I own a small consulting engineering practice with a staff of five. Our work is consulting in acoustics and noise control. We are not considered essential to any project (as, for example, the structural engineer, mechanical engineer and others are) and, in general, when clients wish to cut budgets for the professional team, our services are first off the list. It is a shame, since, if you design a building with bad acoustics, it is really a life-time defect. But anyway.

When times are good, we do well. When the economy is poor, then so are we. I think you get the picture: small business, economy- dependent income, niche markets, cash flow dependent.

Now that the state of disaster has been declared, a whole lot of very interesting things have happened. Early on, I thought that it may be a smart idea to apply to the various funds for a loan which we might need. We do not need it right now, but a backup would be good. So, I logged on to the fund which had been set up by Anton Rupert et al. The requirements for any assistance were that the applicant firm had to comply with certain criteria in that close corporations, companies or trusts must be registered, tax- and regulatory-compliant South African businesses and had to prove viability prior to the arrival of the pandemic. Applicants were asked to provide financial statements for 2019/20, signed management accounts for the most recent financial year, CSD registration, a letter of good standing from the compensation commissioner, a tax clearance certificate, a black economic- empowerment certificate, a tax clearance certificate . . . and so on. Now, we have most of these but not, on April 3, financial statements for 2019/20 or signed management accounts for the most recent financial year, since we are not required to submit them to the South African Revenue Service until June.

Shortly thereafter, the fund closed its applications, but did encourage us to register and an email would be sent when registrations opened again. Or something. Never heard from them again. Then there was the government fund for small, medium-sized and microenterprise applications whereby we could get a loan. I filled that out. Again, the site indicated that an email would be sent to us shortly, confirming our application. That was about 45 days ago. Never heard from them.

Then there is my bank. It is the one which has a thorn tree as a logo. Its website has links with ‘Covid-19’ written all over but, no matter where you click, none of the links goes to a place where you can apply for a loan. The site encourages firms to contact their ‘business banker’ by phone. I did, and, after waiting the lifetime of a fruit fly, got to speak to somebody who took my details and promised to call me back. Forty days later, I am still waiting. I think this is all a very poor show.

I know it hardly matters if a whole raft of small consulting practices (including ours) goes out of business, but it does seem as if something funny is going on. Loans made to small businesses at the time of this disaster are guaranteed by government. This means that there is little risk in giving them out. Lenders should naturally make sure that applicants are registered, tax and regulatory compliant but, surely, the various institutions have enough organisational skills to at least acknowledge applications by legitimate businesses. Or is there something more sinister afoot whereby large financial institutions are using the government guarantees to do something which is not in the intended spirit? Whatever, but loud and clear, this is the message: from our experience, banks, government and other institutions are not helping any small businesses that I know of, a possible exception being Unemployment Insurance Fund payouts. Thus, when I think of banks, government and other institutions right now, I know they want to do good. And, believe me, from my point of view, they are really doing right well . . . for themselves.