The Minister of Small Business Development Stella Ndabeni says the department has provided financial support of about R79.6 million to various spaza shops owners around the country.

The minister says this is done in conjunction with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, as part of assisting business cooperatives nationwide.

Ndabeni was tabling the department’s budget of more than R3 billion.

“Our Spaza Shop Fund which we implement together with DTIC supports spaza shops with stalks acquisition, formalisation compliance and operational sustainability. To date we have supported 1 316  to the fund value of R79.6 million. This year we will exhaust the budget, the balance of R70.4 (m) as we had allocated R150 million to this and R350 million is with the DTIC, not small business development. We continue to provide financial and non-financial support to cooperatives with a target of supporting 50 co-operatives this financial year.”

Ndabeni also announced that government has developed a township and rural economic development as well as revatilisation policy. This is to support local entrepreneurs as part of reducing business competition between businesses owned by illegal foreign nationals and domestic owned businesses.

The Minister says the aim this year is to increase financial support given to Small and Medium Enterprises..

“Entrepreneurs continue to play a critical role in South Africa’s townships and rural areas despite the many constraints they are facing including access to finance, security concerns and the lack of business infrastructure. There is competition from the illegal foreign owned businesses and large retailers and supermarket encroaching on local markets. To support them, we have developed the township and rural economic development and revatilisation policy. We will be scaling our offerings as the portfolio for trap building on the successes we have made in 2025/26 where we disbursed more than R8,29 million to over 111 smes for trap.”

Minister Stella Tembisa Ndabeni delivered the Department of Small Business Development’s 2026/27 Budget Vote, tabling a R3.036 billion budget focused on advancing economic transformation through small enterprise development.

The Budget prioritises reducing red tape, expanding… pic.twitter.com/HnIvW6SmVx

— Department of Small Business Development (@DSBD_SA) May 19, 2026

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