Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, who is facing a stiff challenge from opposition political parties ahead of the 2024 general election, said on Monday night the province was on course to make SA’s economic hub an investment-friendly destination.
He said R40bn had already been committed by local and foreign investors and are in various stages of development.
Delivering the state of the province address at the Nasrec expo centre in Johannesburg, Lesufi, who is ANC Gauteng chair, said the economy of Gauteng was now bigger than the economy of the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo combined.
“We are proud to declare that since the Covid-19 pandemic, our economy is now firmly back on track and we are ready to pump our economy further. Our province has attracted more than R68bn in investments from 261 foreign companies and created about 23,000 direct jobs in our economy,” Lesufi said.
“These investments cut across the 10 high-growth sectors of our economy. Our province proudly hosted the fifth South African Investment Conference in April last year [2023], bringing together leading minds in business and government to unlock new opportunities for growth and development in SA.”
In total, the conference had realised R1.14-trillion worth of investment commitments across a range of economic sectors — of which R22bn were destined for Gauteng, he said.
Lesufi has been criss-crossing the province, switching on transformers and issuing appointment letters to thousands of unemployed people as part of the mass job creation programme. Employment initiative Nasi Ispani said compared to its peers the province had the largest number of employed people at about 5-million.
The province planned to construct 18 new schools as part of an R1.5bn investment. The premier said the provincial government had over the past five years spent R15bn on township businesses.
“In the last year alone, we spent R2.2bn on township businesses which demonstrates our substantial investment to empowering township communities, leading to increased economic activities, job creation and a positive impact on the unemployment rate,” he said.
Investments into the Tshwane automotive special economic zone by suppliers of the Ford Motor Company stood at R5.6bn, “with an initial government investment of R3.9bn”.
Regarding the Vaal special economic zone, Lesufi said investments of more than R8bn in the green economy, agro-processing and manufacturing sectors are expected to “break ground in the 2024/25 financial year”.
The tourism and hospitality industry recorded almost 8-million international arrivals, according to the premier, and this generated more than R98bn in total foreign spending in the local economy.
“In the previous year, we supported events that generated R7bn and more than 17,000 job opportunities were created.”
A greater effort would be put into fighting crime and gender-based violence; upgrading townships and hostels; alleviating load-shedding and rolling out service delivery to communities.
Lesufi said R3.2bn would be set aside to improve Gauteng’s townships. “We continue to be concerned with the proliferation of informal settlements in Gauteng. There are approximately 700 recorded informal settlements in our province, and still growing. In the immediate, provincial plans are under way to upgrade 68 informal settlements.
“We are accelerating our plans to decongest and relocate people from informal settlements to more habitable land. This includes the placement of people in the completed Mega Projects or other new housing developments,” Lesufi said.
Local government
The provincial government was concerned about the state of local government. “As we speak, three of our metropolitan municipalities and some of the local municipalities have been given letters by the National Treasury on their inability to spend their capital infrastructure grants.”
The Gauteng provincial government was “ready to intervene where municipalities cannot render services to our communities”.
“We are in the advanced stage of signing an agreement with Pikitup so that wherever there is uncollected refuse and dumping our province will step in and collect. This also goes to flowing sewage and water where we will ask Rand Water and Rand West Municipality to assist us,” he said.
Gauteng is expected to be a battleground province during the elections, with EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, Rise Mzansi national chair Vuyiswa Ramokgopa and DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga all vying to replace Lesufi as premier.
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