House Chair,

This is dedicated to the risk-takers. The job-creators. The entrepreneurs. Those who get up every day and fight a losing battle against the monsters this government has created. The bureaucracy that inevitably seeps into everything government touches.

The red tape between success and another failed small business. Government spends billions of Rands, in many Departments on the development of small businesses. However, the SMME failure rate is one of the worst globally, with an estimated 5 out of 7 SMMEs failing within their first operational year.

The result is that people's dignity is often one of the casualties, with community instability the consequence. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor measures the Total Early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity in South Africa at a low level of 17.49%. A study in 2017 concluded that only 10% of adults intend to start their own business.

The fewer SMMEs that are established along with existing SMMEs faltering, resulting in a dramatic decrease in employment opportunities. To address the problem of limited business establishment and growth, government must create an environment beneficial for entrepreneurs, with no bureaucratic intervention, and where politics wait outside. To state that the ANC has failed the South African small business constituency is a gross understatement.

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