Industry, Elizabeth Thabethe
29 May 2007
Honourable House Chairperson
Members of Parliament
Distinguished guests
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) budget takes place during a
significant month. During May we celebrated Workers' Day, those of the
Christian faith celebrated Ascension Day and we celebrated Africa Day on 25
May.
Thursday 24 May, was also marked the Cell C Take a Girl Child to Work day.
Fifty learners from schools in and around the Pretoria area visited the DTI
campus in Pretoria and participated in a programme where they learnt about the
DTI. Further in support of this initiative, the DTI via the Gender and Women's
Empowerment unit co-sponsored an entrepreneurship camp for 100 girl learners
from ten schools in the North West province from 18 to 20 May. These learners
had to present an entrepreneurial plan to a panel of judges made up of women
entrepreneurs. All ten schools were from the rural and semi-rural areas. What
we heard was amazing. Business plans were presented and were subject to
interrogation by the judges. What the three top schools had in common was that
they wanted to contribute to the upliftment of their communities. When we said
we are 'taking the DTI to the people' our intention was to reach as many people
as we could.
The learners who won the competition are here today with us. Bethal High
School did their community, their school and their families proud. Honourable
Chairperson, South Africa is alive with possibilities. These are the young
people we want to encourage to take opportunities and make things happen for
them. Because, indeed, in spite of the many challenges, the opportunities are
there waiting for creative minds and innovative ideas. Believe me, these
learners could teach us a thing or two about Accelerated Shared Growth
Initiative for South Africa and what shared growth means to ordinary South
Africans in the far flung corners of our country.
Of course, one of the challenges these aspirant entrepreneurs might face
when becoming fully-fledged women entrepreneurs one day is lack of access to
finance. It is in this regard that the Strategic Framework on Gender and
Women's Economic Empowerment proposes as one of the major interventions, the
establishment of the South African Women's Entrepreneurs' Fund. The fund is to
be launched during this financial year and will provide loans and business
support to develop profitable women owned enterprises. Chairperson, I am
pleased to announce that a decision has been made to appoint the Industrial
Development Corporation as the institution to administer this fund. The fund is
geared towards addressing the funding needs of women owned enterprises with
loans ranging from R250 000 to R1 million. The unique selling point of this
fund will be to provide these enterprises with special procurement or tender
loans to be able to render relevant services after being awarded a tender
deal.
An important part of the discussion on enterprise development is the support
of women entrepreneurship. Accelerated and shared growth means ensuring an
equitable share of our economy between men and women. The DTI will continue its
efforts to increase the participation of women in the South African economy
through further implementation of the Strategic Framework on Gender and Women's
Economic Empowerment. The framework is a major intervention led by the DTI
aimed at addressing the market failures of economic policies and programmes in
addressing gender equity in South Africa. It is primarily aimed at fast
tracking women�s economic empowerment while ensuring that the issue is
institutionalised as a critical aspect of government�s national economic
agenda. The strategy is further aimed at ensuring that sufficient well-budgeted
resources are made available for programmes relevant to women empowerment.
The further strengthening of South African Women Entrepreneurs' Network
(SAWEN) has also been identified as a major intervention of the strategic
framework. SAWEN has created a solid foundation in establishing a national
forum for the engagement of women entrepreneurs. There is absolutely no doubt
that SAWEN has become the beacon of hope for South African women entrepreneurs
who continue to find it difficult to access the DTI independently. Moreover,
SAWEN has continued to be a viable strategic partner of provincial economic
departments in delivering some of their programmes for women. This has led to
some of the provinces co-sponsoring the establishment of provincial
offices.
During this financial year, the DTI will review the status of SAWEN. This
will include embarking on a process of ensuring that SAWEN becomes one of the
DTI-listed entities. This will require cabinet approval in terms of approving
its corporate governance structures including its board of directors. The DTI
recognises the important role that SAWEN plays as a broker between DTI delivery
agencies and women entrepreneurs. The review will look at the role that SAWEN
plays and how it can be enhanced to strengthen the participation of women in
the economy.
To promote shared and accelerated growth, government has set out a path to
transform the structure of our economy that meets the needs of all our economic
citizens in a sustainable manner. The result is an economy that has grown from
1% per annum in the 1990s to 4,5% today. However, the transformation of South
Africa's economy will not be complete without facilitating meaningful
participation of greater numbers of people in the economy that were previously
marginalised. These are the inhabitants of what we refer to as the Second
Economy. These are the communities of Kgalagadi in the Northern Cape and
Marselle in the Eastern Cape. Communities we as the DTI went to, where we
listened, where we were told what and how they expected government to assist
them.
