The government has an immense role to play in the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa. Government assistance goes a long way in boosting the growth and sustainability of these enterprises in order to ensure that they play their meaningfully role in contributing to the country’s economy, job creation and alleviation of poverty.
This is the view of Kudakwashe Zumbika, an associate at a Nelspruit-based civil and structural engineering consultancy and project management company, Eyesizwe. The company received financial assistance to the value of R187 000 from the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti). The funding came from the department‘s Black Business Supplier Development Programme (BBSDP).
BBSDP is a cost-sharing grant aimed at assisting Black-owned SMEs to improve their competitiveness and sustainability in the mainstream economy. The dti disbursed more than R291 million to more than 1 000 businesses across the country in the financial year 2013/14 under the programme. In total, the dti approved in excess of R18 billion to support more than 3 300 companies in various parts of the country in the last financial year.
“The assistance that we received from the dti enabled our company to be competitive and improve its efficiency tremendously. The business world of construction is fiercely competitive. Making a breakthrough in the industry is difficult. Sustaining yourself and making sure that you grow and stay in business is an even more difficult mission as there are bigger players who are also contesting the same space. So government has an immense role to play in assisting small businesses in various sectors of the economy to increase their competitiveness, growth and sustainability,” says Zumbika.
He adds that the financial support that Eyesizwe received from the dti has gone a long way in assisting the company grow its capacity and footprint, as well as the capability to take on bigger projects,
Eyesizwe, which was established in 2004 by its directors Justice Maluleka and Edward Mathabatha, boosted the competitiveness of their company by purchasing a top-end civil design software, a plotter - a big printer used for producing drawings, and a multi-function printer with the funding they received from the dti. The software has the capacity to do millions of calculations in a second effectively reducing the time required to produce designs and drawings for civil infrastructure. The plotter is able to print up to oversize A0 prints in both colour and monochrome. It can also photocopy and scan drawings. The multifunction printer is very fast and is able to print up to A3 paper in colour and black-and-white, mainly for high-volume print jobs, like tender documents.
“It was incredible to notice what these new acquisitions did to the competitiveness and efficiency of this company, thanks to the dti. We noticed the necessity of these machines and software when we became involved in the construction of a 13km stretch of road in Tonga, Mpumalanga. It was a big project and we realised we needed a top-end design software that would enable us to produce accurate designs and eliminate the risk by getting rid of the element of human error in our designs. The software is a South African-made product but with an international use," says Zumbika.
Eyesizwe employs 16 people including those in branches in Polokwane and Centurion. They are in the process of establishing another branch in Johannesburg. The company provides opportunities to engineering graduates and students from communities they are working in and exposes them to the real environment of civil and structural engineering. Due to the temporary nature of construction projects, skills training is provided to members of the communities in order to empower them and enable them to eke out a living well after the company’s departure from the construction site.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe, Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: 012 394 1650
Cell: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
