In a recent one-on-one interview with the FSBBC’s Entrepreneurs Learning Lab, newly- appointed CEO of the Free State Development Corporation (FDC), Thabo Lebelo, outlined a number of coalface interventions designed to spur economic growth in the province and bring about real progress in economic activity at the SMME level.
Speaking to Lucky Motsamai CEO of the FSBBC, Mr Lebelo said that his vision included a new approach to collaborative efforts and value chain transformation that would transcend the old way of doing things by the FDC; an approach that did not necessarily always work in the past. These interventions include a new mind-set he is inculcating among FDC team members, along with a renewed focus on why the FDC exists.
“One of the sole reasons the FDC exists is to facilitate the development of SMMEs and provide assistance with set-up, investment and export promotion, as well as financing,” said Mr Lebelo, while acknowledging that the FDC faced issues with limited resources in terms of financing facilities for SMMEs.
“The FDC was well-funded and well-supported in the past, and while we now have limited resources to lend, our current strength lies in the power we can bring to bear to enable dialogue between SMMEs, entrepreneurs, local businesses and larger enterprises and provide them with rights to access these markets.”
Mr Lebelo said that the FDC had other resources in could also bring to bear to facilitate growth and opportunities for SMMEs, like property assets and unused commercial space, that could be used by emerging businesses in an effort to assist them in developing their business in a multi-pronged approach to pursuing all avenues of assistance.”
Mr Lebelo’s key message to his staff at the FDC was to target a number of key business activities, like identifying the top ten goods consumed in the province and see how the FDC could create real and meaningful impact by identifying and facilitating opportunities within those manufacturing chains for local, black businesses. This approach would see the FDC plugging companies it was supporting directly into the supply chain to see immediate, real and measurable economic growth.
Mr Lebelo said that he believed the old BBBEE approach did not work, where black-empowerment initiatives at shareholder level rarely saw pull-through at the ‘coalface’ where, he believes, the real economic activity takes place.
‘We need to relook doing things in a new collaborative way where, going forward we prioritise participation by black people at asset level. This is where most business activity takes place and where ‘coalface intervention’ will be most successful. These collaborative efforts rely upon drawing on the FDC’s strengths as facilitators, in collaboration with the financial resources and expertise the private sector can contribute.”
“I tell my staff all the time: As long as we are alleviating the entrepreneurial challenges of poverty, inequality and joblessness, we will have done well as the FDC,” he said.
Mr Lebelo also alluded to developments at the Free State SEZ (Special Economic Zone) that had experienced some governance issues it had to overcome and that were being resolved. This SEZ, Mr. Lebelo said, would in the future be a great economic enabler for entrepreneurs and SMMEs.
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