Department is a rudderless ship

BY HER own admission Lindiwe Zulu (Minister of Small Business Development) admitted that prior to her appointment by Jacob Zuma she knew very little about small business,

The article in Business Report of June 19 headlined Bureaucracy halts SMME department pretty much confirms that she still knows very little. Her department was established last year and received R3.5 bil- lion in this year’s budget.

Other than spewing all the corporate bluster about “pursuing an aggressive entrepreneurship drive, unlocking economic opportunities, creating an enabling environment, achieve inclusive economic growth” very little has happened and will never happen.

Zulu is already wriggling out of her responsibilities by saying the economy is not doing well (rather at odds with what Zuma professes) and revenue is not good. Perhaps somebody needs to tell Zulu that a budget allocation is not a gift from heaven to create a bureaucratic monster. It is intended to fund programmes to enable people to learn about what business is all about.

Fortunately parliament’s portfolio committee has also seen that the Department of Small Business is another rudderless ship – launched merely to create income for some of the President’s cronies – of which Zulu is one. The NDP (National Development Plan) is another grandiose plan that so far has not even started its engine and will be remembered as nice financial sendoff for Trevor Manuel.

If only we could get competent people to run the country we could prosper and do something to reduce unemployment but it will never happen.

Lindiwe Zulu should actually spend time with businessmen from all walks of life and see what happens at the coalface instead of talking! Maybe our chambers of commerce can assist? TONY BALL DURBAN