Today I sat in the Trade and Industry portfolio committee where IDC and NEF presented reports from the 6th term and plans for the new year.
Having interacted with both entities in various capacities: as a previous service provider in enterprise development, as a previous applicant, as a stakeholder leading various business organisations - it was good to be able to engage the presentations on behalf of numerous groups.
The IDC has a long way to go in truly industrialising South Africa, particularly with the broad inclusion of SMESs and Black owned businesses that were previously on the periphery.
My own assessment is that this still remains an entity that benefits the few connected and that is something that needs to change. As a committee, we gave thorough inputs, posed questions on the leadership of the entity, exclusion of future-focused sectors, measurement of outputs, amongst others, which we expect written response and commitment on.
The NEF in my view, is generally performing better. Of importance for me, was their own measurement of performance, grounded not only on the value and number of investments and support, but on employment created and growth of supported businesses, something which I personally will fight to see the Department of Small Business Development report on.
The number of jobs created are nowhere near enough, but it’s important that this is how this is entity measures performance.