Following the recent outbreak of civil unrest in parts of Gauteng, an immediate set of initiatives have been approved as part of economic relief measures for the affected small, medium-sized and microenterprises.

These include the Industrial Development Corporation’s (IDC’s) institutional partnership with the provincial government through the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP).

The IDC has already approved R50-million towards this fund, while the GEP has contributed R50-million from the R250-million allocated by the provincial government.

The GEP and the IDC have allocated R100-million from the Township Economy Partnership Fund towards township rebuilding initiatives, which will be matched by private sector contributions.

The intention is to provide funding on a 50% grant and 50% loans basis, with a cap of R1-million for smaller formal businesses in distress and a limit of R50 000 for informal businesses. 

There will also be an announcement of a partnership with U-Bank for the rebuilding fund and talks are under way with the South African Property Owners Association to partner with the GEP on a retail fund in support of retailers that were affected by the unrest.

The Economic Development, Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development Department has started talks with various organisations to set up Action Labs to explore nonfinancial partnerships for a number of sectors.

Economic Development, Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development MEC Parks Tau has since embarked on a stakeholder engagement roadshow to share government’s plans for the affected small enterprises.

“We have gathered stakeholders to build appropriate partnerships to ensure that we are able to accelerate economic growth and recovery of the province,” he said.

“We are actively building and accelerating the Gauteng economy with the development of multi-tier industrial economic zones across the Gauteng City Region as captured in the Growing Gauteng Together 2030 (GGT2030) plan,” he said in a statement.

In the wake of the riots, Premier David Makhura established a Cabinet/Exco Security Cluster to deal with the criminality that is negatively impacting on business.

Makhura reaffirmed that the Gauteng province was working with the national government towards the development of the Gauteng-Eastern Cape Rail Corridor for cargo logistics.

Tau further said the provincial government had identified the need to expand investment in infrastructure beyond the State’s fiscal limits.

He added that it “was necessary to devise innovative means to finance infrastructure, such as creating a special purpose vehicle to attract investment".

In the same vein, government is looking forward to offers as expressed by industrial giants such as Nampak and Naspers.