Government needs to 'put its money where its mouth is'

Investment in the Gauteng
province is not what it should be
– largely due to a lack of certainty
around policies and development
delivery – and government
needs to stop its “big talk” and
instead commit to a growth and
development schedule and stick to it.
This is the view of Saki Zamxaka,
chief executive officer of the
Gauteng Growth and Development
Agency (GGDA) – which oversees
the Gauteng Investment Centre.
He told FTW
Gauteng
remained
one of the
top three
provinces
in terms
of its
share of
investment but it, like the rest of
South Africa, had seen a major drop
in new investment of late.
“Local investment in the
province has slumped due to a
lack of confidence in government’s
promises, while foreign investors are
skittish around unpredictable policy
changes.”
This, he said, had worsened
since the local government election
outcomes where investors seemed
to be adopting a “wait and see”
approach before committing
themselves. “Change is inevitable,
including a change in political
leadership, but if we are to turn
our economic fortunes around, we
can’t afford a delayed investment
response,” said Zamxaka.
And to prevent that, the GGDA is
working with government and the
private sector to provide
greater transparency
and clarity on
development plans
and opportunities
for growth. “You
can’t invest
if you don’t
know how
government
projects
and developments tie in with your
growth strategy. And that is the
certainty we need to provide to grow
business and investor confidence,”
he pointed out.
Zamxaka said that the GGDA
was working closely with local and
international
business
chambers to not
only facilitate
trade between
the respective
parties but to
ascertain where
the advanced
industrialisation
opportunities
lay and to align
Gauteng’s strategy with that.
“We are, for example, known for
the globally high standards we set
around automotive production and
we export about 60 000 cars into
the United States alone. There is also
increasing demand for the advanced
manufacturing of capital equipment
for mining and industry – both
regionally and globally – and we
have had some success in facilitating
production deals around that,” he
commented.
He said other potential growth
sectors were the information and
communications technologies (ICT)
and pharmaceutical sectors.
“We also need to re-examine our
competiveness on the global trade
stage and ask ourselves if we are
growing our exports enough to meet
the changing global
environment’s next
level of demand,”
Zamxaka said.
This required
“meaningful”
private and public
stakeholder
engagement he
said. “There are a
lot of conversations
but there are
questions around the effectiveness
of the engagement,” he highlighted,
attributing the lack of efficient
engagement to the fact that the
desired outcomes were not clear.
“With the automotive industry
it is as simple as saying that a new
vehicle is coming out next year and
the company wants to assemble it in
South Africa. So, if other industries
say they want to see more local
production, the question we should
ask of them is: By doing what?”
INSERT & CAPTION
Local investment in the
province has slumped due
to a lack of confidence in
government’s promises.
– Saki Zamxaka