We were told by communities that further growth can only be accelerated and
sustained if communities like them too are meaningfully integrated into the
economy. To this end, the DTI believes that one of the vehicles to be utilised
to promote greater participation in the economy is enterprise development.
As part of its objective of enterprise development, the department will
continue to implement programmes to support the growth of small, medium and
micro enterprises within the parameters of the Integrated Small Enterprise
Development Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in 2005.
As highlighted in the Minister's speech, this will entail strengthening the
institutional capacity of Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), Khula and
South African Micro-finance Apex Fund (SAMAF) to service small, medium and
micro enterprises. Focus will be on access to micro-finance and strengthening
interventions. This may require a reform of the mandate of Khula to support
direct government interventions in this market segment and the rollout of
infrastructure that provides financial support.
Acknowledging that the challenges of small enterprises are not limited to
finance, focus will also be on a comprehensive set of non-financial support
programmes through SEDA and the reinforcement of technology transfer and new
business incubation through SEDA Technology with an expanded infrastructure to
enable improved delivery. Some of the interventions to be implemented in this
regard will include: preferential procurement options, a retail strategy for
small and micro enterprises, investigating support for marketing co-operatives
and strengthening state backing for financial and non-financial small
enterprise support.
Co-operatives
In the context of enterprise development, co-operatives are an alternative
form of business that can effectively be utilised by small and micro
enterprises to grow and develop their businesses. Co-operatives are a powerful
form of enterprise that unfortunately happens to be least understood and
appreciated in our society.
To deal with this poor understanding and appreciation of co-operatives as a
form of business, which unfortunately is also prevalent among government
officials, the DTI, in 2006 conducted training on co-operatives covering all
nine provinces. All Local Economic Development involving 500 people and
Community Development Workers involving 240 people including 88 Multi-Purpose
Community Centres were also specifically trained on co-operatives. More
training primarily targeting the private sector, will be carried out this
financial year.
Chairperson, it gives me great pleasure to announce that for the first time
in South Africa we have finally legalised the Co-operatives Act, which promotes
the establishment of all forms of co-operatives across different sectors of the
economy and not just the agricultural sector, which used to be the case during
the apartheid era.
The President through the proclamation of the new Co-operatives Act did this
on 2 May 2007. The practical implications, Madam Speaker, are that our people
can now register co-operatives as legal entities to promote and develop their
businesses.
We are the first to acknowledge that there are still a few challenges that
confront us with respect to the development of co-operatives. During, this
financial year, the DTI will refine and finalise the National Co-operatives
Strategy to address these pertinent challenges. Emphasis will be placed on
ensuring that there is an understanding across all spheres of government, of
co-operatives as a business concept and how they can be used as an engine for
development at community level.
A particular challenge that emerging co-operatives face is access to
finance. Through the Co-operatives Incentives Scheme, in 2006 alone, the DTI
managed to provide financial assistance to 16 co-operatives from six different
provinces (Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, North West, Northern Cape and
Limpopo). The support to these entities was to the amount of R3,78 million
benefiting 205 youth and 188 women. In addition, four co-operatives special
projects were supported to the amount of R8,94 million, creating around 15 000
direct jobs and 38 000 indirect jobs.
One of our more successful partnerships has been with Meropa Heritage who is
vigorously engaged in the Jobs for Growth programme. Rural women are being
given an opportunity to earn a living making high quality garments and crafts
while being trained in marketing and pricing and other aspects of running a
small business.
During this financial year, the DTI will establish a Youth Development
Initiative Directorate to promote economic development amongst the youth as
well as ensure the development and implementation of projects aimed at
empowering the youth. The DTI intends to put into place mechanisms that will
ensure that it contributes as well as participates in the National Youth
Service Programme in a much more meaningful way.
Conclusion
Madam speaker, the DTI believes that through facilitating the meaningful
participation of people in the economy that were previously marginalised, we
will be able to address what is ugly and repulsive in human society as
highlighted by our President in his State of the Nation Address.
In 1956 at the Congress of the People in Kliptown the Freedom Charter was
adopted. One of the clauses said, 'the people shall share in the country's
wealth.' I further quote, 'all people shall have equal rights to trade where
they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and
professions.'
Therefore in the spirit of the Freedom Charter, the DTI commits to continued
engagement with our partners in government, business, labour and our
communities in ensuring that the needs of the economically disempowered are
addressed.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Trade and Industry
29 May 2007
Source: Department of Trade and Industry (http://www.dti.gov.za/)
