At the Wild Coast Special Economic Zone (SEZ) strategic roundtable held in Mthatha on Tuesday the MEC for finance, economic development, environmental affairs & tourism Oscar Mabuyane announced that having two major projects like the N2 Wild Coast Roads Corridor and the Umzimvubu Dam underway showed the SEZ had taken off.
Mabuyane said delays with these projects had meant a delay on the actual establishment of the Wild Coast SEZ.“As we all know our government is seized with the work of establishing this third SEZ in our province here in Mthatha.
The intention is to expand the provincial industrialisation programme with a particular focus on agro-processing, exploiting our comparative advantage in agriculture,” said Mabuyane.
The other two SEZs are Coega in Port Elizabeth and the East London IDZ. He said the Wild Coast SEZ had the potential of an infrastructure investment of R1.3bn, where more than 6,000 jobs could be created during the construction phase and more than 2,500 operational jobs when the project was up and running.
Stakeholders at the meeting and supporting the establishment of the SEZ included representatives from the department of trade industry who will provide some of the funding as well as OR Tambo district traditional leaders and the farming associations.
Both the OR Tambo district municipality mayor Nomakhosazana Meth and King Sabata Dalindyebo local municipality mayor Dumani Zozo were in attendance. Mabuyane said the challenge once again, as it was with Xolobeni, was the issue of land.
“That should tell us something about the poor standard of our community facilitation processes. The development of this eastern region of our province cannot be stalled by one common denominator of access to land which belongs to our people,” he said.
He added that the ANC-led government is promoting engagement where communities as owners of the land can work with government to develop their land and derive economic benefits from it.
“I am glad that the communities who lodged and won a land claim on the land that we earmarked for the establishment of the Wild Coast SEZ are willing to release their land on a lease basis to government for the establishment of the Wild Coast SEZ,” he said, adding that the communities were responding positively to the idea of a long-term lease agreement with government.
The area earmarked for the SEZ is Ncise village near the Mthatha airport.
Mabuyane said they were working around a 50-year lease which could offer the communities sizeable benefits and a conducive environment for investors to expand their businesses.
“This is the only way we can make Mthatha and this region more attractive to potential investors for the SEZ,” he said.
He said the proposal for the capitalisation of the rental to enable communities to take equity in businesses locating within the SEZ could see the communities deriving a value of R22.6m over a period of 15 years based on an annual increase of 5% and “that is enough equity for them to participate meaningfully in the development of the SEZ”.He emphasised that the establishment of the Wild Coast SEZ was an economic legacy project that could not afford to be delayed any longer...