By Nontokozo Gemani
- Kwa-Thema catering entrepreneur Lerato Mokoena says she has applied for business funding multiple times and has never received a response.
- A 2025 national report found two in three small business funding applications in South Africa are rejected or go unfunded.
Lerato Mokoena started a catering business in Kwa-Thema after sending out CVs that went nowhere. Now she goes to business events and fills in funding applications that also go nowhere.
“You spend days working on proposals and collecting documents, but nothing comes back,” she said.
She is not alone. Two in three small business funding applications in South Africa are rejected or never funded at all.
Most of those applications come from small, informal businesses – exactly the kind that roadshows like the Township and Rural Business Development event in Kwa-Thema are meant to help.
Government has put money aside for township businesses. A programme called TREP has received hundreds of millions of rands since it launched in 2020. By early 2022, over R700-million had been paid out. Another R344-million was set aside in a later budget.
But the money is not reaching everyone. The government’s own records show that most people who get turned down are missing paperwork – business registration documents, tax clearance, bank statements that match the business.
Parliament was told last year that financial barriers in the programme remain a problem.
Mokoena put it plainly. “We don’t need more motivation, we need real funding that reaches small businesses,” she said.
Skincare entrepreneur Ayanda Ndlovu said the ideas are there, but not the money to act on them.
“You need money for stock, branding and marketing. It becomes hard to compete with bigger businesses when you are using your own savings,” she said.
Streetwear entrepreneur Sibusiso Dlamini said many young people started their own businesses because jobs were not there.
“You work hard every day, but without funding it becomes difficult to grow,” he said.
The Kwa-Thema roadshow brought together entrepreneurs, government representatives and business organisations. Many who attended said the real question is not what happens at the event, but what happens after it.
Pictured above: Entrepreneurs at the Township and Rural Business Development roadshow in Kwa-Thema.
Image source: Supplied
