As part of his promise to donate half of his family’s personal wealth to charity, South African mining billionaire, Patrice Motsepe has pledged the sum of R12 million ($1.2 million) to help rid poverty and unemployment in Cape Town’s  Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain.

Each of the communities will get R6 million ($590,000) to establish forums in the Motsepe family name.

According to Motsepe, the donations will be channeled into two Motsepe Development Forums, one in Khayelitsha and the other in Mitchells Plain.

“This forum must comprise of all the sectors in these communities, including NGOs.”

“The forums will be established by you (the community) and will be the vehicle to assist our young entrepreneurs, co-operatives, youth, religious organisations and, most importantly, our children through education. The funds will be used mainly to assist co-operatives with new business ventures,” the oil magnate added.

Forum members will be selected by registered community organisations, NGOs and religious leaders at a meeting that will be facilitated by the Motsepe Foundation next month while the Motsepe Foundation staff, investment group Sanlam, banks FNB and Standard Bank and the Department of Trade and Industry will assist the two communities with the necessary support, Motsepe said.

“The money that we will donate today must be spent within a year, between June 2013 and June 2014. I will come here once a year to speak to the forum members. Whatever the forums invest in must be profitable. We don’t want the money to sit in the bank while people remain unemployed,” he added.

While noting that the government alone could not deal with the challenges facing people on the Cape Flats, Motsepe pointed out that drug abuse, unemployment and crime had led to a sense of hopelessness.

“We can only change this if business, civil society and the government work together,” he said.

Finance, Economic Development and Tourism MEC Alan Winde said any private sector investment into start-up businesses and programmes for the youth was “a step in the right direction”.

On his part, ANC provincial chairman and Deputy International Relations Minister, Marius Fransman said Motsepe’s donation was “exactly what the National Development Plan speaks to.”

“It speaks about true partnerships between the government, business and civil society to uplift our communities.”

Meanwhile, the city of cape Town is currently conducting a feasibility study that will make Wi-Fi internet available in Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha communities by the end of 2014.

According to Zak Mbhele, the Spokesperson for the Mayor of Cape Town, Helen Zille; Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha have been identified as “gap areas” when it comes to internet access and broadband penetration and the government wants to narrow down the “digital divide” so that people in poor communities can have equitable access to the opportunities that come from being connected to modern information systems.

“Improved broadband penetration will create a more enabling environment for investment, economic growth and job creation. Business that are reliant on connectivity will find that Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain becomes attractive sites of operation when they become one of the areas I Cape Town with the most advanced broadband infrastructure in the city and, more broadly in the Western Cape and South Africa,” Mbhele said.

Funding for this project is expected to come from consortium of partners including all spheres of government and private sector ICT companies.