Munis ‘should be able to support small businesses’

POLOKWANE – Mathabatha  said this during an event with young academics, professionals and business people hosted at Uhuru Cafe and Wine Emporium last Thursday. He added that municipalities will support young people to thrive and excel as academics in various fields.

“We want to see more young people graduate beyond their first degrees. We want to see more people graduate with masters and PhDs. Our municipalities will support young people who flourish as professionals in their different areas. In this regard, we look forward to see more youthful municipal managers who are qualified for the job. We also want to see more youthful CFOs and more youthful executive directors in our municipalities throughout the province. Our municipalities must put in place deliberate measures to support the businesses owned by young people in order for it to become successful and sustainable,” Mathabatha said.

International Relations special adviser Maropeng Ramokgopa said it is important for the ANC to ensure that they create an enabling environment for the business community to be able to thrive so that they can help resuscitate the economy.

“During the pandemic a lot of businesses went under and it is very important that the president has been talking about whatever is on the recovery plan. Municipalities and provinces should now be able to say what they can do to make sure that even small businesses in their localities become beneficiaries of municipal programmes. For the business community it became very important that they don’t focus on ‘what can I get’, but rather ‘how I market myself so that the business can be able to grow’,” Ramokgopa said.

She was very excited to see that the business community looked like they knew what they were doing. “I believe with the leadership of Polokwane Mayor John Mpe the business community will see the differences,” she said.