NYDA sets up relief fund to assist youth-owned enterprises

The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) has launched the Youth Micro Enterprises Relief Fund (YMERF) aimed at assisting youth-owned enterprises, which might not qualify for other funds.

“This fund will respond to challenges facing youth-owned businesses, such as the inability to pay employees, lack of income and waiting periods for other funding mechanisms.

“Funding will be capped at R10,000 for every qualifying business. More details about the NYDA Youth Micro Enterprise Relief Fund are available on www.nyda.gov.za and on all NYDA social media platforms,” the agency said on Monday.

Government has introduced several interventions aimed at assisting businesses during the Covid-19 lockdown period, including the Debt Relief Fund and the SMME Support Intervention by the department of small business development.

NYDA chairperson Sifiso Mtsweni has called on all stakeholders to work together during this period and for youth to make use of the fund.

“The efforts by government to this end are indeed commendable, and require all stakeholders in youth development to cooperate and mitigate against the negative economic impact resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mtsweni.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) called on the minister of small business development, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, to facilitate additional support and funding for self-employed individuals, micro-retailers, and informal traders.

DA MP Zakhele Mbhele said in a statement on Monday: “Government continues to sit on their hands as these businesses buckle under the pressure of the Covid-19 lockdown regulations.

“Self-employed individuals and informal traders are still left in the lurch with little to no assistance from the department of small business development since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown.”

Mbhele said there were an estimated amount of 3 million informal traders in South Africa, whose entire livelihoods had grounded to a halt with no support to keep them afloat.

He said the department had proven to be weak in its attempts to provide emergency relief to businesses.

“Even small business owners, who the department has supposedly been assisting, find themselves desperately trying to access funding and are not getting clear answers from government as to how they can get assistance,” the mp said.

Mbhele said the DA calls on Ntshavheni to inform and update the public on the progress thus far with her department’s relief assistance interventions to small businesses.

“With the nationwide hard lockdown having been extended to the end of April, it is unavoidable that the country is poised to experience an economic massacre on the small business landscape.

“Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have had it tough in South Africa for many years now and struggling to stay afloat.

“If they weren’t suffocating in a stagnant economic climate, they were being strangled by cost increases, on their knees under the weight of red tape, and being in kicked in the gut by rolling blackouts,” he said.

Mbhele added that for many SMEs without adequate cash reserves or some kind of business insurance, the lockdown will deliver the final “deathblow”, putting an estimated 1.5 million jobs at risk.

“All of those employers and employees are deeply anxious and panic-stricken about their circumstances and future, so Minister Ntshavheni needs to play open cards with the public about how far the SEFA-administered Debt Relief Scheme is with receipt and finalisation of applications, disbursement of funds and reasons for delays or bottlenecks in the process,” he said.

Mbhele said the DA would also submit parliamentary questions to Ntshavheni to solicit the information and also urged her to present the questions to the Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development at its first virtual meeting.

He said the party also welcomed the announcement of the guidelines for the Spaza Shops and General Dealers Support Scheme on Sunday.

“As a project with Nedbank on the back of SEFA’s Khula Credit Guarantee Scheme, it is precisely the kind of public-partnership we have previously called on the minister and her department to facilitate,” Mbhele concluded.

(Compiled by Molefe Seeletsa)

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