Minister Stella Ndabeni: Black Business Annual Summit

Keynote Address by the Minister Stella Tembisa Ndabeni, Black Business Annual Summit, 12 August 2026

Programme Director,
Former President of the Republic of South Africa, H.E Kgalema Motlanthe,
Black Business Council President, Mr Elias Monage,
Leadership of the Black Business Council,
Minister's and Deputy Minister's
Leaders of organised Black business,
Entrepreneurs and business owners,
Representatives of development finance institutions and the banking sector,
Corporate leaders,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Members of the Media,

Good afternoon.

We gather during Women's Month, only days after South Africa commemorated the 70th anniversary of the historic Women's March of 9 August 1956, when more than 20,000 courageous women marched to the Union Buildings against the pass laws. Their struggle represented a demand for dignity, equality and freedom, and seventy years later, our responsibility is to ensure that the political freedoms they fought for are translated into meaningful economic freedom.

For us in the Department of Small Business Development, Women's Month cannot simply be a period of celebration and reflection. It must also be an opportunity to confront the economic inequalities that women continue to experience, particularly in relation to access to finance, technology, markets, and ownership of productive assets.

During the previous financial year, SEDFA directed R1.2 billion towards women-led enterprises through its various blended finance and credit guarantee products. In the current financial year we are expanding this commitment through the R300 million Imbali for Her programme, which is designed to provide affordable finance and business development support to women-owned enterprises.

Our ambition is to see more women participating in the economy not only as employees and consumers, but increasingly as owners, producers, innovators, manufacturers, exporters and employers. This is the kind of economic transformation that gives practical meaning to the struggles of the women who came before us.

Programme Director,

There is no doubt that the question of economic transformation remains the burning issie of the moment.

Transformation cannot simply mean changing the racial composition of employment within existing companies. Or even changing the racial composition of Boards.

Transformation is about changing patterns of ownership, production, investment and control of the economy.

We must continue asking who owns productive assets, who receives finance, who participates in major supply chains, who manufactures locally, who exports South African products and ultimately who creates and retains wealth.

32 Year's into democracy, we need be asking ourselves hard questions about why we have had only limited success in transforming the economy. The BBC is well positioned to lead these debates.

We know that MSMEs and co-operatives are central to achieving the broad-based part of BBBEE. Global experience shows that MSMEs are also the drivers of jobs and innovation. This is recognized in the NDP which suggests that 9 million of the 11 million new jobs we need as a country should come from MSMEs.

Our portfolio has committed to supporting one million MSMEs and co-operatives during the Seventh Administration. We are on track. During the previous financial year alone, 288,123 MSMEs received support across the DSBD portfolio, including 117,134 businesses that received financial support and 170,989 that benefited from various non-financial interventions. Many of these are township- and rural-based enterprises.

However, the success of our interventions cannot be measured simply by the number of businesses supported. As Government, we have become good at counting activity. How many businesses were funded? How many people were trained? How much money was disbursed?

But transforming the economy demands that we measure different indicators. Did the business survive? Did it grow? Did it enter a market? Was it able to sustain this market share? Did it create jobs? Did the entrepreneur become less dependent on government support?

This is the transition we are making as DSBD - from counting interventions to measuring impact. This morning I met with the Deans of Commerce from 20 of our 26 higher education institutions to help us measure impact and provide the evidence-base for the instruments we design.

Leadership of BBC,

Our failure as a country to achieve higher levels of economic equality is not because of the lack of entrepreneurial ambition or capability. In fact, we have higher levels of entrepreneurial confidence than the global average. Everywhere, South Africans are identifying opportunities, creating enterprises, and contributing to local economies across our townships, rural communities, and urban centres.

Yet too many of these enterprises remain small and vulnerable. Our main challenge is not the absence of entrepreneurial potential. It is the concentrated nature of our markets. It is the design of our financial eco-system.

Too many of our entrepreneurs, particularly those operating in start-up, informal, township and rural markets, are unable to access conventional bank finance because they lack a sufficient revenue track record, formal financial statements, credit history or collateral. As a result, they have to rely on personal savings, family support or informal sources of capital. This is inadequate for business expansion, equipment acquisition, working capital, compliance costs, market access and participation in higher-value economic opportunities.

This is why we find black MSMEs more concentrated in the survivalist and lower value sectors of the economy.

Commercial lenders frequently regard black-owned micro enterprises as higher-risk borrowers because they are often unable to provide immovable property or fixed assets as security.

As a result, these MSMEs that could become employers, exporters, and drivers of inclusive growth are often unable to invest in technology, equipment, skills or market expansion.

This is why as the DSBD we are looking at creative ways to accelerate the development of collateral -light lending. Key here is our MSMEs and Co-operatives Funding Policy which among other things pushes for a movable assets collateral registry, which would allow MSMEs to use productive assets such as equipment, machinery, inventory and other movable property as security for finance.

Our MSMEs and Co-operatives also pushed for the establishment of a Fund of Funds, which I know Minister Tau spoke to with the Transformation Fund.

Our failure to disrupt and transform our financial architecture will de facto continue to lock the majority of black entrepreneurs in our townships and rural areas out of the economy. This will keep the country in a low growth trap. The principle cause of our low growth is economic exclusion.

As the DSBD and SEDFA, we have a range of credit guarantees, blended finance, and tailored finance products that target various categories of under-served MSMEs and cooperatives.

We are building on work already done.

