SEDIBENG. – Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) Mayor, Hassan Mako, held a fruitful three-hour meeting last week with the North-West University (NWU) Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, led by Executive Dean Prof Marathon Sibanda.

The meeting was held to identify immediate areas of partnership between the University and Emfuleni, with both bodies committed to launching practical programmes without delay. The meeting was expected to lead to a Memorandum of Understanding.

Mako’s office stated that the collaboration seeks to take the university’s contribution beyond the lecture hall and into investment attraction, economic development, skills training, entrepreneurship, research, innovation, and strengthening the local authority’s institutional capacity.

The discussions were further boosted by the presence of the Vaal Business Corporation (VBC), a forum dedicated to partnerships aimed at restoring the Vaal region to its former economic strength. This brought academia, government, and business together around a single developmental agenda.

“The executive mayor’s energy and determination to serve are creating renewed confidence that Emfuleni can be better, and that its universities, colleges, businesses and communities have a meaningful role to play in making it so. The objective is therefore to turn political will, academic knowledge and business capacity into measurable development for the people of Emfuleni,” Mako’s office said.