Concerns over litigation, auctions of SMMEs properties
MBABANE – The Federation of Eswatini Business Community (FESBC) is concerned by the recent increasing litigation and auctions of SMMEs properties by big businesses and banks.
FESBC Head of Transformation Mavela Sigwane said it was noted that each and every week there was an auction in the newspapers and most of the items going under the hammer were those owned by the Small Micro-medium Enterprises (SMMEs).
He said the root cause of this was that big businesses and government were non-compliance on payment terms with the small businesses. He said such led to the SMMEs failing to pay its own bills like rentals.
Sigwane said another reason was the unfair trading contractual agreements between the big businesses and the small ones.
He added that there was also lack of legal representation opportunity to SMMEs, hence they ended up losing their court cases then their properties.
He added that the federation was ready to intervene as such all local businesses who were faced with same must urgently contact FESBC for a redress. He said they may contact Christian Sigudla on 7614 0080 or Khabo Tsabedze on 7642 8714.
Assets
It is worth noting that most of the assets being auctioned these days included motor vehicles, office furniture and equipment.
It has been noted that most of the businesses, whose assets are being repossessed were salons and small business offices, among others.
One of the small business owners, who commented on conditions of anonymity, stated that as small businesses they were struggling to pay rentals in the buildings where they were running their businesses.
The businesswoman stated that their businesses were no longer making enough profits because customers seemed to be cutting costs in their spending like going to a salon.
* Lwazi said most females have downgraded to cutting their hair instead of doing braids or other hairstyles. She said as a result most beauty salons were failing.
Contracts
She added that other small businesses were having contracts with big businesses or government who often fail to pay them for their services on time. She said as a result, the small businesses found themselves defaulting on payments.
The businesswoman added that the failure of small businesses could also be attributed to COVID-19 outbreak two years ago.
She said most businesses were forced to close during the peak of the COVID-19 pandeamic and when the situation improved the businesses had to start over again and such required a lot of money that the businesspeople did not have.