Basic business skills are being taught to informal traders, equipping them with the means to grow their businesses.

Informal traders on their graduation day at Wits

MORE than a thousand informal traders have completed a business course being run as part of the City of Johannesburg's Grow your Business skills development programme. In all, 1 500 informal traders, including street vendors, have signed up for the 14-week business course, held at the University of the Witwatersrand.

The project, now in its third year, is aimed at providing informal traders with basic business skills such as drawing up a business plan, marketing, financial management and sourcing finance, says Xolani Nxumalo, a project consultant in the City's department of economic development.

This year, more than 500 informal traders enrolled for the course, which started in February and ended in June. It runs over 14 training sessions, with one facilitator teaching 20 participants on the weekends. "Every beneficiary attended one formal training session a week," says Johan Swanepoel, the short course manager at Wits Enterprise.

Basics of small business management were taught, including pricing, budgeting and basic financial management, networking, metro legislative imperatives and growing a business. "The programme has been taken to a new level with the wholesale and retail seta coming on board to provide follow-up mentorship programmes for people who have excelled on the course."

Academics mentored the participants, visiting their businesses at least once.

Application forms
Course application forms were handed out to informal traders by the department of economic development. These forms were assessed and qualifying candidates were called in for the training programme.

In addition, participants were given food packs and transport allowances - this helped to stop participants from dropping out when they could not afford transport to and from the training site, Swanepoel explains.

Participants received attendance certificates on Saturday, 28 July; going forward, they will be mentored to ensure what they have learned is sustained and implemented.

Informal traders inside a lecture hall at Wits

Victor Motaung, from Meadowlands in Soweto, has been selling cool drinks and snacks at Bree Street Mall since 2002 and says the course, which he did this year, has helped him to make a profit.

"Basically, I learned how to manage my business in general ... Now I can do cash registration with pen and paper." He adds that the City has promised to continue monitoring his business.

And with his new knowledge, he aims to open a restaurant. "I am interested in other opportunities to gain skills."

Critical skills
Nxumalo says that the programme has helped to provide critical skills and job creation. "This training provides critical skills to the city's informal traders, particularly those located in formal markets."

Progress can be seen since the programme was set up; for example, informal traders have formed at least 32 co-operatives since June last year. The City will help these groups to get finance through financial institutions and to comply with legal requirements.

Joburg has also set up a partnership with the wholesale and retail seta to provide more than 450 informal traders with further business skills. The candidates were chosen from the programme run through Wits University.

An agreement has also been reached between the City, the Metropolitan Trading Company and the wholesale and retail seta to help the informal traders to enhance the skills they have learned through the Grow your Business initiative. "The purpose of the memorandum of understanding is for the parties herein to jointly support and enable small, micro and medium enterprises through financial and non-financial transactions," Nxumalo says.

The people targeted will be informal traders, women entrepreneurs, young and black entrepreneurs. The Metropolitan Trading Company is a City agency tasked with managing its trading markets.

An informal trading policy, acknowledging the critical role played by the informal economy, is also being re-developed. The policy is aimed at creating an environment within which the informal trading sector and its participants can become commercially viable.

"Informal trading is an anchor of the second economy and as much a part of the past, present and the future of the City of Johannesburg as are the other forms of economic activities," Nxumalo says.

The City is also providing stalls for the use of informal traders

To support the sector, there should be in place progressive policies, integrated spatial planning, appropriate infrastructure and support services, and organisation and management of public trading spaces.

Informal trading contributes to job creation, Nxumalo adds. "It plays a critical role in the alleviation of poverty and provides a platform for both social and economical inclusion among the poor."

However, he warns that informal trading should only occur in demarcated trading zones. The programmes it has set up are a demonstration that the City is committed "to uplifting and migrating the second economy into the first", he says.

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