Page 640 - Demo

Estimates of the Provincial Revenue and Expenditure (EPRE) - 2025/26 Financial Year energy investor at CSEZ and further 1 renewable energy investor at Sarah Baartman District Municipality. On 23 October 2024, DEDEAT held a meeting with Sanaha Property Development/ Boxer stores for an update on the roll-out of boxer stores, where it was resolved that an outreach session will be held in the 4th quarter with targeted municipalities. For the Beef export opportunity to West Africa, updates were provided at the Provincial Investment Forum. Rural enterprise finance and business support and SMME development The department further supported 594 MSME with non-financial support such as business training, development of plans and marketing while 358 MSME received financial support against the revised annual target of 550 and 380, respectively. Furthermore, supported 2 projects to improve economic growth and sustainable livelihood on LRED programme against the annual target of 10. The under achievement is mainly due to non-compliant with the LRED policy from the respective applicants after due diligent were being undertaken. The department partnered with the Statistics South Africa to start with the development of a credible business intelligence due to the data deficiency. Investment management trade and investment promotion The department through the ECDC disbursed R81 million of the total allocated budget of R130 million for the Economic Development Fund. The total amount leverage from the private sector was R117 million from the funded programmes. This fund provided resources for strategic economic development imperatives including industry value chain activation support, MSME access to funding for business finance as well as specialist funds targeting growth and transformation in high potential sectors and industries. Biodiversity and conservation The department continued to focus on tourism development and transformation as well as heritage tourism that aims to generate revenue. ECPTA generated R15.190 million through tourism development and transformation as well as heritage tourism for hospitality revenue. The department achieved 2 on the %u201cnumber of socio-economic intelligent reports produced%u201d against a target of 4. With respect to status report on implementation of tourism sector policies/strategies, 1 was achieved against the annual target of 2. Regulation services ECLB processed its revised annual target of 80 per cent of fully compliant liquor license applications and 46 327 people were reached through liquor awareness interventions in the province. The department issued 3 gambling licence for bookmakers to reach current legislation against the revised annual target of 2 to enhance revenue collection. An amount of R141.1 million was collected against the annual target of R214 million through Eastern Cape Gambling Board (ECGB). The ECGB implemented 5 Gambling Economic Opportunities Awareness Sessions against the annual target of 5 throughout the province. In respect of consumer education programme, 2 was achieved on the other consumer protection initiatives against a revised annual target of 6. Environmental Management The department issued 93.6 per cent on Threatened or Protected Species (TOPS), which is more than annual target of 80 per cent. In support of conservation efforts and creating awareness sessions, 12 environmental awareness activities and 12 environmental capacity buildings were held throughout the province against the annual target of 24 and 24, respectively. Out of the annual target of 500, there was no achievement to date reported for work opportunities through environmental programme as this target is to be reported in Quarter 4. 2.2 Key challenges The key challenges for the DEDEAT group over the past 9 months are as follows: 619