26 Aug 2020

Selebi Phikwe Economic Diversification Unit (SPEDU) and development partners will undertake a land servicing project in Selebi Phikwe sometime this month.

Selebi Phikwe Town Council (SPTC) mayor, Mr Lucas Modimana, informed councillors during a full council meeting that land servicing project expected to commence this month was approved in March while the contractor was appointed in June.

He said the project was expected to be completed in 2023.

At the end of the project, he said, 1 929 hectares of land would be serviced being 84 hectares of industrial plots, 1 300 hectares of urban agriculture, 480 hectares of tourism and 65 hectares of civic and community plots. 

He said the land servicing project would ease establishment of enterprises by both local and foreign investors.

Mr Modimana further said annual activities often held in Selebi Phikwe had been halted this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nonetheless, he said SPEDU was committed to economic development of the region, adding that the unit was involved with 68 companies, which were at different stages of development.

In addition, he said SPEDU continued to facilitate formation of community-based organisations (CBOs), while 14 organisations had already been established.

Regarding the SPEDU Revitalisation Strategy, he said to date 2 047 jobs had been created against a three-year target of 6 856 constituting only 30 per cent of jobs created.

He said efforts to operationalise the investment incentives package for the SPEDU region, which was approved and subsequently gazetted in February 2018, were ongoing and being addressed by Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry.

“Seventeen companies have so far been issued with Tax Relief Certificates whilst 19 have been given 30 per cent government off take certificates.”

Mr Modimana also informed councillors that the Social and Community Development unit had conducted a skills audit in town geared to establish skills that the community had, initial target being ex-BCL mine employees.

Through this initiative, he said the department was undertaking three community projects in collaboration with other development partners being SPEDU and BCL.

These proposed projects are Morula Products project, Soap production and Tswana Chicken production projects.

He said the beneficiaries were trained on business skills and record keeping by Department of Cooperatives, LEA, Animal Production and CEDA.

He said BCL in liquidation through its corporate Social Investment Committee had pledged to fund two of these projects, namely the Tswana Chicken production and the Soap Production.  Ends