Licensing bill to assist with registration of businesses in SA

Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams specking at a government event.

2 minutes

Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni- Abrahams says once the National Business Licensing Bill becomes law, it will provide clarity, consistency and transparency with regards to the licensing of businesses in the country.

The draft law intends to replace the Businesses Act of 1991 with the aim to create a registry of all businesses in South Africa.

Ndabeni-Abrahams says as government, they remain committed to streamlining business licensing to reduce regulatory burden to foster entrepreneurship, innovation, and job creation.

“The regulatory environment needs to be streamlined, and the department has embarked on a Red Tape Reduction Programme to include practical solutions. As a key strategic intervention to support the red tape reduction efforts, the department will ensure that municipalities are assisted with e-registration systems,” she says.

She was giving an update on the outcomes of the registration process by owners of spaza shops and food handling outlets during a media briefing in Pretoria earlier.

Ndabeni-Abrahams says spaza shops owners that applied, but are not yet compliant, will over the next 6-months be assisted to register and be compliant.

She says they visited 135 Registration Centres during the registration process to get first-hand experience of the challenges on the ground.

She says they found that only 60 of the 257 municipalities had a digitised registration process.

“We have agreed that there is a need to reinforce human capital at a local level because some of the challenges that we find ourselves in are because some legislations were passed to the local sphere without providing the necessary support. Hence from our side, we said we are going to contract 63 people that will act as business regulation officers that will assist district municipalities with the work that we are talking about,” she adds.