The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) has announced the establishment of a forum, the Black Industrialists Programme, to oversee applications for black industrialists’ funding. This development significantly allays underlying skepticism about the feasibility of the black industrialists’ facilitation enterprise.
Cabinet approval of the Black Industrialists Policy on 4 November 2015 provided the framework for the Black Industrialists Programme. The thrust of the Black Industrialists Programme is achieving industrialisation through economic inclusion.
In a recent brief to Journalists at the Imbizo Centre, Cape Town, Trade and Industry Minister, Robbie Davies, said the forum will be tasked with coordinating applications from aspiring and emerging black industrialists, particularly those that are involved in the manufacturing sector.
“We are asking all parts of government that are responsible for development finance institutions (DFIs) on providing incentive programmes to dedicate a particular section of their activities to support the Black Industrialists Programme.
“We will create a forum of officials responsible for funding decisions in participating DFIs.
“They will be gathered into a forum and that forum will look at applications. Those applications will come in and they will pick the best of those applications to support them according to the mandate of the institution,” he said.
Additionally, the Minister said the forum will play an information sharing and coordinating role, which will include a pre-assessment of the black industrialist applications. However, he clarified that the forum will not be empowered to make the final funding decisions for black industrialists, and said that function will remain with DFIs themselves.
Previous initiatives to empower black enterprises have faltered, reinforcing suggestions that a different approach was needed. And for the Black Industrialists Programme to bear fruit, the general sentiment is that it has to be sustainable.
