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Bay Mayor welcomes Volkwagen’s statement of intent

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Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Executive Mayor Gary van Niekerk welcomed the strong statement of intent by Volkswagen Group Africa that its African headquarters will remain in Kariega.

“Kariega (formerly Uitenhage) has been synonymous with the Volkswagen South Africa brand since its establishment in 1946 and its facilities still represents the largest investment in South Africa by a German automotive company.

“We are immensely proud of this legacy. In addition, the automotive giant’s intent to increase its African footprint from Kariega is excellent news for us.

“The announcement by the Volkswagen Group Africa Managing Director Martina Biene this week, augers well for the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s plans to increase its market share in the automotive sector.

“As much as we are working on strategies to diversify our economy by developing other sectors, we need to cement our position as the “Detroit of South Africa” and further improve our output.

“The news that Volkswagen Group Africa will be producing its first fully electric vehicle, the ID.4 this year as well as the new T-cross, Tiguan and Touareg models, augurs well for our economy.

“We are confident that the electrical vehicle will do well as market trends indicate that the demand for environmentally friendly transportation is growing.

“We would like to repay this vote of confidence in our city by improving our infrastructure and building a region where businesses can thrive and do business seamlessly.

“I would like to wish them well with their plans to become a carbon neutral company by 2030 and look forward to continue our good working relations with the Volkswagen Africa Group,” Mayor Van Niekerk said.

Editor: Come on Gary Old Boy – lets rather aim for the ‘Detroit of Africa’ and, just to confirm we are talking about the Detroit of old and NOT present day Detroit!

Collaboration to Save Investment and Jobs

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“The partnership between the Nelson Mandela Municipality’s Electricity Directorate and the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber continues to deliver innovative solutions to help mitigate against the risks of loadshedding on large manufacturers.”

NMBBC
Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen with NMBM’s Executive Director for Electricity and Energy Luvuyo Magalela.

Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen, said that if it were not for the implementation of the 24 hour stage 5+ loadshedding schedule for qualifying industry, due to the extreme and sustained loadshedding over the past few months, a number of manufacturers may have closed their doors by now. “We regard this intervention as critical in saving investment and jobs in Nelson Mandela Bay.”

Currently 39 major manufacturing companies participate in the 24 hour schedule, which enables a less disruptive approach to loadshedding. “The companies volunteer to load-shed for 24 hours in a row and then operate for a couple of days in a row, depending on the level of loadshedding.”

The manufacturers who are currently on the 24 hour schedule have to meet certain eligibility criteria such as having a clean feed in place from the sub-station to their manufacturing operations, using a minimum of 0.7MW of electricity and must be registered on the ECWIN system used by the Municipality to ensure compliance to the schedule is monitored.

“We commend the Electricity Directorate on their openness to partner with business in working together to save investment and jobs in Nelson Mandela Bay,” she emphasised. “We value this relationship and look forward to continuing to work with them to find ways to support more businesses to find more tenable solutions to deal with loadshedding. Equally important it is vital that this collaboration is also directed at finding ways to urgently rein in electricity inefficiencies and losses, so as to ensure the medium to long-term sustainability of the Municipality.”

Van Huyssteen said that the Chamber was committed to continuing to work with the Electricity Directorate to find solutions to a range of other issues such as improving efficiencies, preventing electricity losses and outages and supporting additional power generation opportunities. “An important intervention in place is Adopt A Sub-Station, which enables Chamber members to extend their private security to surrounding sub-stations so as prevent cable theft and the vandalism of sub-stations. To date 20 sub-stations have been adopted by our members and so far, this has proven to be effective.”

The Chamber’s Renewable Energy Cluster, has attracted the interest of more than 20 companies, which combined account for 20% of the metro’s electricity consumption. Together they represent a consolidated customer base for a renewable energy power producer which will install well over 200 MW of power generation,” she emphasised. “There is scope for additional businesses to join at a later stage. Given that new energy generation capacity is being created, this project will have a positive influence on mitigating load shedding in the medium term. We value the Electricity Directorate’s support of this initiative and for

having embraced the concept of Wheeling to allow end users to procure IPP power through approved traders. There is opportunity for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality to become a municipality of choice for IPPs and traders.”