Thank you, hon member. That's why we have drafted the draft amendment, to make sure that it's not only applicable to the public sector, but also applicable to the private sector.
If I may give instances ... We have instances where franchisee and franchisor relationships are very onerous to SMMEs and they ... [Inaudible.] ... after they've paid the franchise fee and complied,
they are losing out. They take them to court and they lose a 10-year investment.
So that ombud service is meant to also deal with that.
The second part is that you are correct to say that nonpayment is not limited to government, but is also applicable to the private sector. That is why the SMME ombud service is applicable there. We have given it and hope the parliamentary process will support us to give the ombudsman powers equal to that of a judge and to make a determination if there is no consensus on a mutual agreement basis so that we then short-circuit and remove the litigation from courts for SMMEs because part of the dominant destroyers of SMMEs is the litigation with big business and government which SMMEs always come out ... [Inaudible.]