Covid-19 fight almost over, time to rebuild economy: David Makhura

Gauteng premier David Makhura says the sense of emergency afforded to Covid-19 in the past two years must be replicated and directed at unemployment, rampant crime and economic recovery in the coming years.

Makhura was delivering the state of the province address at the Brixton Community Centre in Johannesburg on Monday.

According to him, scientists suggest that Covid-19 would soon transform into being endemic from being a pandemic. The provincial government would now turn to tackling the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus which destroyed many lives and livelihoods.

Chief among the challenges that require the same urgent response as that given to Covid-19, he said, would be fighting high unemployment through partnerships with the private sector.

Another problem child was crime, and this too called for an emergency response equal to that afforded to Covid-19.

“Scientists are saying Covid-19 could soon become just endemic, moving from a pandemic. In this context we are shifting our main focus and principal energy to tackle the unemployment through economic recovery and reconstruction,” he said. “It is this unemployment which has become, critically, something that requires an emergency response and the kind of response that we gave to Covid-19.

“I am glad to say that Covid-19 is under control, due largely to the massive vaccination programme undertaken in our country and the rest of the world, and that vaccination programme has broken the chain between infections, hospital admissions and deaths.”

Makhura said more than 5.3-million Gauteng residents had been vaccinated, with 8.6-million shots administered.

Said Makhura: “This difficult time shall not break us. We shall rebuild, renew and move forward. As we move out of the shadow of the pandemic, we will do so with urgency and act with the greatest sense of the emergency that we face.

“We will act with agility because unemployment has become a crisis. We have to work and rebuild our infrastructure: the dysfunctional state of our infrastructure constitutes in itself an emergency,” he went on.

“The increasing levels of crime and the sense of insecurity among our people requires an emergency response. Corruption requires us to respond in that same emergency mode.”

Makhura said it was “all hands on deck by his provincial government” as the province moves “from the public health emergency, to the economic and service-delivery emergency”.

Crime

Makhura said crime in the province was now on par with unemployment as the greatest issue of concern. To mitigate against this, his government would intensify efforts to give support, financial and otherwise, to the police to enable them to perform their duties effectively.

Additional vehicles for patrol would be procured while the number of traffic officers had been beefed up.

Makhura lauded provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Elias Mawela, saying more criminals were running scared under his leadership while corrupt cops were getting caught and removed from the police service.

Economic opportunities

The provincial government was making strides to provide support and unlock economic opportunities in various sectors including aviation, food, agro-processing and agribusiness.

In the agribusiness sector, he said, cannabis farming was among areas of growth and government would play its part in creating an enabling environment for business to thrive.

“Gauteng has not paid attention to agriculture, now we are sitting together with these various industry players to unlock opportunities in this sector, especially to bring women into urban agriculture and young people in smart agriculture,” said Makhura.

“In the past 12 months we have also been interacting extensively with the cannabis industry and have identified unique opportunities of this sector in Gauteng.

“There are many cannabis growers in this province and others who are already processing medicinal cannabis and medicinal cannabis products, and retailing those products here in Gauteng.”

Makhura said the growth of the cannabis industry was stifled by regulation and licensing challenges as well as access to land and financing.

“We have decided to establish a dedicated unit in the provincial government to work with the cannabis industry and national government to focus on unlocking these issues of licensing, attracting domestic and foreign investment and facilitating black, and particularly young, participation.”

Nonpayment of service providers

This long-standing issue has been blamed for crippling emerging businesses but Makhura said a lot was done in the past year to turn things around. The departments of the office of the premier, roads and transport, agriculture, economic development, the provincial treasury, Cogta, human settlements and e-government had managed to pay their service providers within 30 days.

However, the departments of education, sport, arts, culture and recreation, and community safety were lagging, “but not doing badly as they had met the 30-day commitment 95% of the time”.

The departments of health, social development, and infrastructure development, he said, were the main culprits for nonpayment of service providers.

“We have a team that is clearing these outstanding payments of service providers and this team is going to be meeting every service provider owed by any department of Gauteng,” said Makhura.

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