Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, will be rolling out a Financial Literacy Bureau in the coming weeks to teach entrepreneurs the rudiments of business and financial literacy. It will also teach school children and householders how to become prudent money managers.
He made this disclosure on Friday following a visit to Ann and De’s Forever Green Vegetable Farm, at Salters, St. George, one of the clients’ of the Ministry’s Trust Loan Fund.
The Minister acknowledged that financial literacy was a very important aspect of running a business.
“Financial literacy is paramount …. We never had a programme that would teach individuals how to manage businesses, whether it is money management, debt management, investment, marketing, [or] customer service. Those are some of the areas that I think would allow businesses to operate as a going concern, or what we call sustainability,” Mr. Sutherland underlined.
The Minister continued: “Anyone who is looking to open a business I am asking that you invest some time in financial literacy, and the Government will be rolling out a Financial Literacy Bureau within the next couple of weeks to teach business literacy and financial literacy not only to businesses, but we want it to be ingrained as part of our culture. So, we will be doing it (teaching financial literacy) in schools, in households and in businesses, and that is one of the fundamentals that I believe all businesses will benefit from an investment in managing money, financial and business literacy, and it must start in the schools.”