Dear Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development,

I have listened to your PMG meeting, i want you to note something not that we don't know about sefa in the rural area we do but then some of us get disapproval on the enquiry stage some of us have all the documents needed but your application will not be given a chance for example I am a victim of that I sent in my application to one of the regional offices, then I got a response which was a one sentence email stating that they are not funding the industry I was applying for and I found that so funny because it wasn't in the exclusion. I called sefa head office there I got a different response the lady I spoke told me that wasn't true, it took me three weeks to get hold of the lady who responded to my application over the phone to my surprise she knew nothing about my application and e mail sent to me I had to ask her nicely to check my application and to put my application through the pre-assesment so that if I get declined I will know the reason and I can work on that.
It is not fair that your officials get careless, and I ask my self how many people have faced my problem and how many where able to think like me a make a follow up. Then there is an issue with the TREP fund there are so many people in my town who made that application and their application are no where to be found so tell me how do we approach sefa when it has such problems due to employees that are careless. Coming to Seda on its own it has problems I am a Seda client trust me dealing with them I have a share of my own difficulties it took two years to develop a business and I won't speak of other services that I have asked for. So when combining these two companies sefa and Seda please train and also have a way of tracking or communicating with clients because treatment and turnaround times are never in time