Enabling the entrepreneurs

SUPPORT NEEDED: POTENTIAL FOR INDEPENDENCE ‘Commercial banks don’t want to offer loans to entrepreneurs with physical disabilities … they aren’t confident in our competence to run businesses.’

SA needs to do more to support people living with disabilities who want to run their own businesses. Individuals with disabilities make up 15% of the population and it’s estimated that eight in 10 people with disabilities are unemployed.

There are some measures in place designed to alleviate the situation, including the disability grant and specific law provisions such as the Equity Act, black economic empowerment and the constitution. But it’s not enough.

With a 27.7% unemployment rate in SA, entrepreneurship could save the day. It could give people with disabilities greater independence and the ability to support themselves financially. Our study set out to identify the difficulties facing entrepreneurs with physical disabilities in SA. It focused on Gauteng’s Sebokeng.

Disabled people in small businesses face the same hurdles as other entrepreneurs, but their difficulties are multiplied. Their biggest challenges include:

Disabled entrepreneurs said most facilities for small business weren’t equipped to accommodate their conditions. Most entrepreneurs with physical disabilities said they lacked confidence, as they experienced a lot of discrimination and people thought they weren’t competent.

Most participants said they weren’t involved in business networking activities in Sebokeng. They said they were unable to maintain relationships with other people in business because of discrimination.

A computer programmer said: “Most entrepreneurs who are not disabled exclude us from their business networking events … they recognise us as entrepreneurs who are very slow in their business operations.”

Participants said start-up capital was an issue, mostly when they sought loans from financial institutions.

Study participants weren’t aware of government initiatives to support businesses operated by people with physical disabilities. Only a few said they got support, but it wasn’t enough to sustain them in running their ventures.

It’s generally accepted that educated entrepreneurs are better able to take advantage of opportunities. Participants said lack of education and training was a barrier to their success.

Government needs to do a dedicated review of policies meant to support people living with disabilities to give them a better deal.

Some old policies will need to be revamped and new ones put in place … with a focus on critical areas like skills development, start-up finance and to influence the general environment to be more friendly towards people living with disabilities.

Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri is a PhD candidate (School of Economic & Business Sciences) at Wits.

This article was originally published in The Conversation and has been edited.