The Coega Development Corporation (CDC) has been recognised for its empowerment efforts after being awarded the Job Creation Award at the 13th Annual Oliver Empowerment Awards at Emperors Palace in Johannesburg on Friday evening.
The CDC was also one of four recipients of a RAIZCORP bursary to the value of R250 000. The bursary is to be awarded to a black business owner from the CDC’s supply chain.
“We are honoured to have received this award as recognition for all our hard work. We long ago decided that we would not be an island of excellence in a sea of inequality in the Eastern Cape,” said the CDC’s Executive Manager for Business Development, Christopher Mashigo.
“As a result every waking step has been about integrating our core business with a socio-economic outcome either for people in Nelson Mandela Bay or the Eastern Cape and now KwaZulu-Natal.”
The CDC recently launched its KwaZulu-Natal office where is works with the provincial Departments of Education and Social Development on various infrastructure projects.
To date, 47 186 (construction) and 4409 (operational) jobs have been created by the CDC through its investment promotion activities and infrastructure development projects, and a further 50 000 indirect and induced jobs have been created.
“Jobs mean that people can feed, educate and put a roof over the heads of their families,” added Mashigo. “It also means human resource poor provinces can keep skilled workers instead of losing them to larger urban centres and economic migrants.”
The Oliver Empowerment Job Creation Award is given to an organisation that has contributed positively toward the alleviation of poverty in South Africa through the sustainable creation of meaningful employment.
The CDC was one five finalists for the award and was up against: DHL Express, EOH Holdings, Netcare Limited, Persal Holdings and Umsini Health Care.
“The calibre of the competition we faced for this award is testament to the good work which is being done in South Africa when it comes to empowerment,” said CDC marketing and communications manager Ayanda Vilakazi.
“The CDC remains committed to improving the condition of the people of the Eastern Cape, and further afield throughout South Africa where we are gaining traction, through our job creation efforts. We are also delighted with the RAIZCORP bursary which will mean a major training and education opportunity for a businessperson from the region.”
The RAIZCORP bursary beneficiary will be given the opportunity to accelerate his or her business growth through RAIZCORP’s entrepreneurial learning. They will also attend monthly one-on-one sessions with a team of business coaches who will focus on strategy, finance and personal development.
The Oliver Awards are regarded as South Africa’s premier awards for leadership and innovation in empowerment and transformation.
The award is the fourth in almost as many months for Coega, which recently clinched the Most Empowered Enterprise at the second annual South African Premier Business Awards in March and was recognised as South Africa’s best achieving government parastatal/agency for 2013 at the National Business Awards in November.
As part of Coega’s empowerment practices, it focuses on reaching job creation and skills development targets, which over the past three financial years have been exceeded year on year.
During the 2013/14 financial year over 13 000 jobs were created with a similar number trained.
Coega also endeavours to include a benchmark of 35% SMME participation on all its projects. Last year SMMEs benefitted from 41% of the overall share of supply chain business created by the CDC, mainly infrastructure and construction sector work, and again this year this was the case.
The CDC is finalising its financial year figures and will make an announcement on its targets successes in May.
“We have had quite an exciting run over the past six months. Naturally this is recognition of hard work paying off, but the job is far from done, we are simply taking the first determined steps to changing the status quo and shaping an industrial future which has real impacts on people’s lives, enabling them to become active participants in the economy,” added Vilakazi.
Alan Straton
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