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You asked, the minister replied

By on 1 September 2014 in News

The Small Business Connect Facebook page has been inundated with questions for Lindiwe Zulu.

The Small Business Connect Facebook page has been inundated with questions for small business development minister, Lindiwe Zulu.

This month Small Business Connect caught up with the minister and posed some of these questions on your behalf. Read her responses and check to see whether your question has been answered below:

Ivor Brenton Steyn: Certain companies monopolize some industries and prevent small business from entering or surviving in the market. What is being done to encourage fair competition and to discourage bullying?

Minister: We are working with the private sector to ensure that these businesses provide small businesses with the necessary support. We need to create an environment that is conducive to business.

Wonder Choma: How can you get agencies like the Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) and the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa) to train business owners in townships? Businesses still have to go through the Johannesburg and Pretoria offices to get information.

Minister: I believe that communication is key to small business owners. We will be looking at how effective Seda and Sefa are and how to improve these agencies so that there is a quicker turnaround time for support. The success of these businesses depend on the support it receives. We are also busy with national road shows where we will be speaking to business owners.

Neil Springfield: How is she going to change the lack of support we receive from other government institutions like CIPC and the Compensation Commissioner?

Minister: The institutions are there. The resources are there. We need to make people who work at these places understand what they need to do to provide support and how important this support is to small businesses. These are people (business owners) who have families and employees (who also have families) that they provide for.

Thee Patrick Moloko: What legacy would you like to leave or be be remembered for in terms of changing the entrepreneurial game in South Africa?

Minister: I would like to have a legacy of having created very strong, supportive structures. I would like to leave a legacy of having encouraged South Africans to believe that it is possible to get up and do things for yourself. I want to leave a legacy and say I assisted in creating a conducive environment for small businesses and co-operatives. But, more than anything else, I’d like to leave a legacy that says it is possible.

 

READ MORE:

Department to be up and running soon

 

 

Ivor Brenton Steyn, , Neil Springfield, , Thee Patrick Moloko, Wonder Choma

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  • Alex H Griffin

    Great to see Lindiwe spending some time answer readers questions. It would be great to understand how the minister could incorporate the support and efforts of existing public and free SME support networks, like ours at #CapeMarketing, to perhaps help more small business owners create growth and how we can link up with entities in finance and operations to provide a more full service offering.

    • http://www.ChristoffOosthuysen.com/ Christoff Oosthuysen

      Hi Alex. Look interesting what you do. How can entrepreneurs and small business owners benefit from what you do?

      • Alex H Griffin

        Hi Christoff, we actually met Solly Malatsi yesterday evening at the Vision to Reality Awards and discussed our ideas around mentoring for small businesses, which is exactly what we are launching in October with the help of the City of Cape Town.

        With 500 members now, we decided that it is too much experience to be simply kept amongst the refines of our networking and support groups, therefore decided to use our strength to start giving back to wider entrepreneurial groups in need of support.

        So, in summary, we have a large pool of business owners, managers and marketers who want to help others grow! Do let me know if you feel there is overlap-we just need to partner with the right organisations so we can help the right people.

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