Since 2014, we have as the DSBD portfolio disbursed R17.9 billion in funding to 924 566 black-owned MSMEs.

Of this, R7.9 billion went to 653 481 rural-based MSMEs and co-operatives, and R3.1 billion went to 41 118 township -based enterprises.

This afternoon, I have also been asked to focus specifically on the Creative Sector Fund and the broader suite of funding instruments available to MSMEs.

This is one of the many sector funds we are busy setting up. We have realized that we will have more impact if we design our instruments to respond to the needs of MSMEs in specific sectors, taking account of market concentration dynamics and barriers to entry such as industry standards.

South Africa has enormous creative talent across music, film, fashion, design, animation, gaming, digital content, visual arts and many other industries. Yet this talent has not translated into sustainable businesses because of limited access to finance, commercial infrastructure and markets.

Our approach is to create an environment in which creativity can become enterprise, intellectual property can become an economic asset, and creative entrepreneurs can build sustainable companies capable of employing people and competing in local and international markets.

It is within this context that we are soon to launch a dedicated R150 million Creative Sector Fund for implementation during the current financial year.

We want to see South African designers building fashion houses, filmmakers establishing sustainable production companies, musicians creating businesses around the intellectual property they own, and young entrepreneurs in areas such as gaming, animation and digital content developing companies capable of competing globally.

The Creative Sector Fund forms part of a much broader programme of work being implemented by the Department. Our R3.036 billion budget for the 2026/27 financial year is organised around seven strategic priorities, supported by R2.154 billion in transfers and subsidies, of which R1.899 billion is allocated to SEDFA.

Besides the Women's Fund I spoke to earlier, we have also recently launched the R300 million Youth Entrepreneurship Fund. We also have allocated R710 million to the Township and Rural Entrepreneurship Programme, with the maximum funding limit now increased from R1 million to R3 million.

We also have instruments aimed at providing grants for equipment and productive assets. This includes the Asset Assist Programme (which we have allocated R215 million) and the Informal and Micro Enterprise Development Programme which has R53.5 million allocated to support 3,000 micro enterprises.

A further R63.5 million has been allocated towards financial and non-financial support for co-operatives, while R314.3 million has been allocated through the Business Infrastructure Support Programme for interventions such as business hubs, shared infrastructure, machinery, technology and energy solutions.

Our objective is to ensure that entrepreneurship and productive economic activity are not concentrated only in major metropolitan areas. We need thriving businesses in townships, villages, rural communities and small towns across South Africa.

We also have initiatives aimed at reducing red tape and improving the ease of doing business. Here we are creating a one-stop digital platform for business licensing while continuing to review legislation that places unnecessary administrative burdens on MSMEs. An important component of this reform agenda is the Business Licensing Bill, which seeks to modernise and streamline the business licensing regime and create greater consistency across the different spheres of government.

We are also about to announce the new Small Business Ombuds, who, among other things, will be able to tackle the issue of late payment, including by government departments. For a large corporation, delayed payment may create an inconvenience. For a small business, a delayed invoice can threaten the entire operation because that entrepreneur may no longer be able to pay workers, replenish stock, service debt or deliver on another contract.

We also have several initiatives aimed at strengthening market access. This includes placing MSME products on retail shelves and e-commerce platforms, supporting suppliers with domestic contracts and purchase orders, and assisting MSMEs with both domestic and export market readiness. We are especially excited by the opportunities which will come about through the Public Procurement Act and will make sure that the new thresholds we have promulgated through the NSEA are applied to state procurement across government and SOCs.

Our work is closely aligned to broader industrial policy and our policy agenda to support localisation and import-replacement manufacturing.

We cannot talk about economic transformation if we remain primarily a nation that imports and consumes products manufactured elsewhere.

As the DSBD portfolio, we are executing this agenda through directly supporting black -owned MSMEs across sectors such as agro-processing, clothing and textiles, furniture, chemicals, electrical machinery, green technologies and digital manufacturing.

Our objective is to strengthen South Africa's productive base, substitute imports where it makes economic sense, create employment locally and support more South African companies to participate in export markets.

If we are serious about building generational wealth, then ownership of production must form part of the conversation.

Programme Director

As I conclude, I want to make a direct appeal to the leaders of established Black businesses gathered here today.

Government has an important role to play in creating funding instruments, reducing regulatory barriers, developing entrepreneurs and expanding access to markets. However, government cannot transform the economy on its own.

Besides supporting us through policy advocacy on transformation policies which attract opposition from incumbent interests, we also need established Black businesses to deliberately open supply chains to emerging entrepreneurs, provide meaningful supplier-development opportunities, invest in promising enterprises, transfer skills and technology, and pay small suppliers within reasonable timeframes.

Enterprise development must not end with seminars, training sessions and certificates. It must translate into contracts, investment, production, employment and sustainable businesses.

Our goal should be to create an economy in which an informal entrepreneur can become a registered micro enterprise, a micro enterprise can become a successful small business, a small business can grow into a medium-sized enterprise, and that medium-sized enterprise can ultimately become a major Black-owned industrial company operating across South Africa, the continent and the world.

This is how we see entrepreneurs moving from survival to sustainability, from sustainability to scale, and from scale to generational wealth.

That is how we give economic meaning to the freedom fought for by the women of 1956. It is how we advance the objectives of the National Development Plan, and it is how we build a more inclusive, transformed and prosperous South African economy.

I thank you.

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