FS GOVERNMENT JOINS FORCES WITH PRIVATE SECTOR

Photo: Free State Premier Mxolisi Dukwana

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By: Neo Ntsele

The Free State Provincial Government took part in the Old Mutual's Positive Futures Engagement Series held at Ilanga Estate, on Tuesday,12.

This year's engagement was chaired under the theme "Strategic partnership towards sustainable Socio Economic".

The high level dialogue session aimed at zooming into the challenges and opportunities each province possesses and partnership with public and private stakeholders is being held.

The initiative which was conceptualized in 2017, is a flagship engagement programme which has over the past 7 years strengthened relations with existing stakeholders and built concrete foundations with newly formed partnerships.

Dukwana was flanked by members of the Executive Council, MEC for DESTEA Thabo Meeko and Finance MEC Gadija Brown, as he addressed the 179 year old financial service provider sat round the table.

In his keynote address Premier Dukwana introduced the Free State as the sleeping giant, one that holds immense potential and needs only to be awakened.

He further emphasized the importance of such discussions and the success thereof only if there is a willingness from all stakeholders from the highest to the lowest ranking.

"For projects of such magnitude, which revolve around the people of our province, the willingness clearly demonstrated by Old Mutual through the success of your various projects is vital, when the ecosystem is in sync it becomes easy to implement," said Dukwana.

The panel discussion anchored around SMMES, their impact on the Gross Domestic Product and how to master this sector.

Meeko said it is a strategic recourse that government becomes the primary market to give support to smmes and invited the private sector to come on board to support smmes.

"Patriotic private sector should work with government strategically to assist in the improvement of the Gross Domestic Product," said Meeko.

The Free State Black Business Chamber COO Lerato Mokhitli said the outcry of small business is for funding models to be "less stringent" and to consider time frames as an alarming number of small business have fallen through the cracks while waiting for the funding process to unfold.

Old Mutual's Masisizane fund CEO Ndumiso Zulu agreed that SMMEs should ensure that business proposals for projects should be recieved as unique and said that the climate of the economy is a huge role player, to which SEDA threw a lifeline and extended a hand to DESTEA and SMMES.

Marketing Manager at SEDA , Thenjiwe Mbashe- Mdluli, invited small business owners to contact any of their five branches for various programmes such as cooperative support, funding and other forms of assistance.