The Eastern Cape Development Corporation says it is proud to be a partner in the latest Sasol rollout.

ECDC has financed four other Excel service stations(all black owned) in the Eastern Cape within the last 10 months. The operation is Western Avenue in East London is the second Sasol branded service station in the province, and it is entirely financed by the ECDC.

Enterprise Finance head Barnabas Damasane says government through the DTI has identified the franchise sector as the quickest and easiest angle of attack to begin at in the fight to develop SMMEs in challenged areas. Invariably it is the quickest route to fast track informal entrepreneurs into reputable business owners.

“The DTI Franchise Census 2004 established that the petroleum franchises accounted for 40% of the R129bn turnover reported for 2003/4 in the franchise sector and the petroleum franchises had the higher proportion of BEE than the non-petroleum sector of franchises,” says Damasane.

“ECDC considers this development as meeting three of the four components of the BEE Scorecard according to the BEE Act and would like to be associated with such deals in the province. As part of SMME proliferation/growth strategy for the province, ECDC would like to continue to be associated with the Sasol roll-out strategy on new outlets. We consider Alliance Property Group as property developers and they have committed to stick to the property developments and offer the dealerships to PDIs.”