During the Economic Development Budget Vote, I noted the following:
“To address obstacles to investment projects, the Department will target 22 investment and infrastructure projects it will help to unblock.”
The target was derived from the Department’s Annual Performance Plan tabled in parliament earlier this year.
The actions consist of identifying investment and infrastructure projects that are not proceeding to schedule due to reasons that can be addressed by the Department. These may include, for example, lack of regulatory approvals by a municipality or national agency, access to energy and delays in approvals of incentives or funding.
Most of these kind of challenges are brought to the attention of the Department and its agencies by users or project initiators and thus no prior list exists at the start of the financial year.
Progress with this target for the current financial year will be reported on a quarterly basis to the Portfolio Committee on Economic Development.
Details of actions taken in the past year will be included in the Department’s Annual Report due to be tabled in parliament in due course.
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