Deputy Chair, the first thing that is very important to the masses of our people is access to finance. That becomes a major problem when you find that people have ideas and see things that they can do, but they don't have access to resources.
The second thing that is important is training. People must be able to be trained and understand. Besides training, it's mentoring.
These co-operatives fail because people want to see returns by tomorrow. You start work today with the co-operatives and want to see profits by tomorrow. It is so that you are be able to see things. We want to encourage our people to understand that business is not run like that. Once they have these resources, they want to buy beautiful cars, move and cruise, go on holiday, and all that, not understanding that you must be able to reinvest in business, so that you are able to make more money when you go forward.
We have looked at a myriad of issues that must be attended to to ensure that we address this problem. What you must actually understand is that the majority of Africans are not used to business because of the apartheid legacy. When you had a business, a spaza shop on the corner there, you were not exposed to business. The areas that are involved in economic activity are two in the main, one of which is the stokvels and so on. These stokvels prepare for deaths or to go to church.
The masses getting involved in economic activity does not exist. It means we must be able engender a spirit of entrepreneurship for people to understand that business is run differently. That is what we are trying to do in going forward.
There are many of these things that we think we will do, and we feel that this is the route that we must take going forward, colleague. We think that the NCOP and all public representatives must support this initiative. So, wherever you are in your wards, you must check whether a co-operative is being established, because all of you here come from a ward. You must therefore look at this in your own areas to ensure that our people become active in economic activity. Thank you very much.