The City of Johannesburg and Economic Development officially launches the first of its planned 14 Opportunity Centre’s (OC) at 88 Marshall Street on the 14th of March 2018.
The City firmly believes that the development and support of SMMEs and entrepreneurs will play a huge role in achieving 5% economic growth by 2021 with sustainable SMME’s contributing to a reduction in unemployment.
All OC’s will carry their own identity and be customised in order to cater for services required in their specific areas of operation. The new OPC logo, which will be carried citywide, will be announced by the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Councillor Herman Mashaba, at the launch of the first OC at 88 Marshall Street and was chosen via a participative process which involved learners from the City’s institutes of higher learning. We are following the same process in terms of naming each and every centre.
To ensure a high level of support the City has invited a range of public and private sector partners from various disciplines to be part of this ground-breaking project with some of the key stakeholders taking up residence within these facilities. The OC’s will each be managed by a City of Johannesburg official in partnership with SEDA.
They will identify and earmark appropriate courses and skills training in conjunction with our partners in order to provide:-
(a) A “Single Point of Entry” for SMMEs;
(b) Registration of companies and SARS related functions;
(c) Access to funding, markets, economic infrastructure and information to grow one’s businesses;
(d) Assistance with the completion of tender documents and related issues.
The Office of the MMC of the Department of Economic Development (DED) and the City of Johannesburg facilitated a SMME Outreach Programme between September and October 2017 across the seven (7) regions of Johannesburg. The objective of this engagement was to actively engage with small business owners on the City’s provision of services and business support in this respect in order to conceptualise an efficient business support model.
The decision was then taken to launch five Opportunity Centres (OC’s) across the City within the 2017/18 financial year. Two of the OC’s would be relocated and rebranded to be more accessible to entrepreneurs, whilst three others will be refurbished and rebranded in their current locations.
| NO | LOCATION | EXPECTED COMMENCEMENT OF OPERATIONS |
| 1 | Joburg CBD 88 Marshal Street (totally refurbished) | 14 March 2018 |
| 2 | Soweto Empowerment Zone (SEZ) will only be rebranded with the new logo/name Will remain and satellite to be established at Jabulani Council offices in 2019 | May 2018 |
| 3 | Ivory Park (currently being identified and will commerce its refurbished) | May 2018 |
| 4 | Diepsloot (currently being identified and will commerce its refurbished) | June 2018 |
| 5 | Randburg Council Offices currently being refurbished | June 2018 |
| 6 | Roodepoort Council Offices (will only be rebranded Will be discontinued and two will be born (Braamfisherville core and Cosmo satellite) in 2019. | May 2018 |
| 7 | Poortjie (will only be rebranded) Will remain a satellite and the new core will be at Lenasia CBD in 2019 | June 2018 |
| 9 | Alex (currently being identified and will commerce its refurbished) | June 2018
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The Department also plans to launch a centralised Job seeker’s desk mid-2018 to further enhance the support offered by our OC’s. Another new and exciting feature in addition to this will be the introduction of Innovation desks where SMME’s and entrepreneurs can access a platform to launch their unique ideas and receive expert assistance in developing these ideas.
We plan to expand the OC’s to two per region with a total of fourteen OC’s by the end of the 2020/21 financial year.
Issued by:
Sue Reddy
Deputy Director: Special and Catalytic Projects: IRED
Department of Economic Development
City of Joburg
E-mail: suered@joburg.org.za
For more Information:
Jabulile Buthelezi – Stakeholder Manager
Office of the MMC – Economic Development
Mobile: +27 67 028 96 36
E-mail: JabulileBu@joburg.org.za
