ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
SMALL Eastern Cape businesses and youth pricked up their ears yesterday when the provincial government’s finance MEC Sakhumzi Somyo announced he had R9.1-billion to offer in trade.
In a big push to create jobs and get business going, Somyo said 50% – R7.1-billion – was set aside for small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) to provide government with goods and services. A further 30% (R2.5-billion) of the infrastructure budget would go to SSMEs. He said: “SMMEs are the vital cog in our economic and job creation strategies. This money is for Eastern Cape small business people.”
He assured small business operators that government would keep a steely eye on this “policy imperative” as the year unfolded, but asked only that SMMEs stayed true to the goal of creating “large-scale job opportunities, especially for our youth”.
Jobs for youth, he said, was a government desire at “the centre of all the priorities, projects and programmes”.
Youths must acquire skills in order to enter the labour market, he said. Government was also doing its bit by creating a new, young, and energetic layer of public servants.
He announced that R1.4-billion would be spent on absorbing 20 000 graduates into government internships and its learnership programmes.
The Office of the Premier is being given R7-million to forge ahead with its successful skills programme partnership with auto assembler VWSA, in building the new Polo.
But it is in agriculture where there is a stirring in the minds of the youth. “Many of our young people are beginning to realise that agriculture is the sector in which they can make a living. That is our Eastern Cape gold mine,” he said.
He said R18.6-million would be spent on nurturing the youth development programme, especially in agriculture programme.
There was also good news for 400 young people who will benefit from the infrastructure development programme run by the OTP and national departments of defence, higher education and training, and the provincial health and education departments.