Black SMMEs priority in KZN

THE KwaZulu-Natal government will soon be obliged to buy 70 percent of its goods from black-owned emerging businesses instead of spending large amounts of money on “capitalist businesses”, according to ANC provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala.

He said the ANC provincial leadership would at the party’s national policy conference in June present economic transformation issues for the benefit of black people.

He was addressing thousands of ANC members who attended the provincial celebration rally for the party’s 105th birthday held in KwaDukuza at the weekend.

President Jacob Zuma and ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize were among many national executive committee members who attended.

“The ANC 2014 manifesto had said at least 70 percent of all goods bought by the government should be sourced from the co-operatives and SMMEs (small, medium and micro-enterprise businesses),” said Zikalala.

He said at the policy conference the ANC would have to adopt a policy that would force municipalities and national and provincial departments to buy most of their goods from black-owned businesses.

“The upcoming national policy conference would have to be decisive about the economy,” he said.

Zikalala, who is the MEC for economic development in KZN, said that as of next month the provincial government would introduce “a radical agrarian socio-economic transformation programme” to assist black farmers to be productive and to sell their fresh produce to the government, which would cut down spending on “white capitalists and big supermarkets”.

“We are going to introduce this programme as compulsory, and it is a must.

“We don’t want fronting in co-operatives that are going to buy from capitalists to sell to the government,” he said.

Targeting youth and women-owned businesses, Zikalala said the ANC in KZN wanted the national body to adopt that the government should give 30 percent of procurement to women, 35 percent to young people and 10 percent to Struggle veterans.

And the government must enforce the payment of suppliers within 30 days.