Deputy Minister of Small Buniess Development Elizabeth Thabethe brings hope to the youth of Sasolburg and Port St Johns
Deputy Minister Elizabeth Thabethe hosted two highly successful youth imbizo programmes in Sasolburg, Free State and Port St Johns, Eastern Cape on Friday and Monday respectively. Thousands of young people from both provinces converged at their respective venues to participate in sessions that sought to lead to youth economic empowerment.
Department of Small Business Development in partnership with Metsimaholo Local Municipality held a successful and interesting seminar with young people in Sasolburg. Mr Duncan Sinthumule of Future Mogulz could not miss the opportunity to engage the Deputy Minister on the pronouncement made by President Zuma that 30% of procurement should be set aside for SMME’s.
“The department should ensure that young people are prioritised as far as procurement is concerned because that is the only way we can deal with the high unemployment rate”, said Mr Sinthumule.
The Mayor of Metsimaholo, Cllr. Brutus Mahlaku said that he was excited to partner with the department because the Deputy Minister is very clear in her approach.
“Deputy said this should not be an event where people come, listen and leave. We intend to ensure that our various divisions in the department come back to offer workshops and assist people to apply for services and programmes offered by the department. He added: “It is going to be a process, but we are happy to work with the department. We believe that there will be success stories coming out of this intervention,” said Mahlaku
Deputy Minister Thabethe announced that the department was also bringing some of the opportunities from the partnership the department has with Eskom to Port St Johns. “I will be launching a big project very soon, where we have identified young people as first beneficiaries of this project. This project is about a mobile platform created to assist emerging entrepreneurs with a stable operational space to sell various services such as airtime, electricity and so on. Young people from both Sasolburg and Port St Johns will surely benefit” added Thabethe
The Mayor of Port St Johns, Cllr. P Langa could not hold his excitement when Deputy Minister Thabethe announced that 50 young people from Port St Johns will form part of this programme and receive the mobile kiosks to be launched in two months’ time.
The department brought specialists from its various divisions and agencies. Both Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) and Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) shared opportunities and support available to young entrepreneurs in addition to what the newly established department offers.
