SOCA: More support on the way for Jozi’s SMMEs

03 May 2017

 

The City of Johannesburg is to double the number of its SME Hubs – from seven to 14 – by the end of the 2017-2018 financial year to lend increased support to young and prospective entrepreneurs as it continues to drive its efforts to achieve 5% economic growth.

 

Delivering his inaugural State of the City Address today (Wednesday May 3), Johannesburg Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba said the development of small businesses was one of his administration’s key focus areas as they created much-needed jobs.

“They have an abundance of potential waiting to be unlocked and have the ability to expand into employers of our people,” Mayor Mashaba said at the newly completed state-of-the-art council chamber.

Mashaba said more than 862 000 people in Johannesburg were unemployed, adding that anything less than 5% economic growth would not be able to reverse this downward trend.

“This cannot happen at the current projected growth rate of around 1.6%,” he said.

Over nine months in the 2016-2017 financial year, the City’s existing seven SME Hubs assisted 7 374 small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) – about 819 a month – to start or develop their businesses. This is more than 50% the number of SMMEs supported by the hubs in the previous financial year.

The Mayor said by the end of the 2017-2018, each of the City’s seven regions would have two SME Hubs, where young and prospective entrepreneurs could go for support.

This development is expected to increase the number of SMMEs supported through each hub per month to 1 250 by June 2018.

“Ultimately, each hub will assist more than 2 000 SMMEs per month by the end of the [current] mayoral term [in 2021], representing a four-fold increase in the size of our SMME support programme,” the Mayor said.

The seven existing SME Hubs are in Marshall Street in the Johannesburg central business district, Soweto, Alexandra, Poortjie, Randburg, Roodepoort and Riversands.