Government to assist informal businesses affected by riots through existing programmes

Small Business Development Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that government would assist informal businesses affected by the recent looting through existing programmes.

Although the Treasury and economic cluster ministers have been stressing that no unregistered or tax incompliant businesses would be assisted, Minister Ntshavheni said that there were interventions that had been made prior to the crisis.

The department, along with the Trade, Industry and Competition Department, has set aside nearly R4 billion to assist affected businesses.

Ntshavheni said that the informal and micro-enterprise programme, along with the township and rural entrepreneurship programme, would be used as vehicles to assist informal business owners.

However, this means that those who do not have their documents in order will miss out on this opportunity.

Director-general for Small Business Development, Lindokuhle Mkhumane said: “We are engaging with Sars [South African Revenue Services], we are going to make sure that we also have businesses that are formalised because we cannot support people who do not want to be known; because we have to account at the end of the day, because we are utilising taxpayers’ money.”

Researchers have in the past estimated that the country’s informal business sector is worth more than R100 billion.

-EWN

In other news – SO SAD: Limpopo woman kidnapped while looking for lift at Sasol garage, gang raped for 19 days & dumped in Mpumalanga

A woman is traumatized after she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped over 19 days. The woman said her horrific ordeal started on 4 July, when she got a lift from three men she met at a filling station in Tzaneen, Limpopo.

She said she thought they would drop her off near her house but they kidnapped her and turned her into a s.e.x slave. The 26-year-old farmworker said she had earlier been shopping at Tzaneen Mall. Learn More

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