City engages business sector on Covid-19 recovery plans
08 April 2021
Mayor Dan Plato hosted representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, hospitality sector and entrepreneurs for a discussion on how the City is charting an economic recovery path and demonstrate how the City is enabling business to navigate the lingering Covid-19 pandemic.
‘Engaging with the business fraternity is key in keeping this sector informed of the city’s plans, where we can offer further support and partner with them, and to hear where we could adapt our plans to better serve our residents and local businesses. We need to work together to continue to support the gradual recovery of businesses which have all in some way felt the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The current Covid-19 global pandemic has placed huge strain on our residents and on the City’s capacity to deliver financially sustainable services. The city is undertaking parallel processes aimed at mitigating the effects of the pandemic, likely future waves of the outbreak and also supporting the rollout of vaccinations. Our plans are focused on short, medium and longer-term economic recovery and development,’ said Executive Mayor Dan Plato.
Steps taken to mitigate the effects of Covid-19:
- Rapidly adapted our systems to ensure continued service delivery to our residents and implementation of a range of interventions, including PPE provision for our front line staff, innovative remote-working solutions, and being the first city in the country to take council meetings online, which we continue to do today.
- Implemented and continue to run a major humanitarian relief project, largely due to the national government’s shortcomings in this regard. We allocated R35 million towards critical food aid relief and supported 250+ soup kitchens with equipment and food to feed over 200 000 residents in need on a daily basis during lockdown.
- Distributed 30 000 SMME Covid-19 toolkits to small and medium enterprises to assist with adherence to hygiene protocols required to limit the spread of the virus, as well as thousands of masks, hand sanitiser, signage for local business.
-The City of Cape Town processed a year’s worth of vehicles licenses in six months – no other city in South Africa achieved this. We hired additional contractors and rolled out an extensive pothole repair campaign.
-Through partnering with our strategic business partners, investments worth R11,27 billion were facilitated into Cape Town, creating more than 7 600 jobs and training approximately 3 000 people during 2020 – in a year of the global coronavirus lockdowns.
-Between March and July 2020, which became known as the hard lockdown, we approved R5,2 billion worth of building plans to ensure the construction industry, a major employer in Cape Town, could return to work without any delays once the national government lowered lockdown levels.
-Regarding loadshedding, the City protects customers from a stage of load-shedding where it can. Sometimes, City customers are the only ones in the country not being load-shed at all, or who are at the lower levels of load-shedding, where it is possible to do so. It is all about how much power the City can pump through our Steenbras Hydro Pump Station to replenish power reserves overnight, if the water conditions of the dam are suitable; and through the use of one Steenbras unit held specifically to assist customers with a stage of load-shedding, if possible.
Questions from the Cape Chamber of Commerce during the engagement session centered around how to access the business rescue programme and how the City is working to ensure service delivery continues to perform at a high level.
A representative from the Mitchell’s Plain Business Forum said they were grateful for the interventions mentioned during the meeting and that Cape Town remained a preferred place of business. Requests were made to increase opportunities for the community of Mitchell’s Plain, while noting that crime remained a challenge with more SAPS and law enforcement needed in the area.
The forum asked that more information is shared for local businesses to register on the city’s vendor database to help create job opportunities. Mayor Plato committed to further engagements with the business sector to address the needs expressed.
A number of the ongoing and new initiatives implemented to support business in a Covid landscape were outlined by Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities James Vos.
Economic interventions being implemented:
Inclusive Economic Growth Strategy, focusing on revitalisation of economic nodes.
Economic Action Plan, with the City’s Strategic Business Partner’s equipping businesses with new ways of working. The City intends to become a remote-working destination and offers many benefits to the digital nomad.
Business rescue programme partnership with Productivity SA focusing on businesses employing 15 – 50 people.
Launching a mobile Business Hub to take advice and assