The Small Business Innovation Fund (SBIF), which was launched by Small Business Development Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni in November last year, had only reached 50% of its target by the deadline of end-December 2019, according to the Democratic Alliance (DA).
The information was revealed in response to a DA parliamentary question.
The DA says it will request that the Minister appear before Parliament’s Small Business Development Portfolio Committee in this regard.
Minister Ntshavheni previously announced that the SBIF would aim to promote and facilitate funding of entrepreneurship and innovation in key industry sectors, targeting under-serviced small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) in the early stages of the business development cycle for ideation, proof of concept, early stage market entry and business scale-up.
“At the time she said that the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) had started approving applications for funding and that its target was to approve R450 million from the SBIF by the end of December 2019. However, the Minister said that total SBIF approvals by December 2019 stood at R225 million,” according to the DA.
