POPO MOLEFE'S ADDRESS TO HANDING OVER OF SMALL BUSINESS PREMISES

AN ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE PREMIER OF THE PROVINCE OF THE NORTH WEST TO THE HANDING OVER OF SMALL BUSINESS PREMISES AT WINTERVELDT ON THE 18 AUGUST 1995

Issued by: North West Communication Service

Dumelang, Abusheni, Sanibonani, Relot'shitse

The Government of National Unity is committed towards a strategy of high and sustainable ent of the reconstruction and devmy needs to move on a growth pathpanding employment opportunities.

We are all important role-players in any strategy to develop a working economy: government, big business, multinationals, parastatals and the small-enterprise sector.

In the formulation of strategies to develop the economy of South Africa, the role of small enterprises should never be underrated.

It would be a costly mistake to regard this sector as a junior partner or as a separate sector which has to be treated according to different rules or principles, even though it has suffered neglect by business people and governments alike.

The government recognises that the small-business sector plays a crucial role in the economic and social development of our country, especially for black people, who have been legally and economically marginalised in the past and continue to be burdened with the legacy of this marginalisation.

• A small number of our people have been able to set up what are called small enterprises, where the owner/manager has between 5 and 50 people working for a small salary. These are dry cleaning depots, cafes and restaurants and welding works.
• There are also verhich involve the owner who most ocaterers, taxi operations.

who are unable to find a paid job elsewhere due to factors such as low educational and skills levels and the general economic problems. Poverty and the attempt to survive are characteristics of these activities. Given the large number of people involved in the survivalist activities, this constitutes a vast challenge for the government to tackle it within the broader context of the RDP.

The government has no doubt that, compared to big business, small business face worse constraints and problems, including.

• the lack of business premises with affordable rentals.
• the lack of access to credit and capital.
• the lack of skills and managerial expertise.
• the absence of computer and other technology such as telephone, fax machines, motor transport.

In addition to these constraints, the legacy of apartheid constitutes an important factor in the inability of black small enterprises to develop further into viable economic entities.

• Bantu Education which has deprived most of our people access to technical and professional skilusiness education in our high schools which could have sensitised our young people to acquire a culture of entrepreneurship.
• Apartheid confined the majority of black people to homeland areas which are stricken with poverty and lamentable absence of business opportunities.
• Social segregation increased the distance between black residential areas from places of work depriving black people the opportunity to acquire fixed assets which could have assisted them in raising collateral for credit facilities.

The objectives of the governments policy framework is to create a vibrant small business sector in areas such as Winterveldt which will be able to create jobs, with special emphasis on the unemployed youth we also want to address the needs of black townships and rural areas and emergent enterprises by providing an enabling environment for the establishment and growth of this sector.

The government in partnership with the NWDC is working to create strategies for the development and financing of business and industrial premises which have basic infrastructural amenities such as the supply of electricity, water, telecommunication connection, sewage, parking facilities and hawker shelter.

We are also devising plans for the small-business people to be provided with technical and business skills so as to enable people to advance from survivalist activities into larger and better earning enterprises. We believe the private sector, the government, the parastatals can, working together, discharge this responsibility effectively.

The erection of these premises by NWDC and the provision of loans for the people of Winterveldt is an important part of the process of creating such an enabling environment for the social and economic development of the people of this area and neighbouring areas of Block A, EW, Molletswana and Jakkalsdans.

It should serve as an act of encouragement for the people to seize the opportunity to develop themselves further.

I hope next time when I come here I will find the area teeming with lots of people employed in successful enterprises such as the manufacture of good quality clothing and other things which we can sell in far away places like Malawi, Zambia and even overseas.