Trade, Industry and Competition on Clothing Master Plan helping Limpopo businesswoman turn liquor store into factory

Residents of Mangata, a small and serene village of Botlokwa, in Limpopo, regard local businesswoman, Ms Paulina Ramusi as a community builder after she converted a liquor store into a productive factory and created employment for about 20 people.

Ramusi, the Managing Director of Ntema Investments, was grossly disturbed by the increasing physical and social disorder in the village associated with her late father-in-law’s liquor store that she managed. She decided that the building should rather positively contribute in bettering the lives of the community members, instead of contributing to crime and grime in the area.

Today, the building is a hive of activity as 19 employees work on the machines producing various pieces of clothing.  The company manufactures school uniforms, personal protective clothing, security company uniforms, and corporate, as well as traditional clothing.

Ramusi’s dream was made possible by the support that she received from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) through one of its agencies, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). The funding was for the purchase of machinery. This enabled the company to increase its production capacity and to become a job catalyst in Botlokwa. The support also supported company’s medium to long term ambition to penetrate the big markets in future, and become one of the biggest clothing manufacturing companies in the country.

The support was part of the rollout of the successful and much-talked-about Retail-Clothing, Textiles, Footwear, and Leather (R-CTFL) Master Pllan by the dtic. The objective of the plan is to stimulate the growth of the clothing and textile industry in order to create jobs, grow the economy and replace imports, through improving competitiveness, technology, skills and transformation, amongst others.

Ramusi’s Ntema Investments is one of almost 160 enterprises that have been funded through the Clothing Textile Footwear Leather Growth Programme (CTFLGP)  of the plan, to the tune of more than R1.4 billion since its launch in 2022. The company’s 19 employees are amongst the more than 24 000 jobs that they have been created through the implementation of the programme.

Ntema is also one of the 65 black-owned and 31 women-owned companies that have been approved for support through the programme to date, to the tune of R643 million and R273m, respectively, as part of efforts to achieve the transformation objective of the master plan.

“I have no doubt that government support though the clothing and textile master plan has the capability to stimulate township and rural economy, create jobs and eliminate poverty. We are an example of the amount of positive impact that this support can have on the village people,” says Ramusi, a former Mathematics and Science teachers’ college lecturer and high school teacher.

“We are a perfect example of what businesswomen based in the rural areas can achieve with the support of government.  We pride ourselves in having created employment for this big number of the people, considering the location of our company. We are happy to be making a huge difference in the lives of the people that we have not only been able to employ, but we are also continuously training them in order to empower them with knowledge and skills,” says Ramusi.

Almost all of her employees, 15 of whom are youth, possessed no qualifications, experience or skills before being employed by the company.

“The training that we provide to our employees on-site and off-site through formal institutions of clothing manufacturing has gone a long way in equipping our employees with the necessary skills and knowledge. As a result of the continuous training, our production has increased tremendously,” says Ramusi.

“The support from the community has also increased pressure on us. We are continuously receiving big orders from schools and a lot from members of the community. They realise that the growth of this company is impacting positively on the community as more members of the community are benefitting from people that we have employed here,” she adds.

Ramusi is planning to create more job opportunities as she will be expanding her business due to the increased demand of her products in Mangata and surrounding villages of Botlokwa.

For media enquiries and interviews:
Bongani Lukhele – Director: Media Relations
Tel: (012) 394 1643
Mobile: 079 5083 457
WhatsApp: 074 2998 512
E-mail: BLukhele@thedtic.gov.za