THE North West Province has submitted a list of Infrastructure Projects to the Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) Unit in the Presidency to assist with registration, sourcing of funding and implementation of six major infrastructure projects to the tune of R33 billion.
Premier Bushy Maape announced the move during his 2022 budget vote speech on Thursday at the North West Provincial Legislature in Mahikeng.
Since assuming office, Maape has initiated the Accelerated Service Delivery Plan which aims to expedite service delivery and create jobs, but critically, to resuscitate the economy following the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We have been allocated a team of Technical Advisors to assist the province to build capacity and to qualify some of the Mega Infrastructure projects for funding and implementation,” said Maape.
“In total, if successful mobilization of funding for these projects materialize, we will realise a total of at least R33 billion, with envisaged the creation of at least Sixty thousand jobs.”
During his address, Maape added that the coordination, preparation and submission of these projects for consideration by ISA does not require any additional appropriation for the Office of the Premier.
These, he said, will be delivered within the existing planning capacity within the Office of the Premier.
“The cooperation with ISA is also intended to build beneficial linkages for skills transfer to empower provincial officials to manage projects of the scale proposed in our investment book,” said Maape.
He told members of the legislature that the intervention of ISA in the province also opens up new channels of private sector participation in the delivery of key projects to bolster economic recovery and support job creation in the province.
“We will continue to update the legislature on our efforts to facilitate the creation of jobs and growing of the provincial economy,” said Maape.
“In recent months we have held numerous engagements with the various sectors of the economy in order to build a partnership towards accelerating economic growth and job creation.”
The mega infrastructure projects include the following:
- In Water and Sanitation – (29 projects with a planned value of R11 billion) ;
- Roads infrastructure with (37 projects at a planned value
of R7,7 billion);
- Human Settlements with a planned value of (R3,200 billion);
- Information Communication Technologies to enable the digital economy with an initial planned value of (R5 billion);
- Agro-processing, Mineral Beneficiation, Capital Equipment’s Renewable Energy and Logistics with a project planned value of (R3bn) and;
- Industrial Development project with planned value of (R3,200 bn).
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