Minister and Deputy Minister at odds over Department strategy

The minister of finance, Pravin Gordhan, announced in his budget speech that a further R475 million has been reprioritised to the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) for assistance to small and medium enterprises and cooperatives.

The minister of DSBD, Lindiwe Zulu, has stated that this is not enough. In a small business portfolio committee meeting last Wednesday, it was clear there are deep divisions within the department between the minister and her deputy about the department’s strategy, and how their budget allocations should be spent.

The minister and director general, Edith Vries, agree with the recent strategic review recommendations from consulting firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo (SNG) to abandon or transfer sector specific programs and restructure the department using a value chain approach. This would mean transferring support for crafts back to the DTI, which the Deputy Minister ElizabethThabethe and some members of the department sharply disagreed with.

A large part of this budget allocation is to fund craft fairs in the US, Europe and Asia, which are jamborees for the deputy minister and her officials but they deliver precious little in terms of building sustainable overseas markets for the craft sector. No explanation has been offered for why this sector should be given preference over others within the department.

Furthermore, the SNG review did not include the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) or the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) which account for 80% of the department’s budget, posing the question as to why this consulting report was compiled in the first place. SEFA's latest results show it costs R1.55 for every R1 loaned to small business, and 58% of its direct loans are impaired.

The Committee Chair Ruth Bhengu shared the DA view that the department cannot come to the committee with its house in disarray regarding strategy, and that an urgent review of SEFA and SEDA is required before we will accept that the additional funding for the department is justified and will be well spent. 

The DA support the recommendations to transfer crafts back to the DTI and maybe Deputy Minister Thabethe and her cherised staff with it.

DA Parliamentary caucus signs anti-racism pledge

Today, the DA Parliamentary caucus gathered on the National Assembly steps for a group photo, holding up the DA anti-racism pledge which we had all just signed.

  

This is an important re-statement of our principled stand against racism, which is divisive and against the letter and spirit of both the country's and the DA's constitution. I will be encouraging all my members and activists in Soweto West to sign the pledge and give it force in their everyday lives.

Opinion piece in Business Day - Synergy holds the key to growth

Today's Business Day features my opinion piece on supply chain inclusion  (SCI) - you can read it here or else below.

The Word Bank’s most recent annual update on the South African economy highlights anti-competitive behaviour by industry-wide cartels as a major impediment to economic growth and poverty alleviation. It correctly notes the role our competition authorities play in breaking up these cartels, which serve the interests of large players dominating their markets and cosy supply chains favouring long-standing supplier relationships.

Speaking to business owners in Jabulani with Herman Mashaba

Yesterday Herman Mashaba, DA mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, was the guest speaker at an event organised by my Soweto West constituency in Jabulani. The focus was how the DA would assist businesses in Soweto and other townships gain access to the mainstream economy.

Herman was inspiring and received a warm welcome from the roughly 125 members of the audience.

It was great to see representatives from business associations such as The Entrepreneur Network, the Chamber of Business Associations and the Orlando East Business Forum present, as well as the Centre for Development Enterprise, Small Business Project, Seed Academy and other organisations with an interest in support for small business.

Before he left Herman drew the lucky winners of prizes donated by Seed Academy and the SA Professional Network Association. We also had impassioned speeches by founder of PhindiK shoes, Tshepo Kgaudi, and Pam Green, founder of Second Chances NGO, both of whom got a standing ovation.

BizNews op-ed - Stability Key – Shifting regulatory goalposts points to ‘Rocky Road’.

BizNews has today published my op-ed on doing business in South Africa, first posted on this blog on January 22nd. You can find it here.

BizNews editor Stuart Lowman provides a nice summary of the issue - The problem with any form of regulation is that it can often form the basis of a deterrent. One is not arguing that it needs to be put in place, but any form of it needs to be well thought out, with both sides arguments taken into account and put into practice. And then all an investor requires is stability as the ever changing landscape is not attractive. The Democratic Alliance’s Toby Chance takes a look at the current business landscape in South Africa. He says, “A new balance needs to be struck. Business’s willingness and capacity to invest, grow and create jobs has been taken too much for granted by policy and lawmakers.” And as ever, he calls on the urgent need for reform, and offers some advice.

Regulations and red tape might not be the sexiest things to tackle, but they are strangling the life out of business like a boa constrictor suffocates its prey. Most of our lawmakers do not have a background in or understand business - the only source of wealth creation from which most taxes are paid.

My colleague Henro Kruger has been working extremely hard for the past year on a piece of legislation which, if enacted, will have a dramatic effect on the law-making process, making it much more business friendly. Watch this space!!!!

Press statement: Minister Zulu must account for R689 000 splurged on UK-France trip

Democratic Alliance press statement by

Toby Chance MP

DA Shadow Minister of Small Business Development

Minister Zulu must account for R689 000 splurged on UK-France trip

29 January 2016

Release: immediate

The Department of Small Business Development could have supplied a 7 000W generator to nearly 70 small businesses with the money Minister Lindiwe Zulu spent on a business trip to the UK and France in October last year. 

In reply to a parliamentary question posed by DA MP Toby Chance, Zulu revealed that she spent R689 000 on the trip, which should have consisted of various meetings with clear objectives and goals, but seems to have been a number of talk shops amounting to nothing concrete. 

DA Joburg Mayoral Candidate Herman Mashaba and I to share a platform in Soweto

On Saturday 6th February Herman Mashaba and I are hosting a public meeting at the Jabulani Technical High School in Soweto.

We will be presenting the DA's small business policy with a special focus on Johannesburg in the lead up to the local government elections.

I first met Herman in 2005 when I was a member of the team at Adele Lucas Promotions running the Soweto Festival. This was the re-incarnation of the Soweto Homemakers Festival, the inspiration of Adele Lucas and the Soweto Chamber of Commerce, which ran from 1983 - 85, the first of its kind in a black township.

Herman brought Black Like Me to the Festival as one of our exhibitors and supported the event every year until I left the company in 2014 and became a DA MP.

In 2011 Herman was the keynote speaker at the opening function of the Soweto Festival Expo which was the biggest to date, attracting over 550 exhibitors of which 400 were SMMEs from all over Gauteng.