MEDIA STATEMENT ON THE VISIT TO ITALY BY MPUMALANGA DELEGATION
12 May 2015
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza has returned from a highly successful trade and investment visit in Italy.
Premier Mabuza led a Mpumalanga delegation comprising of MECs for the respective departments of Health, MEC Gillion Mashego; Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, MEC Kholwane and Agriculture Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs, MEC Andries Gamede; their respective heads of departments as well as MEGA representatives. The visits’ main objectives were to attract among others, infrastructure built investments to the province.
Speaking after a weeklong visit to Italy, Premier Mabuza said the visit yielded positive outcomes and would see many investors coming to the province. The Premier said '" we went, saw, learnt and conquered as we opened the doors of trade and investment between our province and Italy”
“Everywhere we went people were very much interested in our value proposition about Mpumalanga province. The highlight of our visit was the landmark agreement that we signed with the Governor of Puglia, His Excellency Nich Vendola,” said Mabuza. These agreement talks to our needs in the improvement of our food security, Human Capital training and healthcare sector
The Premier said in most cases when people wanted to come and invest in areas like our province the biggest challenge was how to secure their investments and most importantly to know who will facilitate their entry into the market. The Premier explained and introduced MEGA as the bridge for investment into the province. It is through MEGA that potential local partners including BBBEE will be facilitated and matched with Italian investors.
“We are excited about this agreement because it shows that Italian companies have confidence in our province and in our country in general. It happens at a time when we are facing challenges of being downgraded by investment rating companies. This will show other countries that indeed they can do business with us," said Mabuza.
The Premier explained that the visit to Italy focused on a number of areas such as; Food production cooperatives, Agro processing, healthcare, doctor exchange programme and more on infrastructure build.
Cooperatives
The commercial food security cooperatives also own retail shops in Italy. What makes this model of cooperatives so unique is that it has opened its membership to the public who are also shareholders. Members of the public benefit both in terms of discounts but also as shareholders. The cooperative has established itself into an off taker of products from the farms.
In South Africa our people are treated as consumers but not as owners. We therefore need a complete paradigm shift as far as cooperatives are concerned. What we are doing in our province will never ever transfer ownership to the masses.
With our current model it will take years before we see change, we cannot continue with our current model.
With the planned fruits and vegetable market, we will offer a new sustainable off taker market. The market will supply the products to both local South African and foreign markets including Italy. Mpumalanga will roll out its plan to of establishing commercial farmers using state owned agricultural land.
Health
The visit to a public-private-partnership healthcare facility in Bari was an eye opener to the delegation. Our healthcare facilities are old and dilapidated, and they lack the cutting edge technology.
The private sector provides capital backed by SACE and other finance companies. The state of the art hospital is build using private sector capital and expertise. Government pays an agreed amount per annum over a period of time.
Once that loan is paid off government can inherit an asset that has been well looked after, well-resourced and highly effective with all state of the art equipment. These health facilities are built over the period of two years. In RSA a 600 bed healthcare facility would take many years to build from conception, government finance to completion and commissioning.
In Italy it took only two years to build a 600-bed health facility using a PPP method. We are interested in further investigating this method because you can even build schools, dams and other infrastructure projects that would have taken years to budget for and build. Service delivery becomes a now reality" The Premier said.
The Premier and the President of SACE signed an agreement for the financing and construction of an initial five hospitals which will inject at least 3 000 new beds including state of the art facilities and equipment in Mpumalanga. The provision of quality accommodation for doctors and nurses is central to the Premiers project for the new built hospitals.
Doctor exchange programme
As a province, we would soon be sending students to study medicine in Puglia Italy and we have invited qualified doctors from Puglia to come and practice in our province
We have a shortage of doctors in our hospitals and Puglia Province which produces around 350 doctors per year will send some of their doctors to come and assist us in our hospitals,” said Premier Mabuza.
International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies
The Centre is prepared to assist our province through agricultural skills development, knowledge management, research, seed development and information sharing.
The 50-year-old agricultural research centre has its membership from countries that are within the Mediterranean region in Africa and in Europe. It has since opened its membership even to other countries that are not necessarily in that region. Mpumalanga has been accepted to join and receive the benefits. MEC Gamede signed the cooperation agreement.
The Premier also signed a bilateral agreement with Governor MARONI of the Province of Lombardia based in Milan the economic capital of Italy . The agreement includes energy, healthcare, water, roads, new town development, education and the manufacturing. The Premier is determined to get Mpumalanga Province to develop its own renewable (solar, biomass and wind) and hydro power stations to alleviate the power shortages that have unfortunately ushered load shedding.
The Premier undertook to be hands on involved in the implementation of the agreed projects as time is of essence. The trip has been grueling but has been successful.
Issued by:
Spokesperson: Mpumalanga Premier
Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Office of the Premier
Tel: (013) 766 2453
Mobile: 079 491 0163
E-mail: zmncwango@mpg.gov.za