Note to editors: Please find the attached English soundbite by Nazley Sharif MPL.
Industrial Parks in Gauteng need urgent intervention. The state of these parks is shocking. There are mounds of scrap metals, non-existent road infrastructure, dilapidated and neglected buildings and almost zero economic activity coming in. During our oversight inspections, the Democratic Alliance (DA) found that many of the tenants are frustrated by the conditions they find themselves in. Some have been tenants for 30 years and since then have been subjected the worst conditions and failure by Government.
The Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) has failed to realise the potential and failed to provide innovation for new ways of how these parks can operate, be managed and essentially provide return of investment by growing the GDP and creating much needed jobs.
During a recent oversight inspection at the following industrial parks; Eldorado Park, Ennerdale, Orlando, Pennyville and Dobsonville, the Democratic Alliance (DA) found that many of the tenants are frustrated by the lack of maintenance and assistance to access markets to sell their goods and services.
The fact that these industrial parks are in an undesirable state is worrying as between 2015 and 2018 R134 977 231.30 has been spent on upgrading the province’s industrial parks.
The Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) has failed to realise the potential to innovate how these industrial parks can operate, be managed, and essentially provide employment opportunities. This can be done by implementing a new model, that relooks at industrial parks, put together by political will, private-public partnerships and providing key services to support businesses. Getting industrial parks to work means a brand-new strategy that will completely overhaul the current mess we find ourselves in. Some tenants indicated their interest in buying the units as a collective.
Industrial Parks have the potential to grow the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by providing necessary services to foster SMME growth, provide the best opportunities for entrepreneurs and start-ups. This is can be done by providing well maintained and affordable infrastructure, security, access to services, access to markets domestically and potentially globally. We do not have to look far to see how a new model could work here. Co-Space has proven over the last few years that this is achievable. By providing well maintained, safe, clean and collaborative environments shows that jobs can be created, but this cannot be done by government.
Government needs to ensure that a conducive environment for job creation is created, not to focus on providing jobs. This is what a DA-led provincial government will do by establishing public-private-partnerships .This is the only viable option for these industrial parks to ensure that there is job creation and essentially add to our GDP. A DA-led provincial government will do a cost-benefit analysis to ensure that wasteful expenditure of our fiscus is stopped and that every rand spent on the tax payers money is spent to benefit the people and not play politics with the lives and livelihoods of the people of Gauteng
The DA would bring in a new strategy, which is clearly what is required. It is obvious that government can’t run industrial parks but the private sector can. The DA would convert government run sites to private sector sites, incentivising the private sector to grow new small businesses. In so doing there will be many more new jobs and the curse of unemployment will be crushed.