Programme Director, Ms Ayanda Paine;
Executive Mayor of the City of Tshwane, Cllr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa;
Chairman of the Capital City Business Chamber, Mr Tom Moodie;
CEO of the Capital City Business Chamber, Mr Fannie du Plessis;
Chairperson of the SABC, Ms Ellen Shabalala;
Dr Anna Mokgokong of CIH;
Dr Snowy Khosa of Bigen Africa Professor David Mosoma;
Mr David Morobe of Business Partners Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen;
I want to convey my sincere gratitude to the capital City Business Chamber for inviting me to join you this evening as you celebrate outstanding performance and business excellence for the year 2014, in a City whose motto is: "Igniting Excellence".
We believe that a constructive and transformative partnership between government and business is the only way we can grow our economy and change the quality of life of the people of our country, our province and our Capital City. We have repair relations and rebuild trust between government, business and labour in order to move our economy forward.
The City of Tshwane occupies a unique pride of place as the seat of government in our free and democratic country. It is one of the three distinct economic centres that make our province the economic powerhouse of South Africa - contributing 33% to Gauteng's economy and 11% to South African economy.
As you know, Gauteng is no small economy. Actually, we don't against the economies of the other eight provinces - there are too small. We benchmark ourselves against countries and city regions in the world. Our province contributes more than 35% to the country’s GDP and 11% to Africa’s GDP.
Our province accounts for 32% of all jobs in the national economy. More than 40% of our country’s manufacturing, transport, communication, financial and pharmaceutical activities takes place in our province. More than 45% of the small medium and micro enterprises are located in Gauteng.
Almost two-thirds of international companies doing business in our country and continent are located in Gauteng.
Over the past two decades, we have grown our provincial economy from R379 billion in 1995, to more than R1 trillion in 2013.
Our plan is to grow Gauteng to be a R2 trillion economy by 2030 through our Ten Pillar programme of transformation, modernisation and re- industrialisation.
However, this growth must address two fundamental structural problems of our economy - it must change monopoly domination by increasing the contribution and centrality of the SMME sector, while raising the participation of blacks and women to no less than 50% by 2030.
We are very happy the new Ministry of Small Business Development led by Minister Lindiwe Zulu will help to catapult small business to a position of being the critical driver of employment and inclusive growth.
The structural problems of our economy can only be addressed through systematic and radical programme of transformation, modernisation and re-industrialisation.
It is not given that we will continue to be a leading economy. We have to take make strategic and far-sighted interventions and smart actions to safeguard our strategic position as the leading economy in our country and continent.
During my inaugural State of the Province Address delivered on 27th June 2014, I publicly outlined a set of strategic interventions that will address government performance, eliminate corruption and red-tape and unlock the potential of various sectors and regions of our province, through a massive infrastructure investment programme. What are the interventions?
This programme identifies five interventions to move the Gauteng economy forward as an inclusive, smart, green, innovation-driven and knowledge-based leading economy:
The first intervention is to fix government by building a governance model that promotes clean governance, integrated service delivery and rapid response to the needs of the people and business.
We see ourselves as a single entity called the Gauteng City-Region governance model facilitates private sector investment and promotes rapid response to service delivery, integrity and good governance.
We have set up a Service Delivery Intervention Branch and Rapid Response War Room in the Office of the Premier to ensure that there is rapid response to service delivery issues, including development applications. We want a government that is responsive, cares, listens and acts in partnership with society at all times. This includes paying businesses within 30 days and honouring contracts signed with businesses.
We are also establishing an Integrity Management Branch in the Premier’s Office to help us to eradicate fraud and corruption and promote integrity and good governance. We have gone further to open up the tender process for public scrutiny. All these measures show that we are serious about building a governance model that facilitate economic development and service delivery in the interest of all the people.
To cut red tape and bureaucracy, we established a one-stop centre in Sandton, the Gauteng Investment Centre aimed at assisting businesses in reducing the regulatory burden of compliance. The Investment Facilitation Centres will be rolled out to all five metros and districts and aspects of their work will be integrated into the Township Economy Industrial Hubs and Parks.
Our vision is to ensure that we improve the ease of doing business and drastically cut the amount of time to set a up business in Gauteng, learning from places like Rwanda and Singapore.
The second intervention is the massive investment in social and economic infrastructure across the province. We want public-private partnerships in the delivery of massive infrastructure across our province, in building new schools and hospitals, building public transport, on alternative energy, water, sanitation, broadband, new human settlements, building new cities and in the establishment of new economic hubs and economic nodes.
