Offiials from Ntinga OR Tambo Development Agency partnered with Standard Bank to support small farmers specialising in piggery and vegetables.
These partners visited different local municipalities under the OR Tambo District Municipality, where they educated these farmers about the help they could offer in order to support their businesses, last week.
One of the local municipalities they visited was the Nyandeni Local Municipality (Libode and Ngqeleni).
According to the manager for the Project Management Office in Ntinga OR Tambo Development Agency, Zandisile Kanise, they had visited farmers from Libode to inform them about the relationship they created with Standard Bank.
“We agreed with this bank to assist the Small Medium & Micro Enterprises (SMME’s), all those who are still new in business who are specialising in piggery and ploughing vegetables. We started this partnership because Standard Bank informed us that it has Social Corporate Responsibility Programmes, and also a programme where it assists sector government and other sectors,” said Kanise.
He said that they were also visited by officials from this bank to tell them about this programme; they (Ntinga) told them about the challenges facing SMMEs, including those who are specialising in piggery and ploughing vegetables.
Kanise said that the officials from this bank promised to speak with their top management about this. They then came back informing them that they could offer a loan that will not have an interest that will help the small farmers who want to produce vegetables and run piggeries.
“They said that the loan will be a maximum of R50 000, but it is not a must that the farmer can start in that amount. He or she can take a lesser amount, and develop the business.”
Bongani Lukhele, Standard Bank Enterprise Development manager, said that the reason they had gathered in Libode was that they wanted to talk to the SMMEs about the partnership they had started with Ntinga.
He said that they wanted to ensure that they assist SMMEs to grow their businesses by partnering.
“We want to ensure that these SMMEs have access to finance, because for most of them their first challenge, most of the time, is finance. Now this relationship we see as a vehicle to make sure that as the mandate of the bank we grow small businesses to be sustainable,” said Lukhele.
He confirmed that they do partnerships like this one in other provinces, where they partner with provincial government and also with the Local Economic Development (LED) departments within the departments, due to their mandate of looking after the SMMES in their regions.
Lukhele confirmed that procedures to be followed when applying will be communicated through SMS, and they will also get more information at the Ntinga OR Tambo Development Agency.
One of the young farmers, from Green-Vines Agricultural Co-operative, Neziswa Mlenzana, said that she feels that this initiative will assist them because they always struggle with start-up capital and working capital.
“The opportunity that we are given now will make us go forward with our businesses. I am very excited about the fact that they will also be trained in Agro processing. I am already ploughing, so it is not something that I will start from afresh,” said Mlenzana.
She said that she does have a market where she sells her vegetables, but she wants to take it a step further and process them.
She said that they will help them in different categories, because there is a lot that someone has to learn when it comes to processing.
