Times Of Swaziland: BUDGET BRINGS OPPORTUNITIES TO SMES

BUDGET BRINGS OPPORTUNITIES TO SMES
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Stanley Khumalo on 17/02/2020 07:56:00


MBABANE – The National Budget delivered by the Minister of Finance, Neal
Rijkenberg, seeks to fix the business environment, policies and provide
opportunities for entrepreneurs.
This was a view by the Federation of Swazi Business Community (FESBC) Deputy
President, Hezekial Mabuza. He said the budget had highlighted a number of
opportunities to be explored by the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) such as
renovations and construction. Given these opportunities that were outlined by
Rijkenberg, Mabuza pleaded with government that the opportunities should be
availed firstly to SMEs over international organisations. “Parliament has to
pass legislations and policies that will curb the outflow of revenue from the
country so that it circulates at least 18 times for the country to generate
revenue through tax collection and benefit local players,” he said. Mabuza
also noted that the Finance minister also outlined intentions to improve the
economy and support SMEs. He said what was missing was the threshold which would
curtail in tax reduction for entrepreneurs.
Benefitting
The tax threshold at the moment, according to Mabuza, was benefitting those
bringing foreign direct investment (FDI). For example, he said, if an SME makes
E50 000 profits per month, it should be tax-free so that the entrepreneur could
re-invest that gain and improve their well-being and the economy. “Currently,
the benefit is higher for the FDI and local SMEs are financing the gap.”
Mabuza said his organisation was seeking that government also devise policies
that would assist SMEs access finance. He said at the moment, some SMEs were
being accessible to opportunities but were failing to explore them as there was
minimal or no funding at all.
He said the access to finance would improve the business sector’s prospects of
exporting their produce. Mabuza said the export markets were critical for the
country as they would contribute immensely to the Sothern African Customs Union
(SACU) receipts apportioned to the country. "If we export our goods in the SACU
region, the foreign currency and the tax contributions come into the country.
The tax contributions are receipted in SACU and therefore, the country
benefits.”
He further implored entrepreneurs to source their raw materials in the SACU
region to better the revenue allocated to the country. For this to be possible,
Mabuza said, government had to realign policies and laws to favour such business
prospects. Mabuza said the Empowerment Bill should explicitly state that any
business engagement by government parastatals or ministries should at least have
25 per cent of its services and goods procured from local entrepreneurs.