𝐉𝐚𝐠𝐝𝐞𝐨: 𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝟏𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎+ 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today pledged that the government intends to award at least one contract to every legitimate small contractor in Guyana over the coming year, a move that could benefit upwards of 10,000 small businesses.
The target follows a pre-qualification exercise that saw nearly 12,000 small contractors submit documentation. The Vice President clarified that once the vetting process is complete, the administration aims to ensure the work is distributed equitably across the entire pool. “I want everyone to know, once you’re pre-qualified legitimately… over the course of the year we’ll try to get at least one contract each,” Jagdeo told reporters at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre this morning.
Despite the high volume of potential beneficiaries, the Vice President cautioned that the rollout must be phased. He addressed rising frustrations among those who feel they have been bypassed in the initial rounds of procurement. “Everyone wants to go in the first round,” Jagdeo noted. “But we can’t award 10,000 contracts at the same time. If they see now that some contracts are being awarded because we have to start at the beginning, they complain they’re left out.”
The Vice President revealed that the government is currently “cleansing” the list of 12,000 applicants to ensure only genuine small businesses benefit. He cited instances of large contractors attempting to “infiltrate” the small business pool and families registering multiple companies to game the system. Jagdeo emphasized that this policy is a fulfillment of a campaign promise to “help small people to grow” by providing additional procurement opportunities in all 10 administrative regions. “We want to expand the core of small contractors,” he stated. “We could have easily given the contracts to a few big people… that’s not our track record.”