Gauteng makes headway in cutting red tape

Since the establishment
of the ‘Cut Red Tape
Task Team’ by the
Gauteng provincial
legislature in June
this year, there have
been “significant”
steps taken to pave the
way for investment and
trade, including for small,
medium and micro enterprises.
That’s according to Gauteng
premier, David Makhura, who
pointed out that this included
paying SMME businesses
within 15 days of receiving their
invoices. “Local procurement
is essential to developing local
skills and industries and we
need to support developing
entrepreneurs, as well as major
global investors, to ensure
we remain economically
competitive,” he said.
The programme is led by
provincial MEC for human
settlement, Paul Mashatile,
who pointed out that the intergovernmental
task team had
been appointed to “identify
and deal with” all issues that
impeded accessing of services to
improve ease of doing business
and “keeping the machines of
industry ticking along”.
South African Chamber of
Commerce and Industry CEO
Alan Mukoki commented that
there was definitely increasing
appetite at the political level to
cut red tape but cautioned that
this did not always translate into
tangible
results on the
ground.
“Yes, there has
been an improvement, for
example, in terms of getting
zoning approvals and answers.
But many businesses still
find it difficult to deal with
government departments.
“Government culture and
systems need to change. Very
often officials are not punished
for failing to do their jobs and
to provide answers quickly,” he
said.