Public Participation
One of the core mandates of any chamber is to represent its members. The business owner does not have time to go to all these public hearings to give input and comment into changes in legislation, government budgets, environmental impact assessments and many other things that may affect them. In modern South Africa, this has become a true full time job and requires expertise. KLCBT represents our members and the broader business community in all these issues and request input via our newsletters from time to time to give us a sense of how we should act on behalf of the businesses.
We also provide feedback and information to our members regarding these issues and changes.
We are represented in:
- All public participation meetings requested by government regarding proposed changes in legislation
- All relevant participation in Environmental Impact Assessments
- Interested party representation in all relevant Mining Applications
- Municipal and district Integrated Development Plan Fora
- Give input to government tourism and SMME Strategies
- Mpumalanga Economic Growth and Infrastructure Cluster
- National Energy Regulator of SA’s annual engagements regarding electricity tariff increases
- Stakeholder participation in Municipal Budgets
- Community Police Forum and POLSEC
- Meetings with consultants hired by government to provide strategies / statistics
Current Projects:
- Most of these are ongoing and we attend between 3 – 5 meetings per week on behalf of the business community
- We are specifically flooded with mining applications right now, most of them are threatening to the tourism industry and our water sources. Most of these applicants use underhanded tactics to avoid objections and we have to be particularly sharp to make sure they do not slip past our radar.
- The P166 bypass between White River and Nelspruit has taken a lot of time and this is still far from over
Recent Successes:
- NERSA did not allow Eskom the full increase amount they have asked for, for all the years we have given input at the hearings
- Some of the mining applications have been withdrawn due to challenges with environmental impact and water
- Municipal budgets include funds for studies or development of the ideas we put forward
- A strong improvement in municipal management, financial management and service delivery in City of Mbombela
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