Despite a degree of ambiguity around the transfer of small business-focused promotion programmes from under the auspices of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to the newly formed Department of Small Business Development (DSBD), Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has confirmed that these programmes are unlikely to be abandoned.

“We’d like to put in on record that the current programmes under the DTI will continue because business cannot afford any form of vacuum.

“We want people to be assured that, while we are busy setting up the department, that those [benefitting] under the programmes and projects under the DTI will continue to benefit,” she told a post-budget media briefing earlier this week.

These programmes included the Incubation Support Programme; the Centres for Entrepreneurship; the Support Programme for Industrial Innovation; the Cooperatives Act and National Cooperatives Strategy; the promotion of secondary marketing cooperatives; the National Informal Business Upliftment Strategy; the Integrated Small, Medium and Microenterprises and Cooperatives support programme; the Red Tape Reduction programme; and the Youth Enterprise Development Strategy.

Zulu outlined that the DSBD would “take its time” to review the various programmes, working with the DTI to ensure that they were effective and delivered on the emerging department’s mandate of providing access to supply-chain opportunities, providing development assistance and driving skills development.

“I think these programmes have been working very well, but it’s clear [from feedback we’ve received] that there are weaknesses in the system. If we find that some of these programmes are not effective, we’ll talk to [the DTI] to see how we can tweak them, eventually incorporating these programmes into a system that we have designed,” she commented.

Zulu added that the department did not yet have a committed budget for the fiscal year ahead, but would be working within the combined budgets allocated to the various small business-related programmes.

“We would be able to talk to a specific budget during the mid-term and next year,” she pointed out.

Outlining the department’s ambitions for the year ahead during her Budget Vote speech to Parliament on Tuesday, Zulu noted that the DSBD would look to intensify the active participation of small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) and cooperatives in the priority sectors as identified in the National Development Plan, the Industrial Policy Action Plan and the New Growth Path, as well as the priority areas for public procurement.

It would further encourage entrepreneurship through the establishment of Centres for Entrepreneurship in all nine provinces, as well as the establishment of Small Enterprise Development Agency Technology Programmes and Incubation Support Programmes across the country.

The department would also look for possible partnerships with private companies, many of which had established independent incubation and skills development programmes.

“We’ll see where we’ll be able to hold hands with the private sector in this regard.”

The DSBD would further drive increased and expanded demand for goods and services produced by small businesses and cooperatives, while implementing programmes to enhance secondary cooperatives for inclusion into value chains.

“This will involve the implementation of national informal business upliftment support programmes and will see us collaborating with the DTI on the implementation of export villages,” she commented.