DEPUTY President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for regulatory and tax regimes to be reformed to enable African entrepreneurs the opportunity to create much-needed jobs on the continent.
Delivering a keynote address at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress at the Sandton Convention Centre in Joburg yesterday, Ramaphosa said African entrepreneurs were poised to change the economic trajectory and would be instrumental in shaping the continent’s social landscape. He said the millions of jobs that people needed would not be created by governments or big industry alone.
“They will be created by emerging entrepreneurs supported by sound government policies and deliberate action by established business.
“Small business will grow, thrive and create jobs when governments’ procurement policies set aside funds to buy from SMMEs. They will thrive if regulatory and taxation regimes are reformed to promote, rather than stifle, SMME development,” he said, to applause from the delegates from all over the continent.
Small, medium and micro enterprises would prosper if data, transport and financial services’ costs were reduced. “They will be sustainable if society is united in combating uncompetitive business behaviour, collusion and price fixing by monopolistic cartels.”
Joburg executive mayor Herman Mashaba and Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, Deputy Tourism Minister Thoko Xasa, among others, attended the congress held under the theme “Digital Disruption”.
The congress provided an opportunity for African entrepreneurs to interact with global investors.
Ramaphosa said he was pleased Mashaba had said his administra- tion would relook at by-laws restricting small business development.
He called for entrepreneurship to be part of the school curriculum as people needed to be taught from an early age to become innovators and problem-solvers, and to see themselves as job creators.
Ramaphosa said Mashaba’s hair-care range Black Like Me would have “exploded in leaps and bounds” had he been taught entrepreneurship at school.
Global Entrepreneurship Network SA managing director, Kizito Okechukwu said the network wanted Africa to be the home of global entrepreneurship.