Times Of Swaziland: MINISTER ADVOCATES FOR PROMPT PAYMENT OF SMES

MINISTER ADVOCATES FOR PROMPT PAYMENT OF SMES
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Nhlanganiso Mkhonta on 13/10/2024 17:08:00


MBABANE – The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo, says
among other key focus areas that he will be pushing for, is the prioritisation
of payments for SMEs supplying government.
In a recent exclusive interview with the Times Business Desk, the minister said
there has been a strong outcry that his ministry and Eswatini Investments
Promotion Authority (EIPA) are sort of focusing on enabling business for foreign
direct investors, leaving the locals behind. He said this makes it seem like
government is leaving behind small and medium enterprises (SMEs), women and
youth-owned businesses. Khumalo said in order to address this, he is going to be
passionately pushing for the payments of SMEs doing business with government to
be prioritised.
Enough resources
“Whenever government does not have enough resources, the first injection of
revenue that comes to our coffers, we must prioritise paying SMEs, women and
youth-owned businesses,” said the minister. Khumalo said they also need to
make sure that the threshold of procurement gazetted for emaSwati in the
procurement system for State-owned enterprises and government is improved from
the current 10 per cent. “We are serious about keeping the economy growing and
emaSwati getting to feel the impact of that,” said Khumalo.
The minister added that there must be a mechanism to hold the government tender
Board accountable to those thresholds. “This idea that certain businesses and
areas will be reserved for emaSwati is something that will be hammered on very
aggressively through the Citizens Economic Empowerment Act. The minister said
they are also concerned about the issue of access to finance for local SMEs. He
said in order to address that, they are working closely with the Ministry of
Finance to make it easy to access initiatives like the Small Scale Enterprise
Loan Guarantee Scheme (SSELGS).
He noted that in the past, such was only accessed through commercial banks, but
now they are making it easy to access such through other non-banking financial
institutions (NBFIs).
another brilliant idea. Khumalo further highlighted that the establishment of
the Eswatini Agricultural Development Fund (EADF) is also another brilliant
idea, as emaSwati venturing into agriculture will have this specific fund to
assist them financially. “We are also looking at EswatiniBank, as to how they
can improve their portfolio of offerings to that more SMEs can access the
much-needed funding,” said the minister.
He added that government has a desire to simplify the work permit regime, as a
lot of businesses are complaining about the status quo. Khumalo said you may
find that some investors plough their money and get only two or three-year
permits. He said this leaves the businesspeople with very limited time to work
in the country and makes them uncertain about their future. He said, therefore,
they are putting in proposals with the Ministry of Home Affairs to see how they
can get reasonable time work permits for investors. He said all this and other
plans were carried out in the new investment policy that will soon be tabled in
Parliament. He said this policy also seeks to address issues of developing a
one-stop shop for businesses.