If you are a small business producing achar in any township in Gauteng, the provincial government will now enable you to get your product onto the shelves of big retailers at your nearby shopping complex.
This is one of the many things the Gauteng Township Economic Development Bill, which was unanimously adopted in the legislature on Thursday, seeks to do after it is made into law in the province.
MEC for economic development, environment, agriculture and rural development Parks Tau said the bill is an instrument that will enable small businesses in the townships to be formalised and to gain access to the mainstream economy.
“This bill says that we will ensure that we have direct procurement from township-based enterprises as provincial government. We've already started engaging the private sector to say how do we ensure that they also become a market themselves because not only should retailers come to the townships bringing goods from somewhere else, sell the goods and take the money out of the township...We are saying to the private sector...we can direct some of these resources to township-based enterprises so that retail facilities are not seen as extractors of resources of townships,” Tau said.
The bill, which came to the public in 2020, allows the provincial government to provide finance, training and equipment to township businesses.
It also enables the government to convert places like taxi ranks into commercial districts. Unused land and buildings in the townships will also be used to create business opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Furthermore, the bill also establishes the Gauteng Township Economic Development Fund that will be housed in the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller.
No money from this fund will be used by the province for any other purpose than township business support. Through the fund, small businesses will get grants and loans.
The MEC, in consultation with the municipality, can designate township enterprise zones.
The bill also provides standard bylaws, which can be adopted by municipalities or edited to enable township businesses to grow.
Tau said the legislation has not been written to ensure exclusion of any group in the country, which some in civil society have criticised it for.
“We have not written the bill in a manner that says we want to exclude [someone]. The bill is written in a manner that says the country has an obligation to address its historic challenges. In addressing these, these are the people that were oppressed and these are the people who were disadvantaged. We have to deliberately ensure that we affirm those people in line with the BBBEE,” Tau said.
Tau said discussions have begun with the private sector to find ways of converting taxi ranks to become formalised hubs of economic activity.
“We have engaged Toyota and have agreed with them on an after-sale market opportunity. This will be concentrated in and around taxi ranks. They have said they have an appetite to support township businesses to participate in the value chain... such as maintenance of vehicles,” he said.
Fasiha Hassan, acting chair of the portfolio committee on economic development which led the public consultation process, said: “This bill is [the most] monumental since 1994 because it is radical, clear and enables us to change the economic patterns so that we do not have the mass majority that is black and economically poor. We now have a legislative tool to formally change the economy.”
The bill will now move to speaker Ntombi Mekgwe and then to premier David Makhura for promulgation, after which it will become law in the province.
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