Authors: Zahra and Nadia Rawjee, Uzenzele Holdings

If you are considering accessing development and funding grants or incentives out of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) to fund your industrial expansion, you are going to have to have to put a lot of effort into your application. 

The DTIC budget for Grants and Incentives has been cut by roughly 20% to R4.8bn and this means that entrepreneurs looking to fund industrial projects are going to have to tick a number of boxes to ensure their applications are successful.  

As an organization that is assisting a number of industrial and manufacturing businesses to access these incentives, these are a couple of areas we believe entrepreneurs should be focusing on:

Timing is everything:

Do not start investing or committing funds until the submission and approval for the project has been received. While we all want to break ground on our projects, jumping the gun might end up prejudicing your ability to access the grant funding.

Focus on localisation:

A key learning from 2020 was that the South African economy had failed to develop local capacity and was vulnerable to interruptions in global supply chains. The DTIC is looking to see a development in local capacity and suppliers and this will be a key consideration in getting approval for your project.

Align with industry Master Plans:

Government is trying to be more strategic around the sectors that it supports and aims to grow. The roll out of various sector or industry Master Plans with specific incentives attached to them part of this strategy. The automotive sector for instance has been a major beneficiary of this approach and organisations were able to align with these have already been able to access nearly R3bn in incentives.

Social returns and impact will be measured:

While the project must make commercial sense and be bankable, there is a focus on social impact as well. Is there the opportunity for job creation in the area in which you work? Will the local community enjoy access to new infrastructure?

Quality management teams are essential:

With a smaller pot of funding available, the quality of your management team will be under scrutiny. Have your team previously worked on projects of this nature and are they co-invested in the projects?

Export earning potential and co-linkages with FDIs:

The DTIC recently released its first ever report into the Black Industrialist Scheme (BIS) and one of the key focus points for this incentive is the ability to back businesses that can generate export revenue or attract co-funding through Foreign Direct Investment initiatives.

Access to finance remains a key challenge for entrepreneurs looking to grow their business and this challenge has been compounded by the impact of COVID-19 with funders having reduced risk appetites. Ultimately grants and incentives out of the DTIC and other industry bodies can close part of this funding gap but entrepreneurs, corporates and project owner’s need to ensure they come with a bullet-proof plan to ensure that the funds will be correctly deployed.

Founded by sisters Zahra and Nadia Rawjee in 2010, Uzenzele Holdings (UH) is a niche consulting firm with over 60 years of combined experience in business development capital raising and accessing governmental funding.

Author: Samantha Metcalfe, Problem-Solver Decusatio 

The Youth Employment Service (YES) B-BBEE incentive has been one of the most powerful job creation incentives out of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) and apart from helping businesses move a full 1 or 2 levels on their B-BBEE scorecard, I believe it has played a material part in mitigating some of the impact of COVID-19.

This quote from one of our YES youth highlights just how critical this incentive is for the country:

“It feels so good to finally help out at home and give my mom a break from some things. It’s not easy raising 5 kids as an unemployed widow.”

We run YES programs on behalf of clients and we have had some interesting learnings over the last 12 months in terms of how to ensure you get maximum benefit out of these programs.

Tip #1: Understand the rules of the incentive.YES is one of the simplest B-BBEE incentives out there – just understand the rules and how it works so that you don’t invest in a program and then lose the investment because you didn’t set it up correctly.

Tip #2: Recruit carefully.Think about the program you are building and running and recruit for that. It makes no sense to hire an ambitious youth with a degree if they are going to be doing manual tasks. Understand their motivation and home life situations to work out whether they will be a good fit for your program.

Tip #3: Give them meaningful work.It sounds obvious but if the youth don’t have a purpose and feel like you’re inventing a job for them, then they will pick up on this. If you can’t create the work inside of your organization, you can work with a partner who can build a project that will have social impact. Everybody wants to feel valued – don’t simply leave them in a situation where they are unattended with no purpose.

Tip #4: Salaries.Just because you can pay the National Minimum Wage doesn’t mean you should. Drop-offs are a very real challenge amongst youth employment initiatives and while it might be attractive on a spreadsheet to get a youth with a degree working for you for R3760 per month, you will have high drop-offs and replacement costs. We found it worked better when we sourced additional funding for the youth or paid top-ups / commissions on their salaries.

Tip #5: Skills. Skills. Skills.One of the reasons businesses shy away from doing youth employment is the time that it takes to get youth upskilled. Simple things like soft-skills around answering the phone or basic Microsoft skills are often taken for granted. Our youth have been able to do Xero accounting, Sales Skills, Public-speaking programs, 21st century design learning and Udemy courses that they can put on their CVs. 

Don’t lose sight of the fact that you are aiming to give the youth a CV that will make them more employable at the end of the 12-month experience.

Tip #6: Celebrate their successes and gamify the program.You’ll be astounded at how hard the job search is for youth with no employment history. Many of them spend years knocking on doors trying to find a starting point and rejection has become a big part of the job search. Spend a little extra time celebrating their successes and encouraging them to pick up new skills along the way, post their achievements and work output on platforms like LinkedIn – it creates a sense of belonging and achievement.

Tip #7: Data and airtime.It’s a simple cost but giving youth access to data and airtime will be a big drawcard, particularly in environments where Covid-19 restricts access to fixed office environments.

Tip #8: The Supervisor is not necessarily "the Boss".When you are uploading youth into the system, you will be asked to nominate a supervisor for the program. We feel that the supervisor should not be the person who manages them on a day-to-day basis. Rather, the supervisor should be an empathetic ear who will help them navigate their 12-month work experience.

Tip #9: Set milestones for retention.Remember that the goal is to get the youth over the 8-month mark so you don’t need to incur replacement costs.

By setting milestones including the opportunity to do skills programs, get a salary increase or other incentives, you can ensure that you don’t incur replacement costs down the line. While everybody wants to run programs as affordably as possible, longer-term planning means that the youth don’t look around for other opportunities.

Tip #10: Discuss their futures and absorption opportunities.The absorption requirements for YES cohorts is very low at 2.5% or 5% [depending on which level you are looking to achieve] and many organisations treat this as an after-thought. We found youth who couldn’t see a future career path or opportunity were quick to drop off the program. Communicate opportunities and they view it in a different light.

In summary, YES is a very powerful incentive which can be used as part of your B-BBEE strategy if you plan it correctly… but if you fail to plan, you will plan to fail. 

Samantha Metcalfe is a Problem-Solver at Decusatio, a consulting firm established to help entrepreneurs to tackle the twin challenges of Access to Finance and Access To Markets. She can be contacted on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.