FINANCIAL ILLITERACY, DISCIPLINE HARMS MSMES

MANZINI – MSMEs in the country fail to qualify for capital funding due to a lack of financial literacy and discipline.

This was revealed by Phangisile Mngomezulu, Assistant Promotional Officer at the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry’s Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Unit. Mngomezulu revealed this at a closing ceremony of a week-long financial literacy training held at Manzini, as part of ongoing regional financial literacy training, sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
UNECA is a regional United Nation commission that supports the achievement of Africa’s development agenda through development planning, macroeconomic policy, economic governance and public finance.

Per its mandate, UNECA provided financial support to the MSME Unit to implement countrywide financial literacy training, with Small Enterprice Development Company (SEDCO) as the technical service provider. SEDCO is a government parastatal mandated to develop and promote small, micro and medium enterprises in the country by providing extensive trainings in entrepreneurship, including financial management, recordkeeping and business planning.

Training

Mngomezulu revealed that the trainings were mainly targeted towards MSMEs that have previously failed to qualify for funding to equip them with financial recordkeeping and business planning skills which are required by financiers. According to the MSME Policy of Eswatini, entrepreneurship is not taught at most schools or technical colleges, so most students are not trained in business management and financial literacy skills.

Cooperative

MSME Unit Acting Director Philiswa Dlamini encouraged the training participants to consider establishing a savings and credit cooperative society specifically for MSMEs so they could be able to raise money to start and grow their businesses.  “A savings and credit cooperative society is another way to access capital at affordable interest rates and without the need for collateral. This is working for a lot of MSMEs in other countries like Kenya, Ghana and Canada,” she said. Dlamini further said the participants would be able to grow and thrive if they made an effort to collaborate and also support one another.

Sandile Vilakati, who owns a vegetable nursery and further supply its produce to farmers in Siteki attested that he acquired business management skills from the entrepreneurs’ lesson facilitated by SEDCO. He alluded that he witnessed no growth or progress in his business before attaining knowledge from the lessons. “Knowledge on how to manage our books and financials as well as overall business management was shared to us during the courses,” he said. Vilakati added that most MSMEs business owners undertake the course but shun from applying its context to their businesses. He outlined that this was a contributing factor to start-up businesses failing after five years. Start-Business Foundation (SBF) in partnership with the Ministry of Commerce, industry and Trade, DHL Eswatini, Eswatini National Youth Council (ENYC) and Regent Business School have organised a two days conference to discuss such issues.

Solution

Wandile Zishwili, one of the Co-founders of SBF yesterday said the start-up business entrepreneurship conference seeks to bring solution to issues affecting entrepreneurs, businesses and individuals at start-up phase. “After doing a study we discovered that most businesses or entrepreneurs in Eswatini are challenged by the following: access to finance, lack of information, lack of professional skills to sustain businesses and access to markets,” he said.

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