By: Zethu Gweva
Small businesses took a hard knock with the 21-day national lockdown putting all business operations on hold.
Ayabulela Mabinda, 28, from King William’s Town who owns the Black Race Sneaker Wash company said the lockdown has affected his business negatively as the business is faced with a financial crisis.
“Our business pays its bills from daily income. We have recently employed two part-time workers because of the growth and the demand of our business,” he said.
Mabinda added that the recently employed part-time workers went to work twice a week.
“We were forced to put them on unpaid leave as we depend on a day to day profit to cover their pay,” he said.
The national lockdown according to Mabinda is hindering the growth of his business.
“We have a lot of clients requesting our services, new and old clients. But it is not possible for us to meet the demand because we use public transport and work to closer places which are currently prohibited by the government,” he said.
In addition, Mabinda expressed that they have recently introduced delivery scooters but due to the pandemic they can not operate.
“The Coronavirus outbreak we are faced with and the possible extension could harm the business terribly. We pray that our businesses will recover from this difficulty,” said Mabinda.
Another small business owner Thembelihle Mpapa, 29, who makes floor rugs out of animal skin said the lockdown is a major setback seeing that tourists are not allowed into the country.
“Tourists are not allowed into the country to come and hunt so that the skins are made available to us and that is a major setback for us and hunting season is not opened,” he said.
Mpapa had plans to sell his product online and part of registering as a supplier, he had to submit his tax clearance certificate and business registration certification and one of his certificates have expired and he cannot go to SARS and renew it due to the nationwide lockdown.
“I cannot submit something that has expired and I cannot completely register as a supplier with incomplete documents,” he said.
According to Thozamile Landingwe, Dimbaza businessman that manufactures sugar-free homemade tomato jam for people living with Diabetes, the lockdown has put his entire business operations on hold as he cannot continue with funding applications.
“There are forms we were supposed to receive in the month of April to proceed with the funding applications but we can not continue. We should be allowed to travel around and have meetings at this time of the viruses,” he said.
He added that he cannot promote his product at supermarkets or can he store his products on the shelves.
Landingwe expressed that he can’t get his packaging, raw and labelling material which means he won’t reach his target market.
“I am not getting any orders, no work is being done. I can’t generate any money to buy material. At the moment I do not have any source of income, I am just sitting,” he said.