He told the councillors that the LEA mission is to promote and facilitate entrepreneurship and SMME development through targeted interventions in pursuit of economic diversification. LEA's mandate is to provide business development like screening, business planning facilitation, training and mentoring. The organisation identifies business opportunities for SMMEs. It promotes domestic and international linkages especially between SMMEs and government, large business entities and other SMMEs. Matome said LEA encourages exploitation of government and large firm procurement opportunities while facilitating access to finance, standards, infrastructure and changes in regulation including facilitating technology adoption and diffusion.
He indicated that they train entrepreneurs at a small cost and cluster businesses with the same expertise. This is meant to make the businesses share the market and use their different expertise.
Matome indicated that LEA targets sectors of manufacturers, agriculture, services, and tourism. He said that the councillors can help LEA by disseminating information about its products. They can also provide feedback to LEA on their interventions and support in awarding of tenders to SMMEs.
