The loan guarantee scheme that was touted as a major intervention by President Cyril Ramaphosa to arrest the economic damage wrought by hard lockdowns looks set to miss even its own downgraded targets, with just under 9% of its original R200bn allocated to struggling businesses.

Despite the government using the total figure as a key component of its stimulus, accounting for 40% of the R500bn cited by Ramaphosa, Banking Association SA (Basa) data showed that by January 16 small businesses had received just R17.84bn...

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