ECDC has good reason to be pleased

THE Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) has good reason to be pleased with its performance over the past 12 months, having successfully transformed an organisation on the verge of curatorship to one geared for the challenges of bringing economic investment and development to the Eastern Cape.

Add to that a record year as far as attracting investment is concerned – investments of R740-million were secured providing 1 025 new jobs – and significantly bright prospects for the current financial year with the trade promotion unit currently engaged in negotiations with 36 probable and 16 possible investors.

The Corporation’s CEO Mcebisi Jonas was brutally honest both in his assessment of the situation inherited when four former homeland corporations were amalgamated and about what needed to happen. That it took just 12 months to turn the corporation around is testimony to the determination to halt the rot and relaunch and revitalise an organisation that has a critical role to play in the economic development of the province.

What is particularly heartening about the ECDC annual report released on Wednesday is the news of a 22,45 per cent increase in export trade from the province and that some 100 companies are currently exporting no less than 50 per cent of their production.

Viewed with the Coega Project, the East London Industrial Development Zone, the toll road linking that city with KwaZulu Natal that will open up the unquestioned tourist potential of Transkei and the massive spending on infrastructure, there is every reason to believe that the Eastern Cape is finally poised to enter a period of real economic prosperity that will provide significant employment and business opportunities.

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The truth about Zim’s land grab

WELL at least Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa makes no pretences about the land grab in his country. As long as you are black you are entitled to benefit, he said this week.

Earlier his President Robert Mugabe, attempting to put a moral complexion on the land confiscations which have seen farmers killed and their workers thrashed and driven off, brazenly told the World Summit that no one was being threatened and no one was being left without land.

It’s nonsense of course but there were leaders who lapped up these lies as though they were mother’s milk.

Of course it’s not just the land. Family homes, dams, boreholes, machinery and equipment that have taken generations to put together, have either been trashed or taken over without compensation.

He also told how the country – whose tourism industry has collapsed and where 600 000 head of game have been slaughtered by hungry peasants and poachers – protected its natural heritage. What outrageous garbage.

But back to Chinamasa who admitted in an interview that the ruling elite was claiming its share of confiscated land. He said: “We have bankers who have benefited, lecturers from universities, and even opposition members. As long as they are black they’re entitled to benefit.” Enough said.

The land will soon be worthless, mostly squandered in the hands of non-productive amateurs, and totally devalued by the land grab. That’s when the bubble bursts.