Path Cleared for Economic Development Agency

Plans to establish an entity that will drive and unlock the economic potential of the Greater Sekhukhune district will gain momentum next month.

The setting up of the Sekhukhune Development Agency (Seda) will see the Greater Sekhukhune district council consulting the public in order to pass a by-law allowing its establishment.

Thereafter the council will sit in May and thrash out the whole plan around creating this entity, and probably give its approval depending on whether processes were properly followed.

Seda will be a Section 21 company, and an entity of Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality (GSDM).

It will however be independently run by its own board of directors.

The idea of establishing this agency was mooted during the GSDM’s two-day Growth and Development Summit, which was held at Loskop Dam Aventura Resorts from14 June to 15 June in 2006.

The summit saw a gap and a need for such an entity to accelerate the economic growth of the district.

GSDM executive mayor Cllr Namane Masemola said the agency would be established in the 2008/09 financial year.

Ministerial approval, said Masemola, had been secured from the Department of Provincial and Local Government.

Seda will be responsible for projects that are the backbone of the district’s economy such as mining, tourism and agriculture.

Even before coming into existence, the agency is already entrusted with driving tourism projects that will emanate from the construction of the R9-billion De Hoop Dam in Ma-Seven (Ga-Magolego) village near the first post-apartheid platinum city - Burgersfort.

Seda comes at a time the district’s economy shows signs of dramatic improvement.
One milestone of economic success is that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the district has increased from 4% in the 2006/07 financial year to 66 % from January to date in the current financial year.