Polokwane Executive Mayor Thembi Nkadimeng was the keynote speaker at the Limpopo branch of the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) gala dinner at the Pietersburg Club last Thursday.
Sapoa is the representative body and official voice of the commercial and industrial property industry in South Africa.
Neil Gopal, Chief Executive Officer of Sapoa, opened the evening’s proceedings with an overview of the organisation’s goals. He used letters of the word ‘real’ – relationships, education, advocacy, and leadership – to sum up Sapoa’s activities.
Gopal explained that Sapoa creates and maintains working relationships with government and other policy makers to the benefit of their members and with the wellbeing of South Africa in mind. At the same time the organisation spends a lot of money on study bursaries and also has 26 specially developed courses that they offer in conjunction with several universities.
They also spend a lot of effort on advocating, being the voice of the commercial property industry on decision-making level. Since Sapoa’s members are prominent and involved members of their communities, the organisation also provides leadership on many levels of society.
Sapoa regularly conducts comparative analysis of certain developing areas to inform member’s investment, and spends millions on protecting the interests of their members.
Nkadimeng delivered the keynote speech of the evening and her message to Sapoa members was that local government and property developers should work in unison to grow Polokwane to the smart city that all stakeholders envision.
She referred to the city’s Asset Renewal Strategy, adopted in 2013, and stressed the importance of this strategy in developing the city. She explained that the moratorium on development could only be finally lifted once all the municipality’s infrastructure assets, especially the water systems, have been upgraded.
“Even then we will have to stagger the implementation of lifting the moratorium, because we don’t want to overload the new system,” Nkadimeng said.
The mayor also assured Sapoa members that under her management, all entities had to follow the same rules and used a few amusing anecdotes about government facilities whose electricity was cut due to non-payment to illustrate her point.
Nkadimeng also touched on contentious issues like the valuation roll and illegal land use in the city. She said it was unfair to legitimate property developers when others get away with not rezoning their properties for business use when applicable.
Former Sapoa Limpopo Chairperson Joe Nel thanked Nkadimeng for her encouraging words and said it was the most inspiring speech about Polokwa-ne’s future that he had ever heard.
Members spent the rest of the evening networking and enjoying the dinner.
MARKI FRANKEN
>>marki.observer@gmail.com
