City to empower small business

An empowerment workshop hosted by the City of Johannesburg was held at Sankopano Centre.

The workshop was aimed at establishing a database of the small business sector in Alexandra which will assist the city in packaging programmes for empowerment, support and monitoring.

MMC for Public Safety, Councilor Sello Lemao said such workshops were important because it encouraged people to get involved. He said people have relied on the government for a long time and that it was time to change that.

“There hasn’t been any real growth and people don’t have skills,” said Lemao. “We need to empower them by brining what is required and giving them those skills.” Vuyiswa Voyi of the Johannesburg Development Agency said 60 percent of the Alexandra population were unemployed.

“Alex is the next priority for development for the next two years,” she said. Voyi spoke about the Bus Rapid Transit System and the opportunities it would bring to the community.

Tidimalo Nkotoe of the Department of Basic Education who was representing Alex Women in Construction highlighted some of the problems that were faced by women in the construction sector. She said one of the challenges was discrimination.

“There are not a lot of women being given tenders in Alex,” she said. “We want to be empowered in the real sense and we are prepared to work with the city for assistance through training.”