President Cyril Ramaphosa says for municipalities to attract investment to grow their economies, they must be strong, efficient, well run and demonstrate a good attitude.
He was addressing delegates on the second day of the Local Government Summit taking place in Boksburg on Wednesday.
The President says investors look at how quickly they can get approvals and permits, the quality of water and electricity provision as well as the state of sewage and waste removal in an area.
“They look at the quality of roads and the quality of infrastructure, they will need to transport products to market. They analyse whether the environment is safe and secure and whether they will be able to protect their investments.”
“If they are not satisfied that their needs will be met, they choose to invest somewhere else and if they are not met by a very welcoming hoard of officials and political leaders, they just make a quick judgment and move on,” adds Ramaphosa.
He says mayors and councillors need to drive the process of local economic development in their municipalities from start to finish.
Ramaphosa says all role players in the area must play their part since it is ultimately the municipality that must implement the LED plan.
“I have often heard that at local government level that it is the consultants that devise LED and then present it to the mayor who presents to council. For me, that is devoid of identifying the key priorities of the key players. The local economic development must be devised by yourselves knowing the lay of the land is what needs to be achieved,” says President Ramaphosa.
Live proceedings in the stream below:
