Less than 25% of all municipalities able to process spaza shop registrations digitally

Spaza shop owners will receive a wide range of institutional support following their successful registrations.  

Minister of Small Business Development Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams on Sunday outlined the intervention programmes entrepreneurs will have access to via a R500 million allocation from two departments.

However, the full numbers around spaza shop registrations are not yet ready, and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) will present those figures in roughly two weeks.

Only 60 municipalities digitally ready

Slowing the progress of processing spaza shop registrations across the county was a lack of digital infrastructure.

Ndabeni-Abrahams stated that only 60 of the 257 municipalities in the country had access to digital business registration systems, with the rest filing thousands of applications manually.

Because of this, the minister said that business owners who have submitted their registration documentation, but have not been notified of the outcome, would not be penalised.

“It is not the fault of the business owners; it is government’s responsibility to smoothen the process,” said Ndabeni-Abrahams.

As for the possibility of another extension, Ndabeni Abrahams said government would assess the data in the coming weeks before making a decision.  

R500 million spaza shop fund

The minister also announced the details of “business support interventions that are meant to support or assist South African owned spaza shops with both financial and non-financial needs”.

These measures will be funded via a R500 million allocation consisting R150 million from the small business development department and R350 million from the trade industry and competition department.

The support will augment existing training programmes focused on legislative awareness, inventory management and the supply and assistance with point-of-sale systems.

WATCH: Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams outlines purpose of R500 spaza shop fund

Crucially, the fund will assist with credit guarantees, where the department will offer surety for debt incurred by spaza shop owners.

“We’ll offer to banks a credit guarantee so that they can be able to lend to township and rural enterprises that they always claim… pose a high risk to their business,” Ndabeni-Abrahams said.  

The Gauteng provincial government acknowledged that compliance was financially unobtainable by some, something the minister provided a solution for.

“We understand the difficulties and costs that are associated with becoming compliant and this is why we have committed that over the next six months, we will be supporting those spaza shops who applied but are not yet compliant,” Ndabeni-Abrahams said.

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