Government urged to set up disaster fund for small businesses

Eugene Kelly, councillor for the Whitfield Town Division in St Andrew South West, is calling for the establishment of a small-business disaster fund, noting the devastating impact of 15 fires over two years in the island’s smallest political zone.

Their origins are numerous, many controversial, but, according to Kelly, the blow from these disasters to small businesses is undeniable and far-reaching.

The latest blaze occurred on New Year’s Day, which ravaged Paradise Catering, a long-standing, family-owned bar and grill and its storerooms on Spanish Town Road in Kingston. The fire, which reportedly started at midnight, is under investigation.

More than 15 people have been left unemployed and their dependents facing destitution, even as the owners remained optimistic about rebuilding.

Kelly visited the area last week to extended emotional support to the owners, staff, and others in the community.

“Geographically, the Whitfield Town Division is the smallest of the 40 divisions, and, as you can imagine, being so small with so many thousands of people, it is a space that would have had more than its fair share of fires,” charged Kelly, adding that the majority of the homes in the area were built in the 1930s, and thus are not on par with current fire-safety standards.

“It’s something that we grapple with, and the fire brigade knows my number very well,” he said, citing electrical short-circuit, arson, and accident by persons of unsound mind among the main causes for the fires.

“We want the Government to understand that it is small businesses like these that are the lifeblood of these inner-city communities and the country’s economy. We need to place special focus on how we can assist these small businesses to recover from these events. Many of them are unable to recover from such damage,” he stressed, before proposing the idea of a special fund to help such entities.

Kelly’s call follows those from Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar Danree Delancy, and Garnett Reid, president of the Small Business Association, for the Government to grant special aid and loans to small businesses devastated by man-made and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Melissa late last year. Delancy argued that up to 65 per cent of small businesses in Westmoreland have shuttered their doors since the Category 5 storm hit.

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“I am recommending that the prime minister, the Government, give soft loans and grant funding for some in the SME sector who have been affected by Hurricane Melissa ... the minimum you can lend someone is about a million dollars. Lend it, make a profit, and move on,” Reid told reporters in the days leading up to Grand Market last week.

Meanwhile, managing director of the destroyed establishment, Ricardo Esson, said the fire has forced management to contemplate redundancy exercises, and rehire workers on a ‘week-on/week-off’ basis after the business recuperates.

“What a way to ring in the new year. What is happy is that all my staff are OK; no deaths nor injuries were reported,” said the managing director. “All my staff are greatly impacted by this. We work together as a family and, as a family, this means I won’t be able to carry the full team any more.

“Persons have already started to ask me, ‘Bossy, how we going to manage now?’ I just recently hired a young man who can barely make it for his family ... just hearing the plight from our staff is just painful,” he said, as he reached out for assistance from corporate clients.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com