Lebogang Maile‚ Gauteng MEC of Economic Development‚ Environment‚ Agriculture and Rural Development encouraged township based SMMEs to approach banks for funding for their businesses‚ even though entrepreneurs aren't fond of such financial institutions."I know many Small‚ Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises don’t like the banks because the banks ask lots of questions and they want a lot of things before they can finance you‚" said Maile.He was speaking at the Small‚ Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises Blunders and Bungles summit in Newtown on Thursday.This comes as the MEC said his department does not have enough resources to fund entrepreneurs and urged businessman and businesswomen to seek alternative solutions to this problem.Said Maile: "Many entrepreneurs like government funding agencies because it appears to be easy to get funding [from government]. If you refer them to the banks‚ you become unpopular because banks are difficult people to deal with."He said banks and other financial institutions have a lot of money in their coffers and therefore township entrepreneurs must access it."We said to the [financial institutions] that we want any bank that will give us the best deal for our township entrepreneurs‚ and FNB (First National Bank) said: 'We will give you R250 million to finance township based entrepreneurs and we will relax the conditions'‚" said Maile.He acknowledged the issue of financing as a major problem for township business people. However‚ he urged them to "think outside the box"."The issue of financing needs us to be creative [and to] think outside the box. Why can't we have cooperative banks where our entrepreneurs save money themselves. Instead of having stokvels‚ why don’t you take that money and contribute it to [a certain] initiative?" he suggested.The SMMEs Blunders and Bungles Summit is being organised by Gauteng Enterprise Propeller ‚ an agency of the Gauteng Provincial Government‚ to establish directly from SMME's what blunders and bungles can be attributed to their failure despite government's financial and non-financial interventions...