Be like China and urbanise rural areas, urges Limpopo businessman

Mike Nkuna, a businessman who owns malls across South Africa, including those in Giyani, Makhado and Malamulele, has called on government to consider the urbanisation of rural areas, in order to prevent people from going far for employment.

Speaking during the coronation of Hosi Mahumani at Nkomo village recently, Nkuna cited China as one of the countries that has proven the success of urbanisation, reports Polokwane Review.

He said the country had two cities, namely Beijing and Shanghai, which implemented an urbanisation strategy when the population became too big to be supported by the existing infrastructure.

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“After realising that the infrastructure that it had in Beijing and Shanghai could not support the ballooning population, China decided to urbanise rural areas; and this worked well and prompted economic success on those two cities,” he said.

Mike Nkuna speaks during the inauguration of Hosi Mahumani.

According to him, if South Africa could do the same by channelling its financial resources to homelands and urbanised rural areas, it could do well economically, since people would not have to go to Johannesburg and other big cities to look for work.

Nkuna said the urbanisation of rural areas would help to create jobs right in the areas where most people live, of which he believes, would in turn create economic wealth in those particular areas rather than creating wealth only in big cities.

“Currently all of us when we think of work or business we think about going to Johannesburg, Cape Town or any other big cities, and this is why you find that there are many shacks in those big cities. It is because various people meet there for job opportunities,” he continued.

According to him, this kind of setup takes away the dignity of people, since many of them do not have the necessary finances to live in big cities or outside the areas of their original residence, hence they opt to live in shacks while away from home.

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