I could not agree more with Mr Daniel Tan Jia Hao (Make it easier for SMEs to apply for business grants, June 26). I am a small business owner, and my recent grant application was an unpleasant experience.

The application is done via the Business Grant Portal (BGP). Whenever the officer in charge of reviewing the grant application has any inquiries, I have to log in to the BGP to submit a reply, since replies via e-mail are not accepted.

After each reply, it can take a few weeks before the officer responds. And since each response comes back with more questions, I have been stuck in a cycle of answering questions only to be met with even more questions for months.

A simple and more direct process would be to have a virtual meeting or a phone call to clarify matters.

The BGP has a size limit of 10MB for any supporting file attachment. I was asked to attach my tenancy agreement in PDF format to support my application, which exceeded the limit. My repeated requests to be allowed to send the file via e-mail were ignored.

Instead, I was asked to select some pages in the file to send over. I wonder how many people in a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) like mine know how to select pages in a PDF document.

Enterprise Singapore should be more understanding towards SMEs, many of which lack time and resources. To save costs and optimise efficiency in these difficult times, we are heeding the advice of the Government to digitalise our processes.

Alas, without the grants that are meant to help SMEs go digital, we may just have to stick to our old ways of doing things for now.

Tan Yong Sang