roll out ten shops this year, it’s going to cost between K10million to K20million.”

Yaninen said they were yet to receive their allocated funding from NDB.

“In the national budget for 2014, the government didn’t allow any money for Stret Pasin. 

“So whatever money that was given to NDB for its lending, NDB has portioned a smaller amount of it to us.

“So this year, NDB is giving us 10 million out of the K85 million allocated by government. 

“Out of the K85 million that the government was supposed to give NDB, they only gave NDB K30million so far.

“Which means NDB still doesn’t have all of the money – so we (NDBIL) still don’t have all the money.”