The Democratic Alliance (DA) has raised the idea of creating R700m national venture capital fund, funded by the state, to provide investment capital to help early-stage businesses.
The proposal is contained in the opposition political party’s “alternative budget”, published on Tuesday and available here, a day head of finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s 2012 Budget Speech to parliament.
The proposed venture capital fund is, of course, theoretical in nature because the DA is not in political office nationally, but this and the other proposals contained in its document provide insight into the party’s thinking about how to grow the economy and create jobs.
The DA says its alternative budget is designed to help grow SA’s economy at 8%, assist in job creation and halve poverty in the country. It proposes stronger measures to deal with monopolies and to promote competition, along with a host of other market-friendly interventions, as a way of accelerating economy growth.
The party’s budget proposals touch on a number of hot-button technology issues. If says if it were in power, it would pass a R1bn budget increase for investment in broadband infrastructure. It doesn’t say how exactly it would spend this money.
It would also legalise online gambling, which it believes would secure additional receipts to the national fiscus of R200m/year. And it proposes cutting subsidies to the likes of the SABC, the Post Office and Sentech in order to save R500m/year. — Staff reporter, TechCentral
- Image: Heather Down/Flickr
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