By Nangamso Mabindla
11 March 2008

BIG business will be in East London for breakfast at the Mdantsane Indoor Sports Centre on Friday, 28 March.

Organised by the Mdantsane Urban Renewal Unit (MURP), with the help of the Local Government Business Network, the gathering aims to encourage businesses to start thinking about investing in the impoverished township.

It follows the 2007 signing of the Urban Renewal Tripartite Co-operation agreement, which involved Buffalo City, Nelson Mandela Bay and the Sol Plaatje municipalities. The agreement aims to assist the three local authorities - which each have an urban renewal node - to share best practice in the delivery of basic services in those nodes.

Luntu Bobo, Buffalo City's portfolio head for engineering, said that it was important to involve business people in the drive to change the face of Mdantsane.

"We think that the best place to start in our efforts to change the face of Mdantsane is the central business district [also known as the Highway]. We would like to resuscitate our CBD and we need big businesses to come and invest in Mdantsane."

To show that the City was not leaving everything to the private sector, he explained that it had applied for funding from the national Treasury to be spent on improving the CBD to make it inviting to potential investors.

"We could be getting R138-million from the Treasury's neighbourhood fund and we want to use it to improve the Mdantsane CBD. We would like [to see changes] within three years of receiving the money," Bobo added.

Opportunities in the Highway included building shopping malls and improving taxi ranks and informal trading areas. "We want to make the Mdantsane CBD a more vibrant area. There are opportunities for social and business interests."

Presentations will be made at Friday's breakfast by representatives of the Department of Provincial and Local Government, people with commercial interests in Mdantsane and business people who have already invested in Mdantsane.

The department will talk about the challenges facing the Urban Renewal Programme across the country.

Guests expected to attend the event include; Buffalo City Executive Mayor Zintle Peter; municipal manager Gaster Sharpley and the councillors.