IDC Again Fails to Meet Funding Targets

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the state’s financing arm for industrial development, has abandoned its five-year target to hand out R100bn by 2020.
Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, whose department baby-sits the IDC, noted that in the year to March, R15.3bn in funding was approved, with R11.0bn disbursed.  He said this funding unlocked total investment of R47bn.
The Minister admitted the initial target won’t be met, but said that while the five-year target had been “helpful” he complained that “internal capacity just wasn’t there.”
And he said that there is now a “rolling” five-year target, with the aim of beginning to boost total funding to over R100bn in a later five-year period.
Meanwhile, the IDC, which has been presenting its annual results to March, announced it has supported 83 Black Industrialists, to the tune of R4.7bn.
One of the IDC’s largest projects has been support for the BAIC Chinese automotive firm, which is setting up an assembly plant at Coega, near Port Elizabeth.
IDC CEO Geoffrey Qhena said that the project had fallen behind by five months because “we were not happy with all procurement issues.
“It is proceeding now, and the plant should be ready by June next year.”
Patel announced that the IDC board has decided that none of its non-executive directors can do business with the Corporation in their private capacity, even if they recuse themselves from discussions, but he denied that this followed the discovery of any wrongdoing.
Finally, the IDC confirmed that one reason why its recent funding of projects has fallen short of expectations has been the attitude of state power utility Eskom, which has refused to sign up to take power from renewables schemes which had won IDC backing.