Wild Coast Sun is helping drive development of small and medium businesses in the Eastern Cape

The Wild Coast Sun is helping drive development of the small, medium and micro enterprises sector in the Eastern Cape, understanding that this sector is key to sustainable and shared economic growth in the region.

The Wild Coast Sun recently hosted a two-day SMME Business and Networking Conference to help educate and assist SMMEs with information related to procurement opportunities, available training and funding.

Among the key government entities, which participated in the conference, was the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), the Eastern Cape Department of Economic Developmental Affairs and Tourism (DETEAT), the Eastern Cape Gambling Board, the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Local Municipality and the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA), as well as several SMME financing houses.

Over 150 people attended the conference which held under tight Covid-19 health and safety protocols. It was agreed that a follow-up conference would be held in the second half of the year with a view to broadening the reach among local SMMEs and assess progress post the last conference.

Wild Coast Sun General Manager Peter Tshidi said the conference was an important event to help provide essential information to SMMEs, particularly around doing business with Wild Coast Sun, available government funding, as well as to offer an opportunity to network.

“These are important stepping-stones to help grow the SMME sector through ongoing support and knowledge sharing,” Tshidi said.

Besides playing conference host, Wild Coast Sun is determined to play its own part in developing the SMME sector through its enterprise supply chain development processes Tshidi added.

“At the Wild Coast Sun, we aim to facilitate the development and sustainability of micro, small and medium enterprises so as to contribute to job creation, local economic development and transformation in the area.”

Tshidi said the resort would do this by offering a number of interventions that will “provide hands-on, step-by-step support development and guidance to SMMEs and by providing small businesses equal opportunities to do business with the Wild Coast Sun” as part of a long-term vision.

The Wild Coast Sun’s Enterprise Development Programme has capacitated seven local SMMEs, which in turn have employed a total of 42 people.

The resort has also outlined its vision to achieve 90% procurement of all goods and services from BBBEE level 1 suppliers within the next five years.

“We also aim to procure 65% of goods and services from local Previously Disadvantaged Individuals (PDI) entrepreneurs and suppliers by Year 4,” Tshidi said. “We will also develop local PDI suppliers that can adequately supply us according to our requirements.

“We are hands-on and passionate in our commitment to community empowerment, to job creation, employment equity, training, and socio-economic development,” Tshidi said.

The Wild Coast Sun recently aided a local farming initiative to become fully self-sustaining, to the point where it now supplies the resort as well as local markets with fresh produce.

The Wild Coast provided Queens Greens with a borehole set-up including a pump, as well as an irrigation system. The resort also provided equipment to work the fields, including wheelbarrows, spades, forks and hoes, as well as seedlings and fertilizer, in total amounting to more than R130,000. Tshidi said the donations built on previous projects developed for Queens Greens.

“We have been able to move them from subsistence farming to being fully self-sustaining,” Tshidi said.

“This allowed them to supply local markets and stores, as well as the community, with vegetables and Queens Greens is now one of our key suppliers.

Meanwhile, the resorts in-house Skills Development Plan will ensure that 90% of all training interventions will benefit previously disadvantaged employees.

“The same philosophy will inform the identification of PDI employees to attend supervisory and management development programmes,” Tshidi added.

“The last three years, we have developed 123 unemployed locals through our learnership development programme.”

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