PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma announced a major infrastructure investment plan aimed at promoting job creation and developing the country's ailing infrastructure.
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma announced a major infrastructure investment plan aimed at promoting job creation and developing the country's ailing infrastructure.
In a speech generally accepted by opposition parties last night, Zuma announced government's investment over the next seven years that will span across the provinces.
The plans include:
- R300-billion capital projects investment by Transnet - of which R200-billion will go to rail projects and the rest to the improvement of ports.
- Spending R300-million in the building of two new universities in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape.
- The implementation, in April, of a R1-billion fund to promote access to home loans.
The phased development of a new development of a 16 millions tons per annum manganese export channel through the Port of Ngqura in the Nelson Mandela Bay.
Zuma said this would include developing the Durban, Free State, Gauteng industrial corridor that would promote the movements of goods between Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The projects, said Zuma, would drive the creation of jobs.
He announced plans to integrate rail, road and water infrastructure in Limpopo to promote mining and unlock the province's rich mineral belt of chrome, platinum and coal.
In Mpumalanga, coalfields will be connected to power stations while the iron ore rail line between Sishen in the Northern Cape and Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape will be improved. Access to water and building roads in the North West and building a dam in Transkei to expand agricultural production.
He said the Port Regulator and Transnet had agreed to an arrangement which would see exporters of manufactured goods having reduced port charges to equal R1-billion.
While admitting that his plan of creating 500000 jobs a year had failed, he said that 365000 jobs had been created last year, resulting in the reduction of the unemployment rate to 23.9%.
Zuma said the new jobs had mostly been in the formal sector, such as mining, transport, community services and trade.
Speech is well received by the opposition
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma announced a major infrastructure investment plan aimed at promoting job creation and developing the country's ailing infrastructure.
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma announced a major infrastructure investment plan aimed at promoting job creation and developing the country's ailing infrastructure.
In a speech generally accepted by opposition parties last night, Zuma announced government's investment over the next seven years that will span across the provinces.
The plans include:
The phased development of a new development of a 16 millions tons per annum manganese export channel through the Port of Ngqura in the Nelson Mandela Bay.
Zuma said this would include developing the Durban, Free State, Gauteng industrial corridor that would promote the movements of goods between Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The projects, said Zuma, would drive the creation of jobs.
He announced plans to integrate rail, road and water infrastructure in Limpopo to promote mining and unlock the province's rich mineral belt of chrome, platinum and coal.
In Mpumalanga, coalfields will be connected to power stations while the iron ore rail line between Sishen in the Northern Cape and Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape will be improved. Access to water and building roads in the North West and building a dam in Transkei to expand agricultural production.
He said the Port Regulator and Transnet had agreed to an arrangement which would see exporters of manufactured goods having reduced port charges to equal R1-billion.
While admitting that his plan of creating 500000 jobs a year had failed, he said that 365000 jobs had been created last year, resulting in the reduction of the unemployment rate to 23.9%.
Zuma said the new jobs had mostly been in the formal sector, such as mining, transport, community services and trade.
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