As part of the City of Cape Town’s commitment to building an investor-friendly environment, an Opportunity City, in which much-needed jobs can be created, the City provides funding and strategic guidance to Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and Wesgro.
SPVs have been established to enhance development through the implementation of industry development programmes whilst Wesgro is the official investment and trade promotion agency for the Western Cape.
“The City prioritises funding of these two bodies in order to facilitate the development of the city’s economy by encouraging the creation of a positive, enabling environment to do business, promote investments and open up job opportunities for the people that live here,” said Councillor Garreth Bloor, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic, Environmental and Spatial Planning.
The City has recently received a report from these two entities, highlighting the work they have done for the period January to March 2013.
The highlights include:
Wesgro facilitated four projects under the banner of the Investment Promotion programme with a total value of R965 million which resulted in the creation of 1 348 direct jobs. The investments were in the renewable energy and manufacturing sectors respectively.
The Cape Town Fashion Council (CTFC) is undertaking the SPV co-location project that seeks to develop a business case that will provide a sustainable economic model that can assist various Design and Technology ‘not-for-profit’ associations, organisations and academic bodies to collaborate across programmes and resources. The project focus is to develop a design hub in the Fringe Precinct (District Six Area). Also, CTFC’s handpicked 20 designers at this year’s Design Indaba generated sales revenue to the value of R514 000,00 collectively, over a four day period.
The Cape Information Technology Initiative (CITI) aims to ensure that 1 000 people (including recent graduates, unemployed people and the disabled, with particular focus on previously disadvantaged individuals are reskilled, new skilled or up-skilled and/or placed in internships or employment in the ICT sector and/or in other ICT-enabled sectors by 2016. CITI has continued with the skills programmes facilitation in this quarter. Of the people targeted for training, eight candidates completed IBM Academic Initiative Programing Certification in November 2012, 17 completed the Advanced Java Programing Certification in August 2012 whilst 11 candidates completed SAP training in February 2013. Of the new intakes for 2013, 22 candidates commenced Advanced Java Programing Certification for 2013 at the beginning of March 2013, 10 candidates will start training in May for IBM PHP RPG and 10 are expected to start training in June 2013 for SAP. With regard to internships for candidates, 29 people have acquired work experience via internships with seven candidates from IBM 2012 course, 15 from advanced Java Programing Certification (2012) and seven from SAP course.
The aim of the Women in ICT programme is to facilitate a conversation that promotes and encourages women in the ICT sector. Twelve women entrepreneurs are targeted for the programme that runs for nine months with each session delivered by experienced facilitators. BWB has completed this training programme and have initiated on-going monitoring to measure the impact of the programme on participant businesses.
A Langa Academy Brainstorming Session was also hosted this quarter. The aim of the session was to give an update and discuss the way forward for the setting up of a BPeSA / Ikhaya le Langa BPO / Call Centre academy and career awareness centre in Langa. The academy will target unemployed youth.
The Cape Craft and Design Institute’s Job Fund has had significant successes in a short space of time – 93 new jobs have been created since project implementation started with companies in October last year.
“The City will continue to work with our strategic partners on projects that will directly benefit the people of this city, and their communities,” said Cllr. Bloor.
