Lolo Madonsela
State President, Cyril Ramaphosa said he was aware that AbaQulusi faced water shortages, sewage challenges and bad roads.
However, he stated infrastructure development would resume as soon as the necessary budget was set aside.
Speaking at the Cecil Emmett Grounds during his visit to the area on Sunday, President Ramaphosa said, “We did infrastructure development during 2010. We built a lot of stadiums and roads, then after 2010 everything went downwards; we are not going to start with our infrastructure once again as a country. The money is there, it is available. I went to financial institutions and they said the money is there. All they want is for us to give them projects and build dams. Our citizens, including yourselves in AbaQulusi, are always complaining about water issues; you also complain about sewage systems that are not functioning properly, you complain about roads.”
President Ramaphosa said now Government endeavoured to build dams to provide more access to water, roads to encourage safe travel and other ‘things which will make lives easier’.
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“That is what we are going to start doing, because our plans are now reaching maturity stage and those plans are ready to be implemented, in order to strengthen our economy.”
The President added all residents needed to be dedicated to empowering the youth, giving them skills and experience they need. “If we are to fundamentally transform our economy in our society, then we need to invest in the capabilities of our young people. We have started with a programme of training the youth. Comrade Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma spoke about it in Parliament and said we have started with it, and we are going to roll it out more and more. Currently, there are youth from KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Limpopo who are grouped in Thaba ‘Nchu; a thousand of them are being trained as we speak now.”
President Ramaphosa said once this training was complete, the youths would be skilled in a number of disciplines.
He also stated Government’s mission was to train thousands of young people so they had skills and said some would be able to start their own businesses, while others would be hired in different sectors.
“We are ramping up the skills acquisition of our young people.
“Also, what is more important is that we are starting from a young age – from early childhood development to high school, all the way up to colleges and universities – and we are equipping our young people with the skills our country will need.”
President Ramaphosa concluded by saying a state bank would be opened soon and would support women in business, youth in business and black-owned businesses through procurement.
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