Capacity building including the establishment of a mentorship program; access to finance through the establishment of guarantee societies; and business development through structured business connection platforms. These are the three strategic directions recommended to the future government by lobbyist and strategist Patrick T. Onoya to ensure better support for small and medium Congolese businesses.
Panellist at the meetings of the last Saturday of the month of Breakfast Connexion relayed by Top Congo FM and Zoom Eco, this economic operator started from the premise that: access to finance is a necessary condition, but not sufficient.
« Let’s talk a bit about the issue of success. A study in the United States found that a person’s success depended on 87.5% of relationships and 12.5% of himself. That said, for entrepreneurs, success in their businesses is linked to their ability to create synergies around their business projects, « he said.
Three synergies of success
Patrick Onoya believes that the bosses of SMEs must be able to develop synergies of multiple nature to achieve success. It’s about :
- Synergies of capacity building to make the entrepreneur and his staff competent and up to the events;
- Connection synergies that will facilitate and lead to the connection of SMEs to various partners to ensure the development of their business;
- Synergies in access to finance that enable SMEs to access the financial resources they need to carry out their projects.
Indeed, this synergistic action comes to provide answers in particular to the main causes of failure of SMEs, which are linked to a deficit at the level of the entrepreneur or his employees, the lack of funding and the poor fiscal policy of the company. countries to which these SMEs belong.
Take inspiration from the American model
Patrick Onoya proposes to the Congolese to take inspiration from the SME support model of the US government. It has set up a government agency responsible for SME development called the « Small Business Administration » whose mission is to strengthen the capabilities of SMEs, to provide them with the necessary bank guarantees to facilitate the provision of the necessary financing by SMEs. financial institutions and to encourage and regulate the access of US SMEs to public markets.
« Train, support and assist in the creation and growth of SMEs is the activity to which the US government through the SBA deploys the most Energy. Although it intervenes largely in the granting of financing necessary for the SME. In 2017, the SBA has granted more than $ 30 billion in bank guarantee guarantees to US SMEs, « said Patrick Onoya.
Government arrested
For this lobbyist and strategist, it is difficult both to rely on the tax burden to mobilize national savings and, at the same time, hope to develop the SME sector in the DRC. Hence, his main recommendation to the national executive.
« The gradual migration of government policy mobilizing public savings, traditionally based on tax revenues to a mobilization of national savings based on the development of the Congolese financial and banking sector, » advocated Patrick T. Onoya.
Indeed, he insists, studies in the field of development economics have shown that most emerging countries such as Latin American countries have government policies to mobilize national savings geared towards the development of the economy. financial and banking system than towards taxation.
« If the future government of the DRC wants to ensure the development of the SME sector in the DRC, he will have a choice to make, » he concluded.
The theme of the Saturday, July 27, 2019 edition was « SME Financing ». Evariste Kabamba, SME manager at Ecobank and Al Kitenge, strategic analyst, were among the panellists.
Eric TSHIKUMA