It was on the 28 March 1995, when the late former Statesman Nelson Mandela made his opening address at the Small Business Conference and decried the lack of coordination and the fragmentation in the small business sector.
His exact words were, “there are moments poised between the dissolution of the old order and the establishment of the new, at which change coursing through our society becomes sharply visible. Gathered at this impressive small business conference are representatives of a sector which until now, has been fragmented and therefore unable to tap into our society’s potential for enterprise”.
In 2014, 19 years later after President Mandela’s speech, the Small Business Department was established to support the development of micro, small and medium sized businesses, including cooperatives.
Ten years on, through its agencies of Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) and Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa), the department has put the issues of small businesses on the country’s economic map and has helped start and scale many businesses in the country, contributing about 40% to the country’s GDP.
Delivering her budget speech last week, the Minister of Small Business Development, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, announced her unwavering support for the development of small business.
Having been re-appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to the same portfolio, her priorities for the seventh administration with a budget of about R2.4billion include, but are not limited to, the merging of Sefa and Seda, establishing of an Ombudsman to deal with unfair trade practices towards small businesses and cooperatives, improving market access and enhancing localisation and black industrialisation through small enterprise manufacturing programmes. Also developing an SMME and Cooperatives Funding policy to expand access to finance and early stage investment, which will lead to the establishment of the Fund of Funds, development of the Startup Act and investing in more under-served SMME’s and cooperatives in township and rural communities.
As an ecosystem enabler, our role is to support the development of micro, small and medium sized businesses.
Imagine if we could remove the barriers that impede the development of the SMME sector where the seventh administration, with the support of all stakeholders could create one million new businesses by 2030, which will in turn create 3.7 million new jobs.
The same sentiment was echoed by the Minister in March this year, saying that we hope that the merger of the government agencies will create that “one-stop-shop” that will also convene and bring critical key stakeholders that will support it to deliver on its vision.
As Nelson Mandela said, “the small business sector itself needs to be the principal agent in its own expansion and development”.
Ultimately, this means that while government implements various initiatives and policies, the sector is also required to work together for a common cause to ensure a coordinated, cohesive and collaborative ecosystem that supports the development of new businesses and, as importantly, the sustainability of existing ones.
Kizito Okechukwu is the Executive Head of 22 On Sloane, Africa’s largest entrepreneurship campus and co-Chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Africa.
BUSINESS REPORT