Small business cash grants to be distributed in Region Six on Sunday

Persons, who had applied for the Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) Programme cash grants and could not uplift theirs because of an error in the spelling of their name, will have the opportunity to uplift those cheques on Sunday.
Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for finance, Dr Ashni Singh will be at Berbice High School in New Amsterdam, Region Six on Sunday morning to deliver the SLED cash grant to those persons whose names were misspelled on cheques issued to them.
Additionally, those persons who did not uplift their cheques when the distribution was done in early October, will also have a second opportunity to uplift them.
About 4000 in Region Six were listed to benefit from the programme.
Scores of persons could not uplift their cheques because in an error with the spelling of their name.
Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who was in New Amsterdam on October 8, when the distribution was done, acknowledged that there were corrections to some of the cheques and had promised that they would be rectified and returned to the beneficiary within a month.
The SLED Programme was redesigned to allow for smaller business grants to be issued to a larger pool of people. Under the programme in 2024 persons received $100,000 to expand their businesses.
Jagdeo had said the objective is to assist small businesses even as he advised beneficiaries not to spend the grant on shoes or hair but rather make good use of the grant.
“Now it’s not a lot of money. But when you think about the guy selling water in Georgetown, who approaches us and says, can I get something to expand the amount of water I sell. Or something of that nature. Then it makes a big difference to that person. So, I know that many people will not use it for business purposes. And you don’t have to worry that the Government will come looking for you… But that was the idea behind it.”
The vice president pointed out that not everyone can get the SLED cash grant at the same time.
“Every year, different groups of people get it. But this grant was dedicated as part of our election promise in 2020,” the VP explained.