Mopani wants to attract agriculture

The purpose of the meeting was to mobilise support for the new District Development Model (DDM) to be launched on 16 April.

The executive mayor of MDM, Pule Shayi told the business community that the municipality needs the private sector to come on board.

“We have done our internal working as government, and it’s important that we bring to this space the private sector because the socio-economic profiling of the district should be constituted also by programmes and projects from the private sector for maximum impact across the district,” said Shayi.

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He said that the private sector had a role to play in influencing infrastructure development in the district.

“This is a platform to influence government spending. We need to pull all budgets from other spheres of government into the district. This gives us an opportunity to advance the efforts to localise empowerment so that the money meant for the people of Mopani circulate in this district, and impact positively on the lives of our people,” he explained.

He said that the DDM presents an opportunity for the establishment of a special economic zone on agriculture.

“If our competitive advantage is mining and agriculture, and our neighbouring district is Vhembe where agriculture is predominant, there is nothing stopping us from exploring for a special economic zone on agriculture between the two districts. Through our joint efforts, we will be able to move the informal economy which is led largely by the black majority from the periphery to the centre, from the margins to the core of the economy. This is only possible if we integrate our plans and work as a collective. It is only through collective actions and pulling of resources in the same direction that we will be able to alter the socioeconomic conditions of our people.”