Cape Town – The plight facing small, medium and micro enterprises took centre stage as President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his State Of The Nation (Sona) speech in Cape Town on Thursday night. In what could be described as a much needed lifeline for small businesses, Ramaphosa said government will soon announce a new loan scheme to assist small enterprises hurt by COVID-19 and July 2021 unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
A new, redesigned loan guarantee scheme is being introduced to enable small businesses to bounce back from the pandemic and civic unrest. “This new bounce-back scheme incorporates the lessons from the previous loan guarantee scheme,” he said.
In 2020, Ramaphosa as part of the R500 billion stimulus package he announced in response to COVID-19 said the National Treasury provided a guarantee of R100 billion to the loan scheme, with the option to increase the guarantee to R200 billion if necessary, if the scheme was deemed successful. However, less than 20% of the R100 billion was disbursed to small businesses after banks put strict qualifying criteria.
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