Johannesburg – The City of Ekurhuleni is poised to become one of the major players in Africa’s economy, with the city’s mayor on Thursday even aspiring to outdo Johannesburg and Pretoria.
“Our biggest ambition is to have a single city. The core area which is surrounding the airport, Kempton Park, Bloomsburg and Bedford View is vibrant economically, but it needs to be reorganised so that it can be part of the single city that will be bigger than anything else,” Mayor Mondli Gungubele said.
Speaking to SAnews on the sidelines of the Airport Cities Conference taking place in Kempton Park, Gungubele said Ekurhuleni had plans to grow its economy faster than any other city in South Africa and the continent.
He said the single city plan will begin to take shape when Ekurhuleni introduces its Bus Rapid Transit system next year.
“We are activating our townships and we want them to be part of this growth in Ekurhuleni. One of the key things we are doing is working with the province to open our roads from the townships, so that it is easy to reach the airport and the city by ordinary people,” Gungubele said.
The city also aspires to become what Gungubele described as an aerotropolis, a city whose economy and infrastructure is centred on an airport.
Apart from having a world class transport network, Ekurhuleni is home to Africa’s biggest airport, OR Tambo International. It also has four other regional airports which mainly serve private travellers and chartered airplanes.
“The fact is an aerotropolis promotes light industrial products is driven by information technology and is handy to perishable goods, so it gives ordinary people an opportunity to use us to transport their goods around the world. And because this kind of economy is anchored on IT, it then becomes a ‘young people’ economy,” said Gungubele.
More than 400 delegates from top cities in the world are attending the three-day conference. It is for the first time the conference is being held in Africa and previous hosts include the United States, Italy, China, Germany and Greece.
Gungubele was confident the conference would bring long term benefits for not only the city but the province of Gauteng.
“It places Ekurhuleni, Gauteng and South Africa on the map... It’s an opportunity therefore to sell all that our city has to offer.”
He said in preparation for the conference, several small businesses had benefited through the provision of various services, translating into “revenue for our people”.
Gungubele said Ekurhuleni had always come behind Johannesburg and Tshwane in terms of growth and recognition, but said all of this was about to change.
“We had to accept that fact that we are seen as behind Joburg and Tshwane. We are now working and spending sleepless nights in promoting this city’s potential and there can be no better event than this Airport Cities Conference,” he said.
Speakers at the conference included the Deputy Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga, Chicago Department of Aviation’s Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino; and KwaZulu Natal-Economic Development MEC Michael Mabuyakhulu.
Chikunga urged industry leaders to “think out of the box” to ensure that the aviation sector survives the current global economic crunch.
“It is imperative that we focus our attention to the kind of airport infrastructure needed to address current and long term needs of our respective countries… We should also deliberate on how airports can contribute towards the growth and development of airport cities with spin offs for the economy as a whole.” – SAnews.gov.za
