KZN Finance MEC, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, is expected on Saturday to lead a Provincial Treasury’s Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) Outreach Programme, which seeks to equip rural-based small businesses with a range of business skills and economic avenues.

The SMMEs outreach programme, to be held at Bhambanana in Jozini Local Municipality, follows the Youth-in-Business Outreach Programme held recently in uThukela, with the aim of equipping young people with a raft of business skills and economic avenues.

Dube-Ncube said following the resounding success of uThukela Youth-In-Business Outreach Programme, there was a need to cover more districts to unlock bottlenecks and challenges encountered by rural-based SMMEs and small businesses when attempting to access funding and sustain their businesses.

She said the SMMEs and other small businesses have borne the brunt of COVID-19 and last year July’s unrest events, which have put them in bad shape.

“This has affected mostly rural businesses, especially those owned by Africans residing in far flung areas. These include in small towns that often struggle with access to information on how to efficiently run their businesses, access business finance… [and] information related to government’s supply chain protocols,” Dube-Ncube said.

During the outreach programme, the department will bring closer its central suppliers database unit, operation-pay-on-time, and supply chain management.

Outside stakeholders, including the National Youth Development Agency, Ithala, South African Revenue Service, and an assortment of other business services bodies will all erect exhibition stands, with readily available information and services.

“The entire package of information is sacrosanct in order to mitigate the high rate of unemployment that mostly affects the province and the country,” the MEC said. 

Source: South African Government News Agency