President Jacob Zuma has urged the private sector to help with job creation, saying that government would support businesses to grow and generate employment opportunities.

“Improving quality of life cannot be done successfully by government alone. We are therefore happy with the cooperation that is strengthening between business, government and labour, which has been a strong feature of this year,” he told a meeting of the Wesgro Investor Forum in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Zuma said that the current situation in South Africa where social grant recipients outweighed tax payers was not sustainable. “We need to put in place programmes that develop our country so we reach a stage where we reduce the number of people who are receiving social grants and therefore balance it with the number of people who are tax payers. ”

He said the situation was a relic of the past system of apartheid. “By creating a society which did not have equal opportunities it disadvantages a lot of people, mainly in education.” This, Zuma said, was one of the reasons his government has made education a key priority.

“These programmes that we are putting in place are in fact designed to deal with reduction of those who are receiving social grants. We believe that it is only the aged and disabled people who must receive.”

In the context of the Western Cape’s opportunities for job creation, Zuma said that Cape Town had been a key selling point in tourism and that this was continuing to be a critical job creation sector for the country.

Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies also highlighted the manufacturing facet of the film industry in the city, which he suggested needed to be developed further because of its potential for job creation.

“In the same way as my door is open to film projects . . . and to how we can support them through our incentive scheme, we would be open to discussing how we can support manufacturing activities linked to the film industry, because I think we need to deepen the different capacities we have in the film industry,” said Davies.

Also speaking at the event, Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille took the opportunity to confront Zuma on the City of Cape Town not being given the ability to influence the management of some of the key transport infrastructure in its precinct. De Lille said that the city was trying to build a competitive advantage as a regional trading centre, particularly attempting to unlock the potential of the African West Coast where the oil and gas industry is thriving.

“We maintain our own investment market to make that happen, not least in transportation networks and infrastructure amongst other mandates. However Mr President, we currently do not have control over the tariffs charges at our ports and at our airports. Nor do we have a say in the management of those facilities. To truly drive economic and social development we must have a say in how the major entry points to our city are managed,” De Lille challenged.