SEDA boss takes personal loans to pay staff salaries
21 August 2017
Durban - In a shocking disclosure, the CEO of eThekwini's Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), Protas Madlala, says he was forced to take several personal loans to keep the organisation afloat.
"Yes, it's true. I recently took out a personal loan to ensure staff salaries were paid on time, and then took another loan after our electricity was cut off due to non-payment. The livelihood of 60 small businesses on our premises is also in jeopardy if we don't have electricity, so I had to do something," Madlala told News24.
"We have not received funding for the new year from national coffers, and I could not just expect my staff and those who depend on our services to be left in the lurch. Something had to be done."
The issue, he explained, was the delay in renewing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SEDA nationally, which left the organisation without renewed funding to cover their monthly operational costs.