…E5 000 set aside for fire victims
BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE – Through the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Trade, the government has invited the Manzini vendors who were affected during the fire breakout in their store last year. The invited vendors are those that missed out on the government assistance.
Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo said the government did set aside E5 000 to assist the businesses trading in the ‘Bend and Pick’ sector at the Manzini bus rank whose stock was completely burnt in the storage facility adjacent to the bus rank.
About 430 ‘Bend and Pick’ vendors store their stock in the facility, all of them were drastically affected by the burning of the facility and have been left with no source of income.
Khumalo said he was aware that some of the affected vendors might have not succeeded in accessing the money.
“We would like to get that data and report in order to make sure they get assisted because our intention was to ensure that everyone was assisted,” said Khumalo.
Khumalo said as a ministry they were not aware that some were left out but now they were fully aware.
Khumalo said the government was aware that most Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) were devastated by the unrest in 2021.
He said however, the government was pleased that a number of businesses that were affected during the unrest were back up and running. He said at least 90 -95 per cent of them were up again running as some were assisted through the Reconstruction Fund, where E500 million was set aside and made available to all affected businesses.
