The Black Business Council (BBC) has welcomed the announcement that R40-billion in financial support will be made available for the Black Industrialists Programme over five years.
“To enhance the growth of black industrialists, we will combine the efforts of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, the Industrial Development Corporation and the National Empowerment Fund into a seamless and coordinated programme.
“Over the next five years, we will support an additional 400 black industrialists’ projects with financial support of R40-billion, through identifying sustainable businesses and promoting both industrialists, new enterprise formation and worker involvement in the enterprises,” Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel said during his Budget Vote speech, in Parliament, last week.
The BBC stated that the Black Industrialists Programme – one of the key elements of broad-based black economic empowerment and socioeconomic transformation – aims to unlock the potential industrialists’ companies in key sectors of the economy through deliberate and well-defined financial and nonfinancial interventions.
“The programme is the brainchild of the BBC and we believe that the extra funding will bring much-needed relief, as well as attempt to solve the biggest hurdles of our members – access to capital and markets,” BBC CEO Kganki Matabane said in a statement on Tuesday.
The BBC noted that it would work closely with Patel and would use the lessons of the initial Black Industrialists Programme to drive improvements, specifically with regard to enhancing the application process.
“Small, medium-sized and microenterprises are the backbone of any economic growth and this fund will go a long way in addressing the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality,” Matabane concluded.