Business Skills for South Africa

Accountants, bookkeepers, business advisers and similar service providers to SMMEs — you now have an opportunity to earn additional income.

The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) has recently introduced revised guidelines for network facilitators for its Black Business Supplier Development Programme (BBSDP). These entail having a structured training programme to enable network facilitators to use a diagnostic tool for the identification of interventions that will contribute towards the effectiveness of an enterprise. For more details keep a lookout for press releases in the near future, and check the dti website.

The BBSDP was introduced in 2002 to address the constraints that many black-owned small enterprises faced in participating in the mainstream economy. The programme started as a pilot project under the auspices of the World Bank and was taken over by the dti after its inception.

The BBSDP provides a matching grant to enterprises to assist them in improving their competitiveness, through for instance upgrading managerial capabilities, market development and quality improvement projects.

In an effort to broaden participation from all provinces, favourable attention will be given to applications from the Northern Cape, the Free State, the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the North West and KwaZulu-Natal.

Service providers interested in becoming network facilitators in the BBSDP programme should form a group, which the dti will then address at a central point in each province. The first of these briefing sessions will be held at the Seda offices in Mangaung in the Free State on 5 August 2011.

If you would like to be considered as a facilitator, contact Kgolane Thulare at the dti at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or:

• Clifford Mokhuane (Free State) at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Pakamile Siyo (Eastern Cape) at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Johan Potgieter (Mpumalanga) at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Read the remarkable success story of one of the dti’s BBSDP network facilitators here.