Scores of small business owners in the OR Tambo district had an early Christmas when small business development minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams breezed into Mthatha on Wednesday, loaded with gifts in the form of equipment to help grow their businesses.
She said while inclusive growth had been one of the priorities of the government of national unity, the country remained in a low-growth trap.
As a result of this, “too many of our citizens [were left] being unable to participate in productive economic activities”.
“We need to bring regions like OR Tambo into the economic mainstream. We need to unlock the potential we all know it has.”
A total of 35 beneficiaries received equipment and machines from Ndabeni-Abrahams at the OR Tambo Hall in Southernwood.
She was joined by economic development, environmental affairs and tourism MEC Nonkqubela Pieters.
Qumbu farmer Fikebandla Mduzulwana, 55, whose Siziba Rural Farming Co-op produces cabbages and green peppers which he supplies to three SPAR shops in Mthatha, accepted a token cheque to the value of R1.6m.
The money has been used to buy a tractor, new Hyundai H100 truck and build additional cultivation tunnels for a drip irrigation system on his 8ha farm at Mphumaze village.
He is now planning to diversify and add potatoes to his crops, but he also hopes to become the main producer of food within the OR Tambo district.
“I am overjoyed,” he said. “In fact, this is not an early Christmas gift — this is the future.
“Agriculture is vital to food security but in this district our cabbages mainly come from KwaZulu-Natal and our green peppers from Durban and Gqeberha. I am now hoping to close that gap in the OR Tambo district.”
The longtime farmer lost 5,000 chickens during Covid-19 when they starved to death because he was unable to buy feed in Pietermaritzburg.
At the time, his brood of chickens produced 12,000 eggs a day.
Noluntu Saka, 67, and her five business partners at Abasuki Tenery Primary Co-op in Port St Johns were forced to lay off most of their more than 70 employees during Covid-19.
On Wednesday, they received industrial machines and several sewing machines from Ndabeni-Abrahams worth nearly R1.5m.
Saka, a self-taught seamstress, has been sewing since she was 22 but founded the co-op in 2006.
It specialises in sewing clothes, beadwork, knitting and training people through its accredited school.
She said they now wanted to produce jerseys and uniforms as well as T-shirts and logos, and were grateful to the government for the donation.
The donation came from various programmes offered by Ndabeni-Abrahams’s department and its Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency.
Among them were the Asset Assist Programme (AAP), Co-operatives Development Support Programme (CDSP) and the Informal and Micro Enterprise Development Programme (MEDP).
AAP provides essential business assets, financial guidance and expert advisory services to help businesses grow.
Ndabeni-Abrahams said: “Asset inequality and financial inequality in SA remain extremely high, and we will not be able to grow the economy or create jobs unless we tackle this.
“The Eastern Cape is the country’s fourth most populous province but with a slow population growth rate.
“The province is very rural and has a small productive economy — 17% of GDP compared to 27% for SA as a whole.”
The OR Tambo district was dominated by community services and the government, which together made up more than 50% of the economy.
A further 35% was made up by trade and financial services, with productive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing contributing less than 6%.
“This dependence on the state is worrying given the current fiscal climate.
“More must be done to build productive capabilities and a local private sector. Obviously growing micro, small and medium enterprises is the route to get this done.
“The region has comparative advantages around agro-processing (food, cannabis, hemp) and forestry, the creative economy, as well as tourism.”
She said the government needed to ensure township markets were serviced by local township enterprises.
This had led to the need to have spaza shops registered across the country as they, along with the township food-handling economy, were estimated at between R180bn and R200bn.
“We need our people to own this wealth. Not just the retail outlets themselves, but other parts of the supply chain, including the production of food, transport and logistics, financing and credit extension and so on.”
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