By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – Government wants to industrialise Sidvokodvo and it will need E800 million to do so.
Industrialising is one of the strategies employed by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade to create jobs for Emaswati, as per the mandate given to government by Sibaya. This is also part of the recapitalisation of the industrialisation agenda of the country. If things go well, it will take government about three to four years to industrialise this place.
Sidvokodvo, a place along the Yithi Abantu (Mhlaleni-Nhlangano-Mahamba) Highway, has been identified as a place that needed to be industrialised, according to Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo. He said this today in his offices when he met the team from EPN during the meet-and-greet session.
Khumalo said government, through his ministry, needed to industrialise that place for two main reasons. The first reason was that the commerce ministry needed to create jobs, as per the mandate given to government by Emaswati during Sibaya. The second reason was that many other places in Eswatini had been industrialised. The minister said places such as Matsapha, Ngwenya, and Nhlangano were now industrialised.
The minister went on to state that during Sibaya, it became clear to them that joblessness was a thorny and pressing issue among Emaswati. He stated that it became clear to them, as the commerce ministry, that they had to work on improving the situation and availed the jobs in the country. He said the ministry had an internal session, where they looked at the Sibaya submissions and identified the submissions that were directed to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade.
He said they took those submissions and presented them to Cabinet, which validated them. The Cabinet was of the view that the presentations, as presented by the ministry, were what the people submitted during Sibaya. He said these submissions were going to form the basis of what the ministry had to focus on, as it worked towards fulfilling the aspirations of Emaswati, as per their submissions during the People’s Parliament.
According to the minister, it was the mandate of his ministry to help the private sector to create jobs for the people of Eswatini and one of those ways was to industrialise Sidvokodvo for a period of about three to four years. He said water, electricity and sewer infrastructure would have to be set up so that it could be easy for the private companies to work on the infrastructure set up by government.
