BUYING LOCAL SHOULD BE EVERYONE’S BUSINESS – MINISTER DAVIES

South Africa's Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says the positive impact and success of the Buy Local Campaign is dependent on the private sector and consumers throwing their weight behind the initiative aimed at adding impetus to the country’s economy’s growth. Minister Davies was speaking at the 3^rd Buy Local Summit and Expo that is hosted by Proudly South African at the Emperors Place in Ekurhuleni today.

“In line with the theme of the Summit, which is “Buy Local – Make it Your Business”, it is incumbent upon the business sector and consumers to join the government and commit themselves to supporting our localisation efforts by making it their business to promote and buy locally-produced goods. If all of us can take decision to buy locally-manufacture products, we can create a more positive future for our country in terms of employment opportunities,” said Minister Davies.

He added that government was committed to ensuring that public entities took steps to ensure that there was a progressive and incremental movement towards fulfilling the aspirational target of 75% local content in procurement, which was agreed upon by all stakeholders in the formulation of the Localisation Procurement Accord.

Minister Davies stated local procurement was one of the tools that government was putting in place to promote and strengthen industrialisation. Others include amendments to the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act and designation of locally-manufactured goods for procurement by government.

“We cannot expect to grow, develop and increase employment as a country if we simply continue to be located in a world economy as producers and exporters of primary products and importers of finished goods.  Part of efforts to bring transformation in our economy such that it could create sustainable, decent work and address poverty and equality, which are our major challenges, required that we bring a structural change. That is the reason why industrialisation has become the imperative of our government, “ said Davies.

Speaking at the same event, the Minister of Public Enterprise, Malusi Gigaba said Eskom has set itself a target of spending over R24-billion a year to businesses owned by black youth by 2017.

He stated that it is critical to use state owned companies to open up opportunities for emerging black miners.

“Eskom has negotiated an export capacity allocation at Richards Bay which will be used to provide emerging miners with access to global markets. We have also established a task team involving Transnet and the Chamber of mines to determine how the expansion of the Richards Bay coal terminal can be leveraged to enable access to more capacity for emerging miners,” added Minister Gigaba.

Minister Davies cutting the ribbon to open the Buy Local Summit

ALEXANDRA RESIDENTS ENCOURAGED TO GRAB OPPORTUNITIES AND CREATE OWN JOBS

The Deputy Minister in the Presidency Mr Obed Bapela has urged the community of Alexandra to grab the job opportunities that currently exist in the country and refrain from seeing some of these jobs as low-level jobs. Bapela said many jobs exist in the country. However, many people fail to realise that these opportunities exist because they look down on them.

He was speaking at a co-operatives workshop hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) in Alexandra on Monday, 10 February 2014. Aspiring entrepreneurs and the youth were workshopped about forming co-operatives in order to access funding from government and its agencies.

“There are a lot of dumping sites in Alexandra, and if the youth could see such opportunities, organise themselves into co-operatives and clean up these sites or even recycle the material found there, such projects would assist them to create jobs for themselves and also participate in the local economy,” said Bapela.

He advised the community to copy the strategies utilised by foreign nationals to establish and run businesses and compete with them instead of fighting them.

The chairperson of the Trade and Industry Portfolio Committee Mrs Joanmariae Fubbs said co-operatives provide a tool to creating jobs for oneself, others and vehicle for growing the economy. She encouraged the community to think out of the box, stop asking for government to provide jobs and start creating their own jobs.

“If you are united in number you have the power. Co-operatives are successful because they bring together different skills and contributions and promote corporate ownership,” she added.

According to Fubbs, the Co-operatives Act which was recently signed into law provides for a lot of opportunities for support and funding for co-operatives.

The community was given an opportunity to interact with officials from the dti’s   incentive administration division, the Youth and Co-operatives Directorates, Small Enterprise Development Agency (seda), Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and the National Empowerment Fund (NEF).

Ms Linda Chauke, an entrepreneur who owns a Mayonnaise manufacturing company said she was excited about the information she received at the workshop. She said she had been struggling to get funding to improve her business and buy new equipment.

“I am happy to have received this information. I am now considering converting to a co-operative and give ownership to other people I work with so we can be able to access these wonderful opportunities from government,” she added.