Makana Municipality intends to market itself as a investment destination and has received funding for a plan to make the municipality more attractive for business.
The municipality has been awarded R304 500 by Thina Sinako LED Support Programme to formulate an investment incentives policy in partnership with Rhodes University, and a report to a recent Local Economic Development (LED) Portfolio committee meeting provided an update on this process.
Makana Municipality intends to market itself as a investment destination and has received funding for a plan to make the municipality more attractive for business.
The municipality has been awarded R304 500 by Thina Sinako LED Support Programme to formulate an investment incentives policy in partnership with Rhodes University, and a report to a recent Local Economic Development (LED) Portfolio committee meeting provided an update on this process.
The purpose of the policy, according to the report, is to address two elements, namely: to formulate a document that will provide guidelines on how to profile Makana as an investment destination; and to further explore municipal incentives that can be offered to encourage inward investment, such as rebates on electricity and refuse removal to new industries.
Once the policy is finalised it will be presented to the committee, senior management and the business sector in the mayoral business forum. The report reads: "A broader stakeholders' indaba will be arranged. After the finalisation of the policy, an investment promotion brochure will be developed."
LED Director, Riana Meiring outlined the following milestones that have been achieved:
* An economic situational analysis, stakeholder analysis and needs assessment was completed with funding from the municipality at the cost of R46 500.
* The draft investment incentives policy was drawn up in the period between November 2010 to March 2011 and R45 370 was spent against the grant. The draft policy contains business support interventions and proposed guidelines to market Makana as an investment destination, and was submitted to the previous economic development portfolio committee.
R40 000 was spent against the grant for the final investment policy for approval.
* Another R40 000 from the grant was spent developing a system for storing investment and LED related information.
Currently, the total expenditure against the grant amounts to R125 370.
