Small businesses plead for easing of red tape
INFORMAL traders are calling on easing of red tape in government programmes as the Auditor-General on Friday told Parliament there had only been a 10 percent uptake of a R175 million fund meant to provide relief to spaza shop owners.
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development were told by Senior Manager for Small Business Aphendule Mantinyane that only about R17m of the fund meant to provide relief to spaza shop owners had been taken up while another development fund was farmed out to Nedbank as informal traders showed lacklustre interest.
“We need to increase the footprint for these funds because there is very low uptake. The debt relief programme could not assist all applicants and it was then transferred to Nedbank for management purposes,” Mantinyane said.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, government created the fund for spaza owners to get urgent assistance and another fund for debt relief which both have been under utilised. In August 2020 the President announced the relaxation of permit requirements for traders until the end of 2022, and this was followed by directives published by the former Minister of Small Business Development, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni.
The extension was given to all informal traders whose permits had expired, or who begun trading and were unable to apply for business trading permits due to lockdown regulations.
South African Informal Traders Alliance (Saita) President Rosheda Muller said yesterday that there was too much red tape around the government assistance programmes citing cases of applicants who waited over a year for relief but were after a year of waiting granted less than half of what they sought.
“They should stop planning for us and plan with us. There is no real assistance from government agencies to hold the hand of the business owner and walk them through the process.
“I think the applications have to be rewritten, because the requirements are too stringent,” Muller said.
On Human Rights Day, Saita, with more than 2 million informal tra ers attempted to march on the Union Buildings to press demands that the government do away with red tape which is hampering the growth of micro and informal businesses, that all municipalities recognise and respect the President’s trade permit waiver and that law enforcement immediately halt the harassment of informal traders. Saita said President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged in his state of the nation address how crippling red tape is for business, especially informal and micro businesses while municipalities continuously ignore a national directive, aimed at unblocking the path for business to operate and flourish. Municipal officials across the country are not adhering to the directive, and they continue to harass and arrest traders, and to confiscate their goods.
“This directive is now the law – and yet municipal officials are ignoring it. For this reason, we have no choice but to take to the streets to try and stop the constant harassment of informal traders over trading licences, most especially female traders, who are the most vulnerable of workers. We are taking our concerns directly to the Presidency.” Saita said