SA Affordable Housing March - April 2020 // ISSUE: 81 | Page 11

EVENTS
The MMSEZ board of directors is
under the chairmanship of
Rob Tooley.
of economic priorities for the provincial government
and also enjoys the highest priority of the national
government and national president.
“The mineral deposits in the area and the
mining value chain present opportunities for
investment and consequent industrialisation
because the mining lifespan exceeds 200 years.
Doing business in the MMSEZ comes with
tantalising tax incentives and a completely
different ease of doing business.”
“The basic appeal of MMSEZ is the under-
development of Africa, and as a 4IR logistical hub
we are a conduit to development in SADC. The
challenge will be to ensure investments also
create jobs – it can’t be one without the other.
The quid pro quo of an SEZ is that although you
lose on corporate tax, with jobs being created you
gain on PAYE and VAT as the economy grows,”
says Tooley.
North and South
Richard Zitha, MMSEZ SOC executive, made a
presentation of the sites. The MMSEZ is in size larger than
greater Johannesburg, and is split into a North (Musina)
and South (Makhado) side, with each having a defined
focus, which means there are qualifying criteria and not
everyone can invest:
• The 8 000ha South site is primarily an energy and
metallurgical hub including coal-fired power plant,
coking plant, stainless steel plant, high carbon
ferrochrome plant, and silica-manganese plant. As a
greenfield site, it comes with the bare minimum of
infrastructure, construction of which is anticipated to
commence in September 2020.
• The 3 500ha North site is reserved for light industry,
open to new investment opportunities focused
around a logistics hub, warehousing and distribution
for the SADC region, agro-processing, automotives,
pharmaceutical and many others. Upgrading the
infrastructure on this site will require R2.8-billion,
with an additional R1.2-billion in Musina itself, based
on preliminary studies. The Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) on this site is complete, and it is
poised to proceed with critical infrastructure
construction from June 2020.
Funding for this will come from the National SEZ Fund and
from Treasury and various development finance
institutions (DFIs), including the IDC and DBSA, while the
provincial government has also budgeted a significant
amount of money for infrastructure beginning in the next
financial year.
The entire concept is premised on the SEZ Act, which
details all the incentives and rules, central to which is a
www.saaffordablehousing.co.za
Limpopo Premier, Stanley
Mathabatha, anticipates
investment of R200-billion to
R250-billion.
15% rate of corporate tax (compared to the usual 28%). In
addition, there is building tax relief, employment tax
incentives and bonded area customs relief, and for local
investors facilitated access to other government
investment programmes such as the Black Industrialist
initiative.
THE ROADMAP:
• Early 2020: site clearance, perimeter fencing and
access control top secure investments
• 2021: Commencement of civil works, internal roads
and bulk services as well as ongoing investment
roadshows. At this point, investors can safely
commence their own construction on site.
Zitha says the concept of the MMSEZ was premised on
extensive cross-border research to determine what
commodities were crossing the Beit Bridge border with the
top ten identified as being potential low-hanging fruit. The
idea was that that instead of machinery and equipment
being built in, say, Durban and shipped to a SADC country,
it could far more advantageously be done in the MMSEZ.
He says it is hoped that companies would interrogate
the potential for relocating their operations to MMSEZ to
be closer to their SADC markets by taking advantage of the
investment and tax incentives.
Both sites are currently designated SEZs and the South
already gazetted, with the North in the process of being
gazetted by the dti. The South is in the EIA-approval stage,
and Mokone says that “in our view by April 2020 we should
be seeing the commencement of works”.
Agreements were signed with Chinese investors to
establish what will be known as a Bonded Trade City which
will allow the beneficiation of various agricultural
products, such as cotton, avocado and timber into various
added-value products for the export market. Local
manufacturers were also looking at relocating electrical
vehicle production to the MMSEZ.
MARCH - APRIL 2020
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