Statement in Parliament on the continuing impasse between Sefa and the Gauteng Industrial Parks

                   NATIONAL ASSEMBLY                  MEMBER STATEMENT       ____________________________________

Internal Ref Number:	028	-	2018
Date:	24.04.2018
Member:                              Mr Toby Chance
Statement:   GAPIPA / OWIPA

Honourable Speaker

The tenants of the Gauteng Industrial parks, representing several hundred small businesses, are getting a raw deal from their landlord, the Small Enterprise Finance Agency.

More than thirty years after they were established, tenants’ rights are being denied, by an ANC government which has demonstrated a callous and discriminatory attitude towards these businesses.

The tenants presented their plight to the Small Business Development Portfolio Committee in Parliament in 2015. Since then, negotiations with SEFA over the transfer of ownership of the parks have reached a stalemate.

They last met in February 2017 and in May 2017 SEFA unilaterally stopped payments to a supplier of cleaning services to the parks, resulting in their conditions deteriorating to the point of becoming a health hazard.

Minister Zulu, in a written response to questions I posed to her in August last year, dodged the crucial questions of what her department and SEFA are doing to provide technical and business support to the tenants to facilitate the transfer of ownership.

Continued delays in resolving the Gauteng industrial parks impasse places the sustainability of the businesses in danger. This is yet another example of the ANC government’s promises on job creation by small business being hollow and meaningless.

END

Minister Zulu was in the House when I read this statement yesterday and put up her hand to be included in the 6 ministers the House Chair selected to respond to member statements but sadly she was number 7 on the list so no answer was forthcoming. This does not leave her off the hook, though, and I will pursue this matter through other channels.