Premier Alan Winde and Provincial minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger, recently toured the Arendsness Trading Hub in Wellington, which is equipped to support Small, Medium, and Micro-Enterprise (SMME) businesses during load-shedding.
The Arendsness Trading Hub, one of twelve strategically positioned across the province, serves as a lifeline for local businesses when Eskom imposes power outages. Premier Winde highlighted the pivotal role of SMMEs in propelling economic growth and creating jobs.
"One way in which we enabling job creation is by supporting small businesses with energy solutions like the Alternative Energy Support Programme. Many SMMEs, particularly in the informal and township economies, do not have the resources to buffer the impact of load shedding, and so we must find ways to assist. I am delighted to see our interventions helping small businesses realise their full potential.”
SMMEs are the backbone of the economy of the Western Cape economy and more so in areas outside of the metro, creating up to 70% of the jobs in South Africa, added minister Wenger.
Acknowledging the vulnerability of SMMEs to energy instability, premier Winde highlighted initiatives like the Alternative Energy Support Programme.
This programme aims to equip businesses, particularly those in informal and township economies, with sustainable energy solutions to mitigate the adverse effects of load shedding.
Through the Department of Economic Development and Tourism’s (DEDAT) Alternative Energy Support Programme, Wenger said that the local government allocated R12.5 million in the 2023/24 financial year to install Solar PV backup systems at trading hubs where small businesses operate, to make sure that they can stay open and keep doing business, especially when national loadshedding hits.
"We are assisting at least 50 businesses to stay open, and keep trading, sustaining more than 100 jobs, despite power outages."
The Alternative Energy Support Programme has installed 12 Solar Backup systems at 12 municipal SMME trading hubs in 7 municipalities, which include:
Drakenstein
Stellenbosch
Cape Aghulhas
Theewaterskloof
Laingsburg
Oudtshoorn
Mossel Bay
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“At the heart of our economic action plan, Growth For Jobs, is the understanding that it is the private sector, and particularly, SMMEs, that create jobs. Guided by G4J we are on a mission to achieve a trillion-rand jobs-rich, inclusive, sustainable, diverse, and resilient provincial economy, that is growing at between 4% and 6% per year in real terms by 2035 thus enabling the creation of between 600 000 and 1 million new jobs.
"Helping SMMEs to stay open is one of the ways that we are supporting and enabling the growth of SMMEs, as key drivers of jobs creation,” said Wenger.
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