The South Africa government plans to establish a US$12 billion loan facility to assist small businesses create jobs across the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday.
Speaking in his weekly message to the nation, Ramaphosa said his government would pay attention to creating small business in the rural areas and townships as a major source of job creation for the country’s troubled economy.
He said the fund, which would be administered by the Ministry of Small Business Development, would provide loans to small businesses in poor communities as part of the government’s job creation scheme in the economy.
“As part of our efforts to build a new economy out of this pandemic, we must create the conditions that will enable every individual to thrive in a society that supports, nurtures and helps them to succeed,” Ramaphosa said.
He noted that developing South Africa’s small businesses in rural areas and townships presented “the greatest growth opportunity” for the country’s coronavirus-hit economy,
“In such challenging times, when many have lost their jobs and the unemployed have found it harder to eke out an existence, we must act with renewed urgency to support small businesses,” he said.
The government would do this by emphasising the importance of creating an enabling environment for small businesses to thrive in the two locations which host the country’s greatest populations – especially the youth, the president said.
Ramaphosa noted that his government had during the lockdown extended financial support to small, medium and micro enterprises in the form of loans, grants and debt restructuring totalling US$1.5 billion to more than six million workers across all types of businesses.
According to the president, South Africa’s economic recovery could not wait until the Covid-19 was over, adding that “our economic recovery needs to start now.”
South Africa has some 364,328 confirmed cases of the virus which has killed 5,003 people since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country in March.
NM/jn/APA