Young business owners in Khayelitsha say crime and costs are killing their dreams

Youth attending a roundtable event in Khayelitsha on Tuesday, told the deputy president and the minister in the presidency for women and people with disabilities about the barriers they face in making a living. A lack of access to capital to start and maintain a business, the prevalence of extortion rings in the township and the high cost of data to access information for funding and job opportunities limits their growth, they said. Organised by the National Youth Developmeny Agency (NYDA), the roundtable saw young people from different youth employment organisations engaging government officials ahead of the state of the nation address on Thursday this week.

The NYDA was hosting the event to influence the state of the nation address, according to its chairperson, Dr Sunshine Myende. “We want the president to speak directly to issues that affect us as young people. We are calling for this year to be pronounced the year of the youth. We are calling for that because youth unemployment is very high and it is giving us sleepless nights as young people.

“Young people are not included in mining and energy entrepreneurship as young people. We are given crumbs from the bread whilst we deserve the actual bread,” he said.

A baker and NYDA beneficiary in Mfuleni township told Deputy President, Paul Mashatile, that she struggles with electricity and delivery. Viwe Phutuma owns and runs SV Bakery and employs six people. “I have a challenge with electricity as we use it a lot and I cannot afford it. I was using my car to deliver bread but it has broken down due to overloading. I have as a result lost a client, Spar supermarket in Harare, because I can no longer deliver bread to them and they cannot pick the bread up themselves,” she said.

With the help of the NYDA, Phutuma was able to buy more machinery to expand her business. “The money I had after selling my house in the Eastern Cape was not enough for me to run the operation, but after my application to the NYDA was approved, I was able to buy more equipment. I used to bake up to 40 loaves of bread a day, but now with the help of the NYDA I bake up to 500 loaves a day,” she said.

Another beneficiary, Kagiso Nyakale runs a motorbike courier services in Delmas in Mpumalanga. “I got funding for one motorbike from NYDA and my business was able to attract private funders and now I have 10 motorbikes. We operate like Takealot, Uber Eats or Mr Delivery but the only difference is that we deliver anything that fits into the box,” he said.

‘They want R1 per loaf’

According to Thokozile Qalanto from the Khayelitsha Business Forum, businesses that have had their spaza shop funding applications approved by the Department of Small Business Development have been intimidated by extortion rackets that operate in the area. “There are only five businesses that have applied to the spaza shop programme during my tenure but they have not implemented [their plans] because they are scared of the extortionists. Our leaders do not take the issue of extortion seriously because the development leaders are part of the extortion. The extortion cartels and ring leaders operate from, and are from, Khayelitsha,” she said.

Phutuma said that her business has not been spared from extortionists. “Recently, they came to me and said that they need R1 for every loaf of bread that I sell. I told them that I do not have money to pay them and they said they would be back,” she said.

Deputy President Mashatile responded that there is a need to strengthen the community police forums and bring back street committees as the police alone do not have the capacity to fight crime. “The communities know the extortionists so they need to work with the police by reporting them,” he said

Foreign nationals are seen as competitors

“The business that I am in is dominated by people from outside even though we are supposed to be the ones doing it,” Nyakale said. According to GroundUp, the most of the last-mile delivery motorbike riders are immigrants.

“The problem that we have here is that the Department of Small Business is not here today. They have the spaza shop programme that is worth millions. The government is motivating young people to apply so that we can take the spaza shop business, that was created by our parents, back from foreigners,” said Qalanto to loud applause.

Elethu Matwa complained that the time that they are allocated to browse the internet to look for jobs and funding opportunities at local libraries is not enough. “You are only allocated 30 minutes to access the internet and if your allocated time lapses you are not given another opportunity even if there are no other people queuing to use the computer,” he said.

Myende said that the NYDA is calling for the government to ensure that websites offering job and funding opportunities available to young people are zero-rated, meaning that no mobile data is needed to access them.