Minister Thembi Simelane: Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises Cohort announcement event

Programme Director
Chairperson of the PPRA Board, Mrs. Queendy Gungubele and Board Members
Director-General of the Department of Human Settlements, Dr. Alec Moemi
Chief Executive Officer of PPRA, Ms. Thato Ramaili with your team
SMME Cohorts
DHS Officials
Esteemed Stakeholders
Ladies and gentlemen

Good morning,

Thank you so much for affording me the opportunity to address this SMME Breakfast, it is indeed an exciting moment to see this cohort of black small businesses being given such an important platform to rise and thrive in a sector which is largely untransformed and predominantly white.

Let me also reiterate the words of the Programme Director by welcoming you all in this game changing initiative of our Entity, PPRA.

Two days ago, I led a team of Human Settlements and its Entities to go and present the 2025/2026 Annual Performance Plans, the 2025/2030 Strategic Plans of the DHS family to the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements.

During the occasion of the Portfolio Committee, we articulated that as the Department of Human Settlements we have aligned ourselves with the MDTP priority number two, which is about reducing poverty and tackle the high cost of living, and in achieving the outcomes of this strategic priority, is to be intentional about our transformation programmes, targeting designated groups of women, youth and people living with disabilities.

Amongst others, undeprining this transformation agenda, is the country’s top priority of inclusive growth and job creation as well as reducing poverty and tackling the high cost of living.

The property industry is regarded as one of the major sectors that contributes towards the economy of the country. The Centre for Affordable Housing Finance report on 2023 cites the South African Residential Property market consist of 691 million properties valued at R6.789 trillion.

The Property Charter Council, further highlighted that the property sector contributes an estimated 191bn to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country and R46bn to the Fiscus. Despite this imprint, the sector remains disproportionately untransformed.

It is against this backdrop our transformation legislation looks at preferential procurement; socio-economic development; skills development; ownership and management as well as enterprise development. These are strategic interventions necessary for transformation and inclusive growth and participation of the historically disadvantaged individuals.

The PPRA SMME programme is directly linked to enterprise development as we provide a conducive and enabling environment for empowerment and participation. This support programme allows us to incubate these 42 SMME’s and grow them through collaboration and opening up opportunities in the property sector value chain.

I am pleased to note that over and above the SMME programme, the PPRA is implementing the Principalisation Programme. In the last financial year 2024-2025, atleast 95 Principals from the historially disadvantaged individuals (HDIs) were established. And we are particularily please to mention that, atleast 65 full status black women were supported through this programme, and this reaffirms our unwavering commitmnent to women empowerment in the human settlements value chain.

In addition, I want to thank the Property Practitioner Agencies that opened their doors to host 825 candidates through the One Learner and Property Practitioner Internship/Learnership Programme.

I want to invite the Property Sector Stakeholders to open their doors through partnerships for increasing the participation of youth through the One Learner One Property Practitioner Programme as well as the SMME’s Programme. By joining hands together, we can make a meaningful impact. I am sure within the property sector we can host atleast 5000 youth for the Medium Term Development Programme, 2024-2029 (MTDP) in order to broaden our capacity to develop more property practitioners.

With regards to the preferential procurement targets, I am particularly pleased that the PPRA awarded 51% of its procurement to women-owned businesses and 25% for youth and persons with disabilities companies and this confirms the perspective contained in our Annual Performance Plans, and thus, 82 companies from designated groups were empowered.

However, I still believe we can do more and better, the youth, women and persons with disabilities bears the brunt of the tripple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality in a stagnant economy which we must help to recalibrate with our transformation and empowerment policies and create job opportunities for the South Africans.

We may all be aware that, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has released a Transformation Fund concept document. The proposed R100 billion Transformation Fund is aimed to promote economic inclusion by facilitating greater participation of black South Africans in the economy.

The fund aims to aggregate Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) obligations and other resources, focusing on high-impact sectors and providing financial and non-financial support to black-owned businesses. It is intended to support industrialization, address inequalities, and create jobs, it is my contention that we can work together in harnesing resources to endure that we grow the Transformation Fund.

However, it is important to indicate that, we need to account to the total number of jobs created by the property practitioner sector through the PPRA.

To the SMME cohort, I am confident that the PPRA will grow your business from emerging to established property practitioners and migrate you to be Principals through the Principalisation Programme.

I will come back, to have an engagement with yourselves so I can get fedback on your progress and challenges as well as the impact of this programme in improving sustaining livelihoods and quality of life.

It is our mission to improve household quality of life, and as you expand, also grow others especially the vulnerable groups, the youth in particular.

I thank you.

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