Staff Reporter
Free State Treasury MEC Gadija Brown wants local businesspeople to diversify their portfolios and not limit themselves to chasing government contracts as it may not help their businesses grow.
She said when presenting her supplementary provincial budget yesterday, urging local businesses to be innovative in order to remain viable and create employment.
“I would like to advise the business community within the province that tenders are not a sustainable method of business growth,” Brown said.
The MEC said business plans should be financed and approved against a sustainable business model and not be limited to the life of a contract.
“Sustainable business lies in the manufacturing of these goods and services or the provision of certain inputs,” she said.
“I would therefore like to urge businesspeople to continue diversifying their businesses.”
In an interview after the presentation, Brown said businesspeople in the province should not believe that their business plans should only be funded through government tenders as it is a very short-term business approach because the funding only lasts for the duration of the contract.
“I think our business models and the thinking that it’s easy to do business with government should stop . . . We have to think of more sustainable ways of doing business,” she said.
Brown said by diversifying their portfolios, the businesses can grow, thereby allowing them to create employment and rescue the province.
She said industrialisation, manufacturing, agriculture and mining remain key to improving the local economy.
“There is no easy plan for unemployment because it needs a cohesive and conducive environment for people to start working,” the MEC explained.
“We have to merge our primary and secondary sectors of the economy towards creating that ability for us to be able to produce and provide goods.
“We are still a very big consumer market.
“The informal market is still huge within the Free State largely because we’re still a rural-based province and if we are not going to nurture what’s happening in the informal economy . . . our businesses will never be sustainable.”
Brown urged the private sector to create employment as there is an abundance of skills in the province which the government alone cannot employ.
Earlier, she told the house that 82 percent of COVID-19-related procurement in the province had been spent on Free State-based companies with the remaining 18 percent going to companies from other parts of the country.
Brown said a total of 223 suppliers had benefited from the procurement.
“We spent 94 percent on black-owned companies, 38 percent on youth-owned companies, three percent on companies owned by military veterans, 29 percent on women owned companies,” she noted.
Brown however said people with disabilities are yet to benefit from this procurement plan and efforts were underway to identify them.