Micro-firms affected by December 7 disaster get short-term financial help By Sunny Esparon |19 January 2024
The press conference: (l to r) SS Payet, Minister Vidot, Ms Preira and Ms Lautoy (Photo: Joena Meme)
Small businesses which were affected by the December 7 disaster, will benefit from the new ‘7th December Micro Business Scheme’, which is an interest-free loan facility capped at R100,000 administered by the Development Bank of Seychelles (DBS).
This was announced yesterday afternoon by the Minister for Investment, Entrepreneurship and Industry, Devika Vidot, in a press conference held at the Industrial Estate Agency headquarters in Providence.
Businesses will have a grace period of 12 months and on the 13th month, a maximum of 36 months will be granted to repay the loan.
The application process is all digital and will be launched officially on Monday, January 22, 2024, as submissions should be done through the DBS portal via the link ‘7th December Micro Business Support Scheme’ found on the DBS website. The deadline for applications is June 2024.
Secretary of State Patrick Payet explained that the purpose of the loan is for businesses to be able to stock and replace equipment and perform minor repairs to their premises as well as cater for daily operating costs such as renting and salaries.
Furthermore, in terms of the eligibility criteria, SS Payet noted that the business must have had a gross turnover of less than R2 million in 2022, be tax compliant, and received their latest tax clearance certificate or lodgements for 2021 and 2022. The business will also have to be in the vicinity of the CCCL incident.
The applicants will need a guarantor or an alternative security valued at 125% of the loan amount. “We are keeping the same structure that we put in place during the Covid era, and we saw that there are people who are not repaying their loan,” stated SS Payet.
In regards to fees, every successful application will have a processing fee of R100, which shall be deducted from the loan amount along with any legal fees.
SS Payet mentioned that no interest will be charged on the loan.
A provision of R18 million covering 180 businesses has been made for the loan. However should there be more businesses that come knocking for help, additional money will be submitted to DBS, added SS Payet. “Statistically speaking, we saw from the data in 2019 that there were 218 businesses which could qualify for this scheme.”
The Enterprise Seychelles Agency (ESA) will be available to help those who do not have access to the internet to submit their forms and will also be able to answer any questions from the public.
Minister Vidot said the other category of businesses, namely macro-businesses, will receive more information in the coming weeks as they are slightly more complicated due to the necessity of agreement with the terms and conditions of the commercial banks.
Also present for the press conference were the chief executive of DBS, Jean Preira and chief executive of ESA, Lisa Lautoy.