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The Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development has expressed unhappiness about the department’s failure to present the state of development on 400 cooperatives that benefited from its Cooperative Incentive Scheme.

The Committee did not take kindly a request by the Department of Small Business Development to be given more time to visit all cooperatives.

“Although there are 400 cooperatives that were assisted, we expect the department to at least know how many of them will be ready to benefit from the 30% government procurement policy starting from 1 April 2017. In our view, the department misunderstands its own mandate and is running without a clear strategy on how to develop cooperatives,” said Ms Ruth Bhengu, Committee Chairperson.

The Committee maintains that the mandate of the department is neither dispensing incentive grants nor conducting monitoring and evaluation. It is to champion development of cooperatives for the benefit of communities in the economy.

Ms Bhengu reiterated the fact that the department should get rid of the attitude of working in isolation, saying it should work with Local Economic Development offices in district and local municipalities, because each cooperative is located in a particular ward of a municipality.

“The department is obsessed with the use of consultancy and each time we need information they tell us that they will first appoint consultants to gather information, analyse it and bring it to the Committee. The other problem is that it does not regard itself as part of the entire government structure, including the provincial and local sphere,” said Ms Bhengu.

The Committee is concern that the department is not bothered by the 88% failure rate of cooperatives, thereby carrying on with business as usual.

Finally, the Committee has resolved to invite the Minister of Small Business Development to raise issues of concern in relation to the department’s failure to execute its mandate of contributing to the creation of 90% of the 11 million new jobs by 2030, as outlined in the National Development Plan.

Issued by Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development, Ms Ruth Bhengu