Covid-19: Small businesses feel the pinch

MANY businesses around the country have started to feel the pinch of the coronavirus pandemic and Berea is no exception.

A walk around the streets in the precinct resembles a ghost town with empty chairs at restaurants, some businesses not letting in customers and others having completely shut down indefinitely.

With President Cyril Ramaphosa having announced that the country will be on a 21-day lockdown commencing on Friday, small business owners are heading for an uncertain future.

One business facing uncertainty is T&T Cleaning Services, which provides cleaning services for holiday homes and commercial properties. Francois Opperman, co-owner of the business said with no one taking holidays they had lost their main source of income.

“It’s been very hard on our business and our employees. We are doing one client every now and then whereas before we used to do about 10. After Thursday there will be no work for us and we are trying to negotiate with the UIF and figure out a way to pay our employees,” he said.

The business currently employs seven employees and will be one of many small businesses in the country looking to gain temporary relief from the Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises fund which was announced by the president on Tuesday.

The fund is established to assist small businesses directly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic with labour and operational costs.

“It has been a complete disaster,” said Lucy Markewicz, owner of Renegade Kitchen, an event and catering business.

“All of our planned events have either been cancelled or postponed. We have no work. Weddings and birthday parties have been postponed and all corporate and fashion events have been cancelled,” she said.

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Like most owners, Markewicz is facing a dilemma of having staff sitting at home doing nothing because there is no work and whether or not to pay them.

“I have an ethical obligation to my staff and a personal one to my family. My staff is my family and right now we are faced with a dilemma of how far you go to protect your staff, how you can help them provide for their families,” she said.

While Markewicz has praised the government’s response to the pandemic, she was a bit sceptical of whether she would qualify, as a white person, for the SMME fund.

On the SMME Fund website, owners are asked about their BEE status and how many black employees they employ.

Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, Minister of Small Business Development, said the fund would not be race-based and that all small businesses would qualify regardless of their BEE status and employment make-up.

Some business owners, like Lauren Sontaine of Stella restaurant, have adapted their businesses to cope with current times.

Stella now does home deliveries to Glenwood residents who still want food but are scared to leave their homes.

“The delivery system has been fairly good and well received by the community,” she said. “It was basically an idea to help our community, since people were not going out we were going to deliver the food to them.”

Small businesses can register for the government relief programme on: https://smmesa.gov.za/

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