Small businesses want more funding, mentoring from government ahead of SONA

Small businesses in South Africa say it is important for the government to invest more in entrepreneurs in order to drive growth in job and wealth creation for the country.

Small businesses say they are seeking to be addressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his SONA speech on Thursday.

They say they are amongst the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore are calling on President Ramaphosa to outline solutions to the jobs bloodbath exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Some business people say they are hoping to be assisted. “We are actually looking forward to hearing the President speak more about programmes that will help small business in terms of more funding and maybe mentoring also. That would be a great help so that we can get back to the swing of things and revive our businesses. There’s nothing for me that the government can say because we marched to the department of sports and arts and culture delivered a memorandum of demand there’s nothing he’s going to today. I don’t have that hope that we are going to go back to work as soon as possible because we have been waiting for 11-months without working. We can’t even put food on our table. We’ve got too many bills to pay.”

Job creation

Meanwhile, SAFTU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi says SONA must focus on job creation. “We’re calling on our government to increase cooperate tax that we have been driving down to 28%. We’re asking the government to take steps to stop illicit money flows.”

The governing party says the President must ensure energy security is of paramount importance in order to create jobs and stimulating the economy.

ANC’s Spokesperson Pule Mabe says, “We need energy security to be able to know that we boost the production and manufacturing. The mining sector is the biggest employer and new estates are coming up and all of that. We need to give people energy security so that we address all of these challenges that we face.”

President Ramaphosa will deliver SONA in different circumstances with only 50 Parliamentarians in the Chambers and others participating virtually due to the coronavirus.

Saftu and Fedusa’s expectations:

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