Use 1% for entrepreneurs

Peter Bruce has, on a number of occasions, punted the idea of JSE-listed companies being required to issue 1% new shares to some sort of “sovereign wealth fund”, which would amount to about R150bn at the last calculation. This idea has lots of merit but the real debate should be where and how to apply these funds.

Bruce suggests that business, with this money as leverage, could sit down with the government and apply it as mutually agreed.

Good idea, but I would keep the money away from government programmes — we pay tax for that. As we know, our history has deprived a large proportion of our population of the opportunity to accumulate capital. This severely limits many hopeful entrepreneurs from being able to put equity into a venture, thereby sterilising loan funders (of which there are many) from being able to follow with their funds. Imagine if an “equity fund” could be created, to be managed and disbursed by the commercial banks, to address this bottleneck.

This is not just a theory. A friend of mine, Paul Jackson, who has been the CEO of TUHF (which has been financing inner-city housing for many years), tells me how an instrument of this sort would have allowed him to finance so many more otherwise suitable (as in tough, motivated and with an appetite for risk) housing entrepreneurs.

Take this principle to any small business, or even to aspirant commercial farmers, and watch the boost to small-scale, employment-creating, entrepreneurial activity in SA.

Anthony Still Via e-mail