As Gauteng Economic Development; Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development MEC Parks Tau delivered the 2022/23 departmental budgets, he outlined the progress that Gauteng has made across the Gauteng City Region.

The Gauteng Department of Economic Development’s (GDED’s) pre-designation work under the Public Private Growth Initiative has identified 35 potential precinct partnerships covering 65 distinct precincts that will anchor the new Township Enterprise Zones (TEZs).

The pool will be widened through a request for information and requests for quotations to link enterprise and supplier development funding and other broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) funding streams for projects in the new TEZs.

In addition, with the Township Economic Development Act (TEDA) now signed into law, the GDED is working on implementing the new act that will ensure that townships and informal settlements become self-sufficient and vibrant economic centres.

“This is a game-changing legislation that will redraw, positively and progressively so, the economic geography of the Gauteng City Region, inarguably, for generations to come,” he said.

Three priorities under the TEDA implementation include the deployment of the prototype TEZ cluster ahead of full promulgation using current precinct levels initiatives; the finalisation of the regulations and instruments of TEDA, including draft model by-laws and regulations to be gazetted; and the targeting of BBBEE resources and enterprise and supplier development accelerators specifically at TEZs to build business capability and agglomerated pipelines.

Meanwhile, with focus on the development of special economic zones (SEZs) and industrial parks to become investment frontiers, land assets have been identified in the Vaal SEZ, with a masterplan to be completed by July this year.

In the Western Corridor/N12 SEZ, an investor pipeline is identified for agroprocessing, Green H2, hemp cultivation and processing and bus manufacturing, while in the OR Tambo SEZ, negotiations are underway on allocating land use rights next to the site into a legal vehicle controlled by the State, following the Lanseria model.

“In the Lanseria High-Tech SEZ, we can announce that working with Government Technical Advisory Centre, under the direction of the Minister of Finance, three clusters of investors with land assets and their own investor pipeline are willing to enter into a project development agreement that will establish a real estate investment trust which can be partnered with the Gauteng provincial government (GPG),” Parks added.

Further, the department set up a Query Management Centre to expedite the resolution of queries in departmental business units such as the Gauteng Liquor Board.

The GDED has also set up a Shebeen Steering Committee which has since been registering good progress in the rationalisation of shebeen permits.

“Regarding access to market by township liquor manufacturers, we have identified macro-manufacturers within the five regions of Gauteng.”

Meanwhile, there are tangible and measured work programmes from established sector roundtables, with Nasrec on track for prototype development by June this year as the department rolls out Global Business Services, broadband and information and communication technology.

“We have entered into an in-principle agreement with Telkom to deploy a cloud zone model in, for example, Alexander, Tembisa and Diepkloof,” he commented.

In the energy sector, two commercial Green Microgrid proposals, at Protea Glen and Tshwane Auto SEZ (TASEZ), are under negotiation with the Industrial Development Corporation for next stage feasibility and funding deployment.

The University of Johannesburg is providing technical support to finalise the GPG Green H2 roadmap and Green H2 investors in SEZ networks are actively plugged in, while in the automotive, defence and aerospace sectors, the TASEZ focus for Phase 2 is on securing battery manufacturing for next generation Ford vehicles.

In addition, partnerships are currently under negotiation with charging station investors and funders to anchor the new charging station grid strategy.

“Regarding the construction sector, the installation, repair and maintenance (IRM) programme – including the platform/system deployed through the Izinga partnership at TASEZ and Baragwanath areas – is making tangible progress,” he noted, reiterating the intention of integrating IRM into all GPG construction projects.

Within transport and logistics, the Gauteng-Eastern Cape High Capacity rail corridor is gazetted as a Strategic Integrated Project (SIP) and the GPG will now be an anchor member.

The focal point of this rail corridor is designed to support export-driven growth initiatives.

Meanwhile, the GDED has been allocated an aggregated budget of R5.3-billion over the 2022 medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) budgeting cycle.

The outer year budget allocations for 2023/24 and 2024/25 have decreased by 10% and 13% respectively, which translates to a nominal decrease of R200-million and R223.7-million in the respective years.

For the 2022/23 financial year, the budget amounts to R1.9-billion.

Some 15% of the budget is allocated towards compensation of employees, such as funding of the wage bill, cost of living adjustment and anticipated public sector wage agreement for 2022, 10% is allocated to goods and services and 75%, or R1.49-billion, goes towards funding the work done at the agencies and the Tshwane SEZ.

The GDED has put stringent controls to ensure that its entities direct the budget towards the attainment of the Growing Gauteng Together 2030 priorities and 1%, or R14.5-million, of the budget is allocated towards the procurement of machinery and equipment.

Further, the department has committed itself to collecting an amount of R3.7-billion over the 2022 MTEF cycle, with 94% of the revenue collected through casino taxes and 6% from liquor licences.