Twenty Thousand Applications. How Will the Development Bank Process Them?

(Kaieteur News) – When President Ali announced that an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 persons had applied to the Guyana Development Bank, I immediately thought about the staff who would have to process them. The Department of Public Information reported on October 20 that applications were already being evaluated and grouped according to the sectors applicants wanted to enter. Twenty thousand applications! I could almost picture the person opening that dashboard on Monday morning. Where do you even begin?

The President spoke about the ease of applying online, without joining a physical line. That is certainly an improvement. People can apply from home instead of spending money on transportation and losing a day’s work. News Room also reported that most of the assessment and approval process would be handled digitally, with interviews and background checks before approved funds are deposited into applicants’ accounts. But the convenience of submitting an application does not tell us how quickly someone can properly review it.

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I suppose the online form feeds into a dashboard where an officer clicks on someone’s name, opens the application and begins checking. Hopefully, the system identifies missing documents and asks applicants to complete their submissions before those files reach an analyst. Otherwise, imagine opening application after application only to discover that a business plan, identification document or important financial information is missing. Someone then has to contact the applicant, explain the problem and return to the file later. Multiply that by several thousand people.