Economic Opportunities

[a]       How is his Department ensuring that small business development is not hampered by the drought?

My department, in conjunction with its partners, engages the small business sector on ways to deal with the water scarcity, ranging from reducing consumption, increasing their own water provision (augmentation through accessing ground water, water harvesting off roofs and even mini-desalination), having business continuity plans in place and getting Day Zero ready.

The department acts as a conduit for information i.e. disseminates business related information relating to the water challenges to the relevant stakeholders such as the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), the Small Enterprise Finance Agency [SEFA], the Department of Trade and Industry [dti], the Industrial Development Corporation [IDC], the National Empowerment Fund [NEF] who are requested to forward this information to small businesses on their databases and mailing lists. In addition to the direct efforts from the department, GreenCape, a special purpose vehicle of the department has set up a Water Desk to provide direct and expert support to businesses.

We have engaged Productivity SA who are able to support businesses in terms of their water efficiencies, particularly in the manufacturing sector, and we have also met with the Cape Informal Traders Coalition who may be a valuable conduit to reach the informal sector around the issue of water.

[b]         What is his Department doing to enforce the latest water restrictions in the hospitality sector?

The water restrictions are imposed by the municipalities and provincial government has no legal mandate to enforce them.

However, the hospitality is a key sector which we have engaged with extensively via the JAMMS forum, and via WESGRO, focusing on encouraging the adherence to the water restrictions but also driving innovation in the augmentation of water suppliers.

 Wesgro has established a Water Comms centre – with staff from Wesgro, V&A, Cape Town Tourism and various additional private sector partners.

Their first priority is to support communication to overseas markets: tourists, conference delegates/organisers, investors, consuls general and film-makers etc by co-ordinating co-branded position statements and FAQs from a broad range of stakeholders - this ensures message alignment in each of these markets and helps drive the message that Cape Town is "open for business".

Their second priority is to act as a clearing-house for economic and tourism queries, making sure that questions/offers from international media, stakeholders, emails to water@wesgro.co.za, and social media posts are referred to the right people in government to answer [especially GreenCape and the Business Support Workstream partners]. They are part of the co-ordination meetings between City and Province's contact centres on water, where it's understood that they are available to assist with international economic and tourism queries.