Coega IDZ – open for business at last

THE announcement that President Thabo Mbeki has given formal approval for the Ceoga Project and that tenders are being called for construction of the R2,6-billion port of Ngqura is the signal that the adjacent IDZ is now truly open for business and for final negotiations with potential investors to begin.

It has been a long haul and there has been understandable and justifiable cynicism about the project and whether it would not ultimately amount to no more than just another hollow promise.

The President’s approval and call for tenders for the construction of the port, together with the designation of the IDZ at the end of last year and announcements scheduled to be made by Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin and his Public Enterprises colleague Jeff Radebe next week, finally end any doubts there may be about whether the project will go ahead.

Most critically, what the legal and regulatory framework does, together with the tenders for construction of the port, is to create certainty in the minds of potential investors with regard to the Coega Project. It makes it clear that the Project is not a pipe-dream but a major development to which government as a whole is unquestionably committed.

To that must be added the fact that the incentive package is now complete placing investors, on the one hand, in a position to make decisions based on the hard financial and economic realities and the Coega Development Corporation (CDC), on the other,to compete against other destinations across the globe for foreign investment.

It would be wrong to suggest or believe that the Coega project will be the panacea for all the social-economic problems that beset this province, because it will not. It will, however, provide a massive psychological boost for a region that in the past was simply neglected and ignored.

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Come on Shaun, cowboys don’t cry

SHAUN Pollock and his men are taking a battering down under, but they would do better to take it squarely on the chin rather than to squeal now about their busy schedule.

In addition to a sorry slump in form, the Proteas are having to deal with injury problems, weariness and worst of all, a seriously sagging morale.

The five-day series against Australia set the tone, and Pollock’s dressing-down from his uncle, selector Graeme did not help, nor did the ill-timed meddling of SA cricket chief Percy Sonn. Then losing three one-day internationals in four days sealed their humiliation.

Indeed it is a tough schedule, but SA accepted it from the outset and no amount of whinging will detract from the dismal showing, capped by a thrashing at the hands of Australia earlier this week when six SA batsmen were out for a duck.

Pollock and the others are highly paid professionals, most of whom are in the prime of their young lives. They should be at peak fitness. No schedule should be too tough for them.

There is only one thing left for Pollock and the squad to do. Get up off the deck, grit their teeth and salvage some dignity by making a fight of it. Cowboys don’t cry.