BIDC tenants can ‘do better’

THE Barbados Investment & Development Corporation’s (BIDC) chief executive officer, Basil Lavine, believes that while some of BIDC’s tenants have genuine difficulty paying their rent, some can “do better”.
During a recent interview with BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY, Lavine said tenants whose rents were in arrears and whose businesses were underperforming were robbing other people of both funding and business space.
The BIDC, which is responsible for promoting and developing the manufacturing and small business sectors, also manages 12 industrial estates and the Pelican Craft Centre.
In his 2010 annual report, Auditor General Leigh Trotman said the corporation was owed $7.4 million in rent and 51 per cent of its tenants were in arrears.
Lavine noted: “When a client is given a space in one of our buildings, the rent that he should pay us is income we can use to help someone else.”
He said the BIDC wanted to see its beneficiaries perform well.
He noted that it was “distressing” when companies that defaulted on rents said they weren’t “getting any assistance”.
“[They] don’t see [that their] business is being kept alive by [our] credit,” he said.
“In this recessionary period we have held a lot of strain and we expect people to realize that is assistance,” Lavine said. 
Karen Forde, director of investment and properties, shared a similar view.
“You’re in the space, you’re not paying the rent, and you’re not actually performing. You’re just in the space preventing someone who has a legitimate use for the space and would love the opportunity to shine,” she said.
Forde added that some tenants made no effort to clear their debt.
“For example, if [they] are in a situation where [they] can’t afford $400 but [they] afford $200, instead of saying ‘let me pay what I can’, they pay nothing and say they couldn’t afford $400,” she said. (NB)