Maihapa Ndjavera
Some 11 000 certificates were issued nationally since the inception of the online platform called the Directorate of Industrial Development Enterprise Support System (DIDESS). The platform facilitates the issuing of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) certificates in the trade ministry.
Minister of Industrialisation and Trade, Lucia Iipumbu, revealed this figure on Monday while addressing the business community in the Hardap region.
Iipumbu noted that the database is important for government particularly in the absence of a national business census as it is used as an important economic indicator of national and regional business trends.
In the case of the Hardap region, the platform shows that since inception the trade ministry received 469 applications for MSMEs certificates.
“Encouragingly the approval is 462 with only seven rejected. Such a low rejection indicates business structures and planning that are very well developed and documentation that is in order and up to date. From the total issued, this gives a fair representation for Hardap,” she said.
The DIDESS database is supplemented with a key platform aimed at enhancing the ease of doing business in Namibia. This key platform, called Integrated Client Service Facility (ICSF), was launched in December 2020 and is a one-stop shop to register businesses through one single point instead of spending valuable time going from one mandatory office to
another.
The ultimate aim is to ensure that the number of days to register a business in Namibia is drastically reduced and thereby improves the country’s global business competitiveness ranking.
Iipumbu however expressed concern that Hardap region’s business activities are constrained to a few sectors based on the MSMEs certificates facilitated thus far. Small businesses therefore depict a very low sector diversification in the region.
“It also shows that there is a need to increase and expand the economic dynamism and industrial base of the region. This is more important as the Namibian government is expanding the public procurement opportunities by expanding to other sectors such as meat, transport, and other services,” she stated.
Iipumbu concluded that new paradigms, such as local content requirements and set-asides, are increasingly being introduced into the public procurement lexicon.
– mndjavera@nepc.com.na