Remarks by Minister of Small Development, Ms Lindiwe Zulu on the occasion of the Small Scale Mining Conference, Kimberley
Programme Director,
Premier of the Northern Cape, Ms Sylvia Lucas
Minister of Mineral Resources, Mr Ngoako Ramatlhodi,
Executive Mayor of Francis Baard Municipality, Cllr. Khadi I. Moloi,
MEC for Economic Development and Tourism, Mr John F. Block,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
The dawn of democracy and freedom in our country has unlocked our capacity as a nation to work together to address common challenges. As government, we welcome and appreciate the input of all our stakeholders as we seek to build a formidable small business sector and an economy that benefits all.
I stand before you to lend my support to Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi’s vision and commitment to ensure the revival of the small-scale mining industry by seeking ways of unblocking the challenges faced by small-scale miners. We stand ready to work with you, Minister Ramatlhodi, precisely because we share this important constituency. Small-scale mining has to confront the same challenges that confront all small businesses.
The theme of the conference is consistent with what our strategic priorities of strengthening small businesses as catalysts for economic growth and development.
We are strengthening our capacity to serve small businesses and cooperatives. We have a number of institutions both in government and the private sector which offer business development services in the country. Unfortunately, we are not offering these services in an integrated manner. We are working towards co-location in all our provinces where SMMEs and Cooperatives will access financial and non-financial support services under one roof. In this way, we are expanding access to business development services by SMMEs and Cooperatives through decentralisation and a colocation approach.
I am pleased to share with you that KwaZulu Natal has invited us to bring our agencies to colocate in all eleven district municipalities. We urge municipalities to make available their vacant buildings to locate our business development services closer to SMMEs and Cooperatives. We urge all our provinces to consider this arrangement for the benefit of small businesses and cooperatives.
Chairperson, we are mindful of the fact that the current number and location of Seda and Sefa branches is not sufficient to address the growing demand from potential and existing entrepreneurs. To this end, we are working closely with provinces and municipalities to increase the number of access points through establishing more co-location points and one-stop shops.
In order to ensure access to funding for small businesses and co-operatives, the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) has migrated to the department. This will ensure a more integrated approach towards extending support to SMMEs and co-operatives.
We must be able to assist all our clients with business registration, tax compliance, non-financial support, funding assistance – all in one location. We must make sure that we are able to offer a comprehensive package of service to all small businesses under one roof.
Over the last few months, I have participated in a number of provincial summits as part of our programme to understand the specific challenges and opportunities in each of our provinces. To date, we have engaged the following provinces; Mpumalanga, Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape and North West and these are some of the critical issues SMME’s and Cooperatives raised with us:
- The need to prioritise incubation support programmes and supplier
- development programmes linked to the mining companies and other big multinationals in mining towns. Not all mining companies are fulfilling their commitments by developing supplier development opportunities
- increasing access to business development services by SMMEs
- and Cooperatives through decentralisation and colocation approach
- Accelerate market access for cooperatives through public procurement
- Capacity building for municipal officials dealing with local economic
- Development so that they can also assist SMMEs and
- Cooperatives in their localities
- Urgent resolutions of the 30 day payment delay for SMME’s and
- cooperatives
- Revitalisation of rural and township enterprises
- Sector specific support for SMMEs and cooperatives
- Accessibility of business development services as well as targeted
- support for people with disabilities, women, particularly youth
- Market access opportunities
- Accessibility of trading space by small businesses in the shopping
- malls that are being constructed in various towns around the
- provinces
- The province has some financial cooperatives but there is a lack of
- understanding on the role of these kind of cooperatives by local municipalities
- Lack of understanding by members of some cooperatives of basic
- cooperatives principles
- Lack of cooperation between big business and small businesses
- as well as integrating them into their value chains
- Red tape reduction and making it easy to start and sustain a
- business
- Lack of infrastructure for informal businesses
- Lack of access to finance
- Preferential procurement not favourable to SMMEs, and
- Lack of reliable economic intelligence in specific sectors
We have also taken to heart feedback from our people when they said that, despite their good work, both SEDA and SEFA are not as visible as you would like them to be. We are paying serious attention to this.
We still have to go to the other remaining provinces as we believe that these engagements assist us to understand these regional dynamics and tailor-make our interventions in that particular province to address these specific issues.
We appreciate the frank discussions we had with small business owners in these provinces. They are, indeed, assisting us to refine the instruments that we have to respond to specific challenges raised by entrepreneurs in the country. Even though we will be reviewing all the programmes we inherited from the dti we have started to reprioritise our interventions to ensure that they respond to the issues raised by the SMMEs and Cooperatives in the provinces.
There is a need for greater alignment and strong partnership between the business and government to unlock the potential of this sector to contribute to radical economic transformation.
A good story to tell is that my department is rolling out the Centres for Entrepreneurship Programme at Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges working in partnership with the Department of Higher Education and Training. This is part of our efforts to inculcate a culture of entrepreneurship.
This programme seeks to increase the number of graduates who regard setting up their own business as a viable alternative to seeking employment. We have already launched some centres in Gauteng, Western Cape and Mpumalanga.
We are in the process of expanding the programme to other provinces. We are determined to expand the Centre for Entrepreneurship initiative as a vehicle for building entrepreneurial capacity and to provide an opportunity to individuals to start their own entrepreneurial journey. This is also in line with the commitment to ensure that small businesses progressively increase their contribution to the broader development objectives of the country. I will soon have a conversation with the province soon to explore the possibility of setting up such a centre in the Northern Cape.
We must promote entrepreneurship as a viable career path as we continue to build a nation of entrepreneurs. We must inculcate an understanding that starting a business is not something you do because you have run out of options and you find yourself unemployed. Entrepreneurship must be a conscious and solid decision.
As we collectively seek lasting solutions to the current that affect small-scale mining, we must also do so conscious of the fact that mining has a life-span, beyond which the only viable route is diversification. It is in this context that government has a adopted a programme specifically focusing on the revitalization of mining towns. This is our way of making a bold assertion that: There is an economy after mining!!
I thank you.
