While Gauteng's ICT projects received little mention in the recent state of the province address, the Department of Economic Development has revealed ICT as one of its priority sectors.
Following premier Nomvula Mokonyane's address, which was scant on detail, the department highlighted the ICT sector in its industrial development and job creation initiatives.
Mokonyane's address failed to highlight the role of ICT and none of the province's major ICT projects received a mention and no updates were given.
Economic development MEC Firoz Cachalia, however, provided insights into the role of ICT, saying the focus on infrastructure spending would spread across several industries. Labour-absorbing sectors would receive the most attention and decent work outcomes would be promoted.
The department say it has completed the first phase of the industrial policy and has identified the ICT and business process outsourcing and off-shoring industries as some of the key sectors.
“Spending on economic and social infrastructure will remain one of the pillars of the growth strategy for the province, as announced by the premier earlier this week, on Monday. The department's focus will continue to be on strategic economic infrastructure, such as information and communication technology and transport logistics,” says Cachalia.
Other priority sectors include agriculture and agro-processing; automotive and components; tourism; clothing, textile, leather and footwear transport and capital equipment.
Cachalia noted that the department had drawn up a two-pronged strategy, which includes immediate measures by government to address unemployment and the impact of the recession. He added that anti-recessionary measures aimed at supporting job retention in distressed sectors would be introduced.
Despite consistently high levels of economic growth over the last 15 years, unemployment never dropped below 22%, while the recession aggravated unemployment, leading to a 25.2% increase in the third quarter of 2009.
He noted that all initiatives would be incorporated into its post-2010 and post-economic-recession growth strategy, which is expected to be finalised next month.
“The department has reprioritised its programmes and budget to focus on these priorities... We will align our enterprise development, procurement and infrastructure spending with our sectoral strategies,” says Cachalia.
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