Ideas are plentiful but funding is scarce‚ MEC tells Gauteng’s entrepreneurs

30 June 2016 - 14:55 By Neo Goba

That’s according to Lebogang Maile‚ Gauteng MEC of economic development‚ environment‚ agriculture and rural development‚ speaking at the Small‚ Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises Blunders and Bungles summit in Newtown on Thursday."Everybody wants money and‚ when they speak to me‚ they all say one thing: ‘We have the perfect solution to your problems to create jobs‚ to grow the economy.’ There is nobody who says they are taking chances and are trying they luck‚” said Maile.“Everybody believes that their idea is brilliant.”He reminded summit attendees that “limited resources” meant it “is not possible that we will be able to fund everybody”.“[As government] we have put a few ideas on the table because we acknowledge that it’s not going to be possible for us to have enough money to fund everybody because we have competing priorities‚” said Maile‚ whose department is responsible for the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP).He said 70% of the South Africa's budget goes to social services such as grants‚ health‚ education and the “huge bill for salaries in the public services”.For this reason‚ Maile urged attendees to seek alternative avenues to get funding to realise their goals and dreams.“Our entrepreneurs are innovative people [and] they always have ideas‚ but ideas without financing is not enough‚ and that is why one of the things we want to do as government is to work with the banks‚” he said.The summit was organised by the GEP to establish directly from SMMEs what blunders and bungles can be attributed to their failures despite government's financial and non-financial interventions...

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