The World Bank has partnered with a Cape-based IT consulting company to subsidise Web sites for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The World Bank, through its Africa Project Development Facility, has agreed to pay 30% of the R4 500 incurred by firms that contract through DLK Consulting to provide a static Web site service.
DLK Consulting CEO Leon Hendricks says the initiative "is based on something we were looking at doing for the smaller guys. This is not our target market and we are not making much money from it, but we wanted to do something for them and also our branding.
"We are a young, growing company and appreciated the help we had from our peers in our formative years. This is our way of putting something back into the SME market."
The initiative is part of a pilot project by DLK and the Africa Project Development Facility to demonstrate to smaller firms the benefit of having an Internet presence.
The package consists of a domain name registration, a year`s hosting and populating seven Web page templates with relevant information. DLK provides several templates to choose from.
Hendricks says DLK is also subsidising the initiative, which makes the cost to customers far less than those of similar services.
Rubin Japhta, the Africa Project Development Facility`s business development advisor, says joining the initiative "supports our mission of providing SMEs with services they can afford and find useful".
To qualify, companies need to be viable private sector businesses with good profit prospects, employ five to 500 people and be active in sectors such as agri-business, IT, manufacturing and tourism.
Hendricks says the initial phase of the project generated a high level of interest and sign-ups.
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