Ramaphosa calls for business to help NDP

Business and the financial services sector have a critical role to play in implementing the National Development Plan (NDP), ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday.

"The implementation of the NDP is not an exercise in compliance but rather an exercise in transformation and working together," he told the Banking Association summit in Johannesburg.

"The task at hand requires a different way of working. The NDP challenges us to make effective use of all of our resources, especially our people, and challenges us to work together to find solutions to the difficulties that we face."

Ramaphosa, who is also the deputy chairman of the National Planning Commission, which developed the NDP, said the financial services sector needed to play a role in helping small to medium enterprises.

The NDP focused on the financial services sector as a real generator of jobs and though it was believed that small and medium enterprises would be a big contributor to job creation, big-ticket enterprises could also create thousands of jobs.

With the right approach the number of start-up businesses that failed could be reduced and big businesses could incorporate smaller enterprises into their own supply chain.

There was massive potential for companies to transform their supply chains and support new platforms.

This could be done through small business incubator models, and helping these businesses gain access to finance.

"Banks need to investigate feasible ways to extend credit to small and medium businesses," Ramaphosa said.

"Following the global financial crisis ... there is an aversion by banks to take up certain types of risk - this is understandable and prudent. However, banks need to find solutions."

The NDP has been criticised by the ANC's alliance partners, the SA Communist Party and Cosatu, especially the economic chapter in the plan.