The DSBD was requested to provide input on the Framework that has been put in place to address the issue of Red Tape.
The Department has indeed assessed measures nationally, provincial and locally. There are a multitude of legislative and regulatory criteria that small businesses need to comply with, not all of them are “onerous”, but still it provides a good indication that our regulatory frameworks are not well coordinated and synchronised, and are often duplicatory, placing both a cost and time burden on small businesses. The DSBD has prioritised twenty-nine (29) pieces of legislation (and related regulations, and by-laws, etc) that impact on SMME growth and development. This is summarised in Figure 2.
Names of legislation and Relevant Details
The twenty-nine (29) pieces affect informal sector, small, medium micro enterprises and cooperatives
across the spectrum. Regarding cooperatives, we have noted that CIPC reporting under the Co-operatives Development Act, is onerous as most co-ops are required to submit audited financial statements. That imposes a considerable expense, which does not apply to any other small enterprise. This contrasts with the Company’s Act which has specified thresholds over which enterprises are required to submit audited annual financial statements.
The Department has put out a request for quotations to enlist private sector red tape and small business development “experts” to conduct an analysis of these twenty-nine pieces of legislation and regulations, as well as other targeted sources of red tape like CIPC reporting for cooperatives. We have already however analysed several areas of “red tape” and ease of doing business challenges over the past few years and group these into the following categories:
The Pilot Administrative Simplification Programme (PASP) focuses on institutionalising the best practices and learnings made by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and Ease of Doing Business (EODB) and is focused on local government - its interventions target Districts/Secondary Cities and Local Municipalities. The Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) is by no means the sole player in this ecosystem for measuring impact of the red tape reduction ecosystem:
Measuring the Impact of the DSBD Red Tape Reduction PASP
The key focus of the PASP is measuring the impact of seven (7) Red Tape Reduction dimensions identified by the Guidelines approved in 2014:
The following is a multi-level strategy driven by the DSBD, that has been put in place for measuring the impact of the programme:
The Presidency communicated to Premiers, in November 2022, to establish Red Tape Reduction Units in their respective provinces. There is continuous engagement with the provinces by the Presidency to facilitate the establishment of the Red Tape Reduction units in each province. The Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) continues to engage the Presidency to get feedback on the progress made on the matter.
It is anticipated that the business units responsible for the red tape in the provinces, especially in offices of the Premiers, will act as Red Tape Reduction Champions at the highest level in the respective provinces as something that is sorely needed to galvanize the entire SMMEs and cooperatives sector at the provincial level. This will be complementary to the work that is being done by the Departmental and Presidential red tape reduction business units.
NAME OF THE DRAFTER : ____________________________
DESIGNATION : ____________________________
CONTACT DETAILS : ____________________________
SIGNATURE : ____________________________