The local mine-community SMMEs successfully completed Impala Rustenburg’s year-long Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) Programme.

Thirty-nine mine-community SMMEs recently celebrated successfully completing Impala Rustenburg’s intensive ESD Programme. The SMMEs attended the 12-month training programme. This is an intrinsic part of Impala’s socio-economic development plan, which aims to assist mine community SMMEs to formalise their business activities to create successful, sustainable businesses for the future. A total of 400 SMMEs have benefitted from this ESD initiative since it was launched in 2021. The programme started with a five-day workshop to which qualifying SMMEs were invited. Based on their performance at the workshop, candidates were selected to attend the 12-month training programme to further
develop their business skills.

The workshops and training programme were conducted on behalf of Impala Rustenburg by Classic Oriental Consulting and Accuracy Group, two local SMMEs which operate within the mine communities. During the 12-month programme, the business owners received training in the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, compliance and governance as well as financial management and marketing. Impala Rustenburg CE Mark Munroe said, “We are committed to working with our stakeholders and communities to ensure the growth of our mine-community SMMEs. Our ESD initiatives provide important opportunities for communitybased businesses to grow into sustainable enterprises.”

This year saw an influx of applications for the new ESD workshops, highlighting the need for programmes focused on developing Rustenburg’s local entrepreneurs. “We believe that by working with our SMMEs and stakeholders, we can assist local entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and generate more jobs for the youth. We will continue to explore ways of supporting SMMEs to add value to their business,” concluded Munroe.