Question NW1775 to the Minister of Small Business Development

Reply:

(a)&(b) The collaboration between the Seda and sefa has also improved to the benefit of SMMEs and Co-operatives. One of the initiatives that was undertaken is the development of a common funding template. The funding template provides guidelines to Seda officials when developing business plans that are aimed at raising funding through sefa. In addition to this initiative, there is a Steering Committee that has been established at the national level to guide provinces in respect of areas of collaboration. Seda officials in all provinces were also trained on sefa’s programmes as well as the automated loan origination system.

In the short term, there are concerted efforts to strengthen and streamline collaboration and communications between the DSBD entities (sefa and Seda) with regards to their products, services and especially progress feedback on applications. To this end, the entities identified the following key focus areas of engagement to ensure improved service delivery to our clients:

• The sharing of databases by the entities in order to improve service offerings and efficiencies.
• Pre-investment support to be provided by Seda after sefa has reviewed an application and indicates what Seda needs to assist the client with.
• The sharing of processes, which will be arranged with the Seda provincial network through virtual sessions.
• Amendment of the referral process to focus on process and supported related issues.
• Exposure of Seda Practitioners to sefa processes to gain a better understanding of the entities’ evaluation processes.
• The training of Seda Business Advisors on sefa’s due diligence.
• sefa will also train Seda’s Access Points Service Providers on sefa’s products and application processes, especially in those areas where sefa never receives applications.
• Proper functioning referral system between the two entities.
• sefa to link its pre-invest staff to the various Seda branches.
• Seda will also provide post-investment support. sefa will still provide post-investment monitoring, as required of them as a Development Finance Institution (DFI).

In some of the provinces, sefa’s Investment Analysts are already linked to Seda branches and sefa’s Regional Managers meet with the relevant Seda Branch Managers and Practitioners to discuss sefa referrals. These engagements are very important, and the entities are working on standardizing it in all Provinces.