While Border-Kei Chamber of Business chief executive Les Holbrook described finance minister Tito Mboweni’s budget as “not much to shout about” , there were, he said, many aspects that would cascade down beneficially to local businesses.
“The Border area once had a thriving textile industry and the bulk of incentive increases seemed to be heading to textiles. Border must grab its share of this. We need to drill down into the opportunity so as to assist investors, and existing companies, to revive the industry.”
The chamber has a history of contentious issues with Buffalo City Metro, the most recent the rates issue.
According to the commercial property organisation, Buffalo City Property Owners Forum (BCPOF), the city has raked in nearly R150m through illegal rates.
“Mboweni’s veiled threats that treasury will assist municipalities with their performance will help BCPOF spotlight BCM’s ineptitude with this rates matter. It creates a false impression of the city’s balance sheet, because the money must be returned.
“Promises of stricter control over tenders and contracts falls in to the same category. Chamber is fully behind the promise to stamp out the wholesale looting, bribery and corruption, as well as steps to reduce bloated state wage bills.
“We have to hope that the latter may one day lead to BCM having to cap staff numbers.”
Holbrook said the chamber’s building industry members should score from the R30bn set aside for new schools, but as has happened in the past with several capital intense project, the work is regularly awarded to companies and professional bodies outside the Border area...