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No. 37261
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 24 JANUARY 2014
broad industry make-up in terms its ownership, decision-making, business practices, staffing
and products, and the society within which it operates.
Statistics SA shows that employment of previously disadvantaged persons in the ICT
occupations has progressed relative to the period before 1994. With the exception of Postal,
the broader ICT sector represents ownership by historically disadvantaged groups (black,
women, youth and people with disabilities) as required by the ECA. The ICT Charter Code
has been finalised, although the ICT Council, intended to oversee implementation and
measure progress, has yet to be set up. Government has committed to set aside finance to
support the Broad-Based BEE process and has revised the mandate of the National
Empowerment Fund (NEF) to ensure the effective and efficient utilisation of resources.
The SANEF 2013 Report on Media Transformation found that the print and digital media had
failed to sufficiently transform in terms of ownership, management control, skills
development and employment equity, especially with regard to women and the disabled. The
industry achieved more in areas such as socio-economic development, preferential
procurement, and in certain cases, enterprise development.
Approach to Foreign Direct Investment as a Balancing Act
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an important channel for obtaining access not only to
much-needed investment, but also for the development of technology and skills. In a country
such as South Africa, with high levels of economic inequality, poverty and skewed skills sets,
FDI is critical, even more so because of limited capital in the domestic markets. Although
foreign companies have been part of South Africa over the years, they have largely been
concentrated in extractive industries such as mining.
In the ICT sector, the approach to FDI has largely been a balancing act, navigating through
pressures of modernising and growing the economy on the one hand, and transforming the
apartheid economy on the other. BEE has to be advanced amid the limited capital on the
domestic market.
10.5 ICT SMMEs
Public sector support initiatives that have been put in place to support SMMEs in general
include:
Easing the regulatory and compliance burden on small enterprises through reduction
of tax compliance burdens for small enterprises,
Access to finance through the establishment of financial products and services,
comprising loans and incentive grants that play an important role in enabling access
to finance for small enterprises;
Business development services;
Youth enterprise development through the National Youth Development Agency
(NYDA) Fund;
Support for women-owned enterprises; and
Incubation and technology acquisition and transfer services, as well as skills
development measures. As part of their sectoral skills-development mandates,
various sector education and training authorities (SETAs) have developed and are
implementing small business skills-development programmes.
In addition to the above, various other private sector, NGOs, and tertiary education initiatives
exist to support SMMEs.It is estimated that SMMEs account for up to 99,3% of the privately
owned enterprises in South Africa. According to Statistics SA, there are 428 540 formal and
economically active SMMEs in the country. Of the total formal sector SMMEs, only 6 737 are
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