In this last five years, government at all spheres committed massive investments in social and economic infrastructure, from R619-billion to R1.1-trillion. This has been the largest infrastructure investment in 50 years.
We have been talking to many private sector players and state-owned enterprises on mega projects and game changers that will re- industrialise Gauteng and create an economy of the future that is more inclusive, green, knowledge-based and innovation-driven.
The City of Tshwane is one of the leading cities on investment in game changing infrastructure projects. We are proud of the groundbreaking initiatives Mayor Ramokgopa to position this City as a leader in building a smart, knowledge-based, innovation-driven and green economy.
We want to use infrastructure development to unlock the potential of our five regions and sectors of our economy. Each region is earmarked and will be zoned for specific type of industrial activities in order to promote the comparative advantage of each metro or district.
It is for this reason that Tshwane is the hub of the automotive industry and Joburg will remain our province's financial hub and the home of our ICT and pharmaceutical industries. Ekurhuleni is our country's manufacturing hub and the home to our logistics and transport sector as the core of the Aerotropolis of the GCR, parts of which will be in Tshwane, Joburg and West Rand (Lanseria).
The West Rand is being earmarked for investment in the green economy, tourism and tourism industries in order to move the region away from the declining mining sector. The decline of the steel industry in Sedibeng calls upon us to diversify and create a new economy for the region based on water tourism, agriculture and logistics as the core of the Agrotropolis of the GCR, aspects of which will be in the West Rand.
The third intervention is about revitalising the township economy and community-based enterprises across Gauteng to ensure that township entrepreneurs are supported comprehensively and brought into the mainstream economy. The focused support to township enterprises is the most sustainable way to bring more black entrepreneurs into the mainstream of the economy.
Many township enterprises are producing goods and services under difficult conditions, without any support from government and the corporate sector. Over the next five years, we shall provide the following support to township enterprises:
- Infrastructure – development of properly equipped township industrial hubs in the top 50 townships where community enterprises and cooperatives will operate;
- Training and development – focus on providing mentorship and training in business skills for entrepreneurs;
- Funding – the mandate of the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller and other national SMME agencies will be expanded to provide start- up funding to cooperatives and community enterprises;
- Procurement set-asides and market access – government departments and municipalities will procure some of their goods and services from township enterprises and assist in ensuring access to the markets. All companies that do business with government will be encouraged to undertake township supplier development and off-take agreements.
I would like to call upon the Capital City Business Chamber to develop a programme to support township enterprises and community cooperatives as a contribution to building an inclusive economy.
Economic transformation is non-negotiable. Too many black people are on the margins of the mainstream economy. Too many young people
are unemployed. Unless there is drastic and urgent measures to include this majority in meaningful economic life, the irrational will become logical as populist policies can become the logical order of the day.
The fourth intervention will focus on utilising infrastructure development to reverse the spatial patterns of apartheid planning. We must build new mega human settlements and new post-apartheid cities that integrate our people and settle people closer to economic opportunities and transport corridors. We can't continue to reproduce the current townships.
We have grand plans to build new economic nodes and new residential areas. Again, Tshwane is leading in this regard. One of the exciting plans for me is the vision for a new Centurion which will house Africa's biggest and iconic convention centre.
The last intervention is to assist Gauteng-based businesses in making forays into Africa as part of positioning our province as the Gateway to Africa. Africa is the future. The future is Africa. Europe, Asia and the Americas have once again discovered that Africa’s economic prospects are much better in the next decades than any other continent.
The different sectors of our provincial economy finance, automotive industry, manufacturing, ICT, tourism, pharmaceuticals, creative industries, construction, real estate and the township sector should be assisted and supported to grow into the different regions of the continent.
Finally, we are taking decisive action to reduce the cost of living and doing business in our province in order to improve the competitiveness of our provincial economy.
It is in this context that we have been worried about the potentially damaging impact of the current cost of e-tolls on the people and economy of Gauteng. We must reduce the cost of doing business and cost of living so that we remain competitive and a preferred destination for investment and professionals.
As the Premier of this province, I live by the dictum that government is about the people and leaders must always respect and listen to the people. We would like to work with you in building a more responsive government and a socially conscious business culture.
I would like to congratulate all the enterprises that won the awards tonight. I look forward to a meaningful cooperative relationship and transformative partnerships in transforming, modernising and re- industrialising our province. Our economy is big enough but we must ensure that it is a more inclusive and shared economy.
I thank you!
