DA launches campaign to Save Our Small Businesses

24 March 2021

The DA has launched its ‘Save Our Small Businesses Campaign’ through a petition to request that the government support our Ease of Doing Business Private Member’s Bill.

We encourage small business owners and employees to sign the petition in a bid to urge President Cyril Ramaphosa to convince his cabinet to support this crucial Bill which has been tabled in Parliament. This pro-growth, pro-jobs and anti-poor opportunity is critical for the survival of small businesses.

Support the petition here. 

The Ease of Doing Business Private Members Bill will help the government to identify, measure the impact, and rectify regulatory burdens and government failures in the small business environment. It will open a plethora of opportunities for many entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs and increase the freedom to trade in South Africa.

It is an unfortunate fact that the Ramaphosa administration is currently as business-unfriendly as the Zuma administration was, if not more. Only two African economies rank in the top 50 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2020 Report. South Africa ranks 84th out of 190 countries, falling from its 82nd position in the 2019 report. It would not come as a surprise if the South African economy falls even further down the rankings in the 2021 report.

Self-defeating regulations are still inhibiting the economic freedoms of South Africans. The state and its bureaucracy is supposed to protect the business community by leaving them alone to thrive. However, the government continuously adopts regulations that burden entrepreneurs and workers. Whether intentionally or through unintended negligence and ignorance, such regulatory measures restrict the ability of entrepreneurs to grow the economy.

Many business owners opt to go underground to avoid the red tape of onerous and growth-defeating overregulation. Many more have become despondent. In disastrously many cases, they give up, which swells to the ranks of the unemployed.

President Ramaphosa has asked the nation to work together to kick start the economy. The Ease of Doing Business Bill is the DA's commitment to do this for the sake of all South Africans. What is now needed is the President following through on his many promises of pro-growth reform by allowing this bill to become an Act of Parliament so that the country can prosper.

Issued by Henro Kruger,DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, 24 March 2021