|
Put three shipping containers at a bus-and-taxi
rank where Zulu women and others sell fruit, food
and secondhand clothes, and you have an Achib
pavement bank, able to make small loans to the
sellers and provide overnight storage for their
goods.
The bank manager at Empangeni, South Africa, is
41-year-old Nester Mcanyana,
former teacher and small trader, mother of six
children. She helps, encourages and makes loans
from 50 to a maximum of 1,000 rand(£7.50 to
£150) to 450 or more hawkers and vendors who
sell to thousands of rural and urban commuters
coming in to work, shop or see a doctor. Vendors
earn 350 to 1,200 rand a month, depending on their
product, experience and ability.
Nester has a loan fund of 10,000 rand
(£1,500), and she charges interest at 1 per
cent per day, which pays the overhead costs
including her wage of 2,500 rand (£375) a
month. Most loans are repaid in ten days. Setting
up the bank cost £3,000, put up by Richards
Bay Minerals, an RTZ-CRA subsidiary which extracts
minerals from Natal’s coastal dunes for
paintmaking, glazes and iron.
African small traders find it hard to borrow
from conventional banks. They have no business
address, no street address, no security, not much
English, and the nearest bank branch could be a
distance away. They can borrow only from
moneylenders charging 100 per cent a month.
The simple, hassle-free Achib alternative has
been pioneered by Peter Morrison of RBM’s Business
Advice Centre and Lawrence Mavundia of Achib (the
African Council for Hawkers and Informal Business).
They saw small loans without paperwork as a means
of helping traders to increase turnover and improve
their incomes.
A committee of vendors vets applicants to join
the bank. They must be known to other vendors and
have been trading for two years. New members pay 25
rand (£4) for an identity-and-membership card
on which they can borrow 50 rand immediately. Once
they have repaid five loans of 50 rand, they can
move up to 100 rand. Their membership card also
entitles them to buy goods from wholesalers, who
normally serve large customers only.
Since the Empangeni bank opened in 1994, it has
not needed to write any loans off. Nester Mcanyana
gets in touch with slow payers, who may need
business advice or may be coping with a sick child.
Nester and her clients see the bank as ‘their’
bank.
The old white-dominated government had laws
against small business, and vendors were
continually being prosecuted for illegal trading.
Achib was formed in 1986 to fight for the right to
trade on pavements. RBM’s Business Advice Centre,
set up in Empangeni the same year, has provided
traders with stalls, offered training, and helped
in talks with the local council to prevent
prosecutions.
There are now six other Achib banks, sponsored
by companies or provincial government, in
Johannesburg, Kimberley, Klerksdorp/Rustenburg,
Kroonstad, Nelspruit and Uitenhage. South Africa’s
Department of Trade and Industry is considering an
annual grant, to extend the network. Foreign and
local donor organisations also want to get
involved.
|