In our attempt to try to assist small businesses we should not move away from the legal prescripts. Everything that we must do we must do it within the acceptable legal frameworks. You will understand that, for you to open a business, your business must be registered, it must be known so that inspectors, from time to time, can come and check your business, whether it is a liquor outlet, you will be given some trading hours and there will be inspectors that will come and inspect whether you are still trading according to the requirements and agreement of your licence.
So, it is important that as much as we want to see SMMEs thriving in their numbers, we must not move away from the legislative framework. I think that has created a problem. A number of businesses that are operating now are not registered.
First of all, we must register them and government is ready to support these businesses financially in terms of their management skills to run a business so that we avoid the high failure rate of these small businesses.
Now, in the process, we are saying the government presents itself as a market but we are also mindful that government is a bad payer. Government is not paying these SMMEs on time. We are going to stand up and ensure that these SMMEs are paid on time because it is one thing to talk about economic growth; it is another thing when the society is standing up, working hard, putting their bit in trying to grow the economy and they are then getting discouraged by the very same government that is encouraging them to grow the economy.
So, there are certain things that we must do right as the government in order to allow for economic growth. One space that we must attend to, we must pay our service providers on time so that we reduce the failure rate because if you pay them after 90,100 days they cannot survive, they will close shop.
Now, the acceptable time to pay these SMMEs is less than
30 days. I do not understand why we must stay for a long time not paying a service provider if that service has been provided. I do not understand. So, I am trying to say, everything that we are going to do, first of all, we must eliminate illegal trading because it comes with a lot of problems. We are trading with counterfeit goods, goods that have expired, that present a problem in a community.
So the best thing that we must do as a government is to regulate that environment but beyond regulating, support the SMMEs because by supporting these SMMEs you are supporting your economy. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Question 12: