Jewellery facility 'will not be white elephant'

The construction of a jewellery manufacturing precinct in Gauteng would commence in about October and should take six to eight months to complete, Gauteng economic development MEC Qedani Mahlangu said yesterday.

Speaking at a media briefing, Mahlangu said the technical design and model of the precinct would be available early in April, and would be followed by an investor conference that month.

"Concurrently with the construction we will be sending 20 students to different jewellery schools in Italy and India to study jewellery design and specialise in different aspects of jewellery manufacturing by September."

No 'white elephant'

"We are not going to build a facility that will be a white elephant," Mahlangu said.

The R200m beneficiation precinct was a highlight in Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane's state of the province speech last week.

President Jacob Zuma said in his state of the nation address this month that the government's beneficiation strategy aimed to address "the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment", while providing opportunities in the downstream minerals sector.

However, Mokonyane said in an interview with Business Day that the departments of economic development and infrastructure development were struggling to recruit skilled professionals.

Department 'comfortable with capacity'

Yesterday, the head of the Gauteng economic development department, Khulu Radebe, said while capacity was a "moving target subject to skills loss" the department was comfortable with its capacity.

This year the provincial government has a budget of R10bn for infrastructure development. Part of this is allocated to social infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics and schools.

Infrastructure development MEC Bheki Nkosi said his department was "ready to deliver" on the demand for infrastructure development throughout the provincial government, particularly in health and education.

Nkosi said Gauteng's new procurement plan, which would provide guidance on "multiyear infrastructure planning", was under review by the Treasury.

This integrated service delivery model would take Gauteng a step closer to a co-ordinated approach to social infrastructure delivery.

Capacity limitations

Nkosi said capacity limitations had hampered the delivery of infrastructure.

However, the department had managed to secure "multidisciplinary teams of built environment specialists to augment and enhance capacity needs".

"The teams will participate in current projects and initiate planning for 2013-14," Nkosi said.

Mahlangu said international investors had already committed to information communications technology projects, forming part of the planned "smart city" project in Nasrec, near Soweto.

Activities at the smart city would include the manufacture of various products, as well as a film and animation studio.

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge