Nabelah Fredericks

WITH elections happening this month and the possible creation of a ministry for small businesses, change seems to be in the air for the small business sector.

Whether these changes will be to the advancement of small business owners or tie them up in further red tape, remains to be seen. Those in the industry, seem both apprehensive that the ministry could add to the red tape and also hopeful that the ministry would introduce more policies that favour small business development.

Business owner Yolisa Molefe, says,“I am not sure whether this is a good idea. If there is too much focus on small businesses the incentives might result in small business owners wanting to stay small just to access these incentives and not grow.”

While Rasheed Hargey, owner of censor technology business Uzazi Technology, thinks that this should have been done years ago. Read more about this story on our front page.

Staying on the subject of change, we are also trying to provide our readers with a better product. This is one of the main reasons we ran a reader survey last month. Our reader survey feedback via Facebook included some of the following comments from you:

Jonas Moisi – “You do a wonderful job. Your newspaper will help to grow my business. I wish you the best.”

Anam Xinwa – “I’d give your business five stars (out of seven). Your paper is very informative and helps my business.”

We have also started the Small Business Connect Reader of the Month section. Check out our inaugural Readers of the Month – Simpiwe Malotana and Aubrey Dolweni, founders of Obsidio Interiors – on page 20.

You too can feature here. All you need to do is send an email to [email protected] BusinessConnect.co.za with a photograph of yourself bigger than one megabyte, a short write-up on your business and how reading Small Business Connect assists your business.

Alternatively, connect with us on Facebook. To date, we have 975 likes on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/SASBconnect. Share our page with your Facebook friends and help us reach a milestone of 1000 likes!

Nabelah Fredericks

News Editor

Small Business Connect