MONROVIA, Montserrado – Minister of Commerce and Industry Axel Addy has announced the creation of the Small Business Administration Bureau. This comes as fulfillment of the Small Business Empowerment Act signed into law in January by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Addy made this announcement last Thursday at the regular Ministry of Information Press Conference.

He said the creation of the SBA bureau had been a process two years in the making. The bureau will be responsible for ensuring that the government as a whole spends at least 25 percent of its budget on Liberian-owned small and medium enterprises of which five percent would go to businesses owned by women.

Addy said of the law, “It mandates that every government institution spending your taxpayer money must show, educate and inform the public on how much of their budget is going to Liberian-owned businesses.”

The minister said the SBA will track performance related to the implementation of the law by obtaining and publishing the SBA procurement plans of all ministries and government agencies.

These procurement plans, similar to the ones required by the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission, are meant to detail how each ministry will meet their minimum quota.

As an example, Addy cited his own ministry’s plan. He said MOCI intended to spend US$484,000 on Liberian-owned businesses in the upcoming fiscal year, mostly on food and catering, workshops and symposiums, petroleum products, and travel.

In order to benefit from the ability to bid on these government contracts, businesses must first register with the SBA, which requires registration as a legal business.

“I want to encourage Liberian-owned businesses to register,” Addy said. He said these requirements are “meant to bring our SMEs (small and medium enterprises) [into] the formal economy.”

Reflecting the general distrust in government efforts, Shelly Woods, who owns Calabash Catering Service, said she doubts if this new initiative will work out for ordinary businesses like hers. “Most of the time when I hear these things, I don’t even pay attention to it,” Woods said.

She said often when initiatives like this are introduced, the program organizers tend to award contracts only to people they personally know. Woods cited her experience with Building Markets, a nongovernmental organization that partners with the government to connect local businesses to tenders. She said she even paid to take some of their trainings, hoping that they would help her get some contracts, but she felt the system was rigged.