SMALL business experts have slammed government for its inability to compile accurate and periodic statistics on the sector. They say the absence of good data stymies the state’s ability to support the sector.Their comments follow the release last month of a partly flawed small business survey, by Stellenbosch University’s Bureau for Economic Research (BER), for the Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda).The survey is the latest in a string of reports that have attempted to estimate the contribution of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs). It is essentially an update of a 2008 report on the sector by the department of trade & industry.Unlike a number of other emerging economies, SA does not have a regular census (as India and Malaysia have) or a periodic survey (as Chile and Brazil have) that tracks the performance of the sector. The dearth of data has led to wide-ranging estimates on the sector’s contribution to GDP and employment.While the BER report estimates that there...
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