Interview with Mr. Marcellus Joseph, G.M. of BELFund

WHERE DOES THE FUND IN BELFUND COME FROM?
Government provided the initial money. The initial investment was 
$1.2million for a two-year period, it is supposed to be but there was 
training and setting up of an office. So the initial loan portfolio is 1/2 
of that. It is our intention to try to become self-sustainable and we are 
trying to put the mechanisms in place to see how well we could get that 
done. Some interest has been shown by institutions such as the World Bank, STABEX and USAID. We do not have anything concrete yet but we look forward to establishing contact to see if we can gain funding from outside, as opposed to depending on government entirely for subsidy.

HOW MUCH MONEY IS THE FUND LOOKING TO SOURCE IN THE FUTURE?
The funding that we are looking for in the future - no amount of money is 
too much. The level of poverty in St. Lucia is 25% of the entire population, 
that's persons living below the poverty line. We have an unemployment 
situation, as was indicated in the last budget, of 15.7% at the end of 1999. 
We are sure that number will increase because of the number of students who have recently left school. We have also realised that while we were looking at $5,000.00 as being our average loan size there are a number of persons wanting more than that - as high as $17-$18,000. We need a lot more than a million.

THERE HAS BEEN TALK OF ASSISTANCE FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR. WHAT KIND OF ASSISTANCE?
The idea behind encouraging private sector support is for example where some of our clients may be producing goods that can be purchased by private companies that may be able to provide other services, with discounts, extended credits etc. to those persons. Our intention is to tie those two so they can support one another.

SO YOU WILL NOT BE SEEKING DIRECT DONATIONS FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR?
Well in a year or two, when our clients who are successful start to really 
produce, we intend to have an awards ceremony. We hope the private sector can make prizes available either in cash or kind. That's the only donations we will seek. We are not looking for handouts for people, we are looking for them to work on their own and stand on their own two feet.

ARE YOU WORKING WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS?
We are trying to forge links with everybody but to start with we have 
written to the commercial banks, credit giving institutions like Cimpex, 
Courts and Singer, as well as the National Research & Development Foundation (NRDF) and Small Enterprise Development Unit (SEDU). In the loans scheme you have to do credit checking etcetera, so that was the first thing we are trying to establish.

Secondly, places like SEDU and NRDF do small business, while we do 
micro-enterprise, so those people who we cannot assist, who come to us with a small business proposal, we will send them to SEDU or NRDF and they would do the same for us.

With the commercial banks we expect that after a client has accessed the 
maximum amount of money we can loan, they will graduate to the commercial banks. In that case we will be providing clients for these commercial banks and also a guarantee on the clients behalf. In cases of Cimpex, Courts and Singer - customers who would want to open shops, restaurants etcetera, may want to buy from these establishments, we will see if we can get further discounts for those persons - because it's poor people trying to set up an enterprise.

SO WHO PROVIDES THE MICRO-ENTERPRISE TRAINING FOR YOUR CLIENTS?
So far we do all of our training in-house. That's only available when you 
become a client. We have just started and have done two sets of training in the basics of business - the rudiments of cash management, record keeping, marketing, proper accounting. You must understand we are dealing with the "informal sector," the sector which the commercial banks may not necessarily want to do business with for a few simple reasons 1) they are financially undisciplined, 2) they do not keep proper records, 3) they do not really know the basics of the business. So we teach them those things to set them on a solid footing.

We also provide support in terms of an accounting service and ongoing 
technical assistance. We have had discussions with SEDU to open up the 
channel whereby when they will be having their business courses that may be suitable to our clients, we can send them over to SEDU.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE RELATIONSHIP ENDS?
After the loan has been repaid it is up to the client. It is factored into 
the loan but at the end of that period they will have to pay for it on their 
own. We will give them the option of continuing with us or seeking 
assistance elsewhere. The accounting and technical assistance service is 
available for the duration of the loan but we will be establishing a data 
base on those persons and if we have any specialised training in which they 
may be interested we will probably contact them and find out if they are 
interested in it. However, the option is open to the client. They are paying 
for it.

HOW MANY CLIENST DO YOU HAVE AT PRESENT?
A total of 15 clients have already got their loans and graduated from the 
training programme.

AND STAFF?
We have a total of nine staff - a general manager, an office assistant, two 
project development officers, a technical assistant officer, MIS officer, 
accounting officer, administrative officer and assistant.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BELFUND AND THE POVERTY REDUCTIO FUND?
The James Belgrave Micro Enterprise Development Fund is a sister 
organisation to PRF and will compliment the work of the PRF. The difference is that while they work on a community level BF is on an individual level within the same community but one of our objectives is to reduce poverty in St. Lucia and that we are tackling by trying to make those persons self sustainable and in so doing that will reduce the level of unemployment and poverty.

Back to>A Ray of Hope From Two New Organizations