The Namibian Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPBD), in collaboration with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, (KAS), held consultations with micro, small and medium entrepreneurs (MSMEs) in Keetmanshoop. 

The session, held on Tuesday, forms part of a national drive to create a one-stop MSME information hub aimed at centralising support for small businesses. 

Over 30 MSMEs from ||Kharas Region attended the event where they discussed the realities faced by small businesses in the region. 

This consultation is a nationwide programme.

NIPDB's Business Advisory Services Consultant Minna Shakela provided some insight on the planned information hub, as announced during the discussion.

"We are creating a website for the MSME info hub, and this MSME hub will act as a one-stop where the MSMEs can log in and see what actually they need instead of going to many other websites or searching for information from so many people. That is the reason that this project is not an NIPDB or KAS project but is a national project, and we want to collaborate with everyone and put all the information all in one document."

Some of the entrepreneurs used the platform to share about their day-to-day struggles.

"The challenges we face as businesspeople in the community of the ||Kharas region are the service providers. We do not have BIPA in the ||Kharas region; we also need them to have offices in our region so that we can be able to enquire about all the services we need that we need to ask for. The other challenge is we need financial support so we can be able to boost our business and add more job creation to our industry. So the other thing we need is the regulatory bodies to regulate us as businesses; they also need to look into the requirements. Some of the things need to be changed further so we can be able to access them."

"I am having a welding and fabrication with pallet design. The problems we are facing are with the municipality giving us business ERFs, because we cannot operate from our backyards because we are using high-level machinery and the binder is making noise. We need infrastructure to build our own workshops and operate from there, and it's costly to get land nowadays, and mostly it's the allocation of the business."

"It starts with the financial access challenges that stem from the lack of systems that cater for the small scale of people like the MSMEs. What we need from the government is to take an approach to make sure everybody is covered so that everybody's opportunity is driven from the bottom up."

"We don't have finance training and the lack of networking is because we have a lot of training happening; they have a lot of engagement sessions, and none of these sessions are allowing young entrepreneurs to network or engage with the people in the industry, with businesspeople that have already been in the industry before."