The Western Cape government has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Development Bank of Southern Africa

(DBSA) which will foster infrastructure development initiatives.

The agreement was signed on Monday by Western Cape finance MEC Ebrahim Rasool and DBSA chief executive Mandla Gantsho.

While Rasool said he expected that infrastructure funding to the province would be boosted to the tune of about five billion rand over the next five years - including funding from the private sector - Gantsho emphasised the potential role to be played by experts within his bank in assessing and advising on development projects.

Rasool said projects that had been identified as possible strategic projects by the bank, his government and the bank's Development Fund included: the development of the film studio complex near Stellenbosch which would involve a capital amount of about R460-million ; the Cape Town Klipfontein Road corridor involving a possible bridging finance scheme for historically disadvantaged tenderers; tourism small business support, including the development of Cape Agulhas; the development of the Cederberg and Gouritz mega reserves; and building the capacity of local government to plan and implement development programmes.

DBSA chief operation officer Luther Mashaba said the Development Fund would accelerate its efforts "to enhance the development of sustainable capacity to effect delivery of infrastructure services to the poor".

The bank has already earmarked funding of projects to the value of R2.2-billion in the province and has approved technical assistance to the value of R13-million since 1994.

Of these amounts R1.7-billion has already been disbursed and R6.5-million has been provided for technical assistance, with a further R6.6-million in the pipeline.

The implementation of the memorandum of understanding itself would ultimately cost 4.1 million rand. Of this the bank had already disbursed R250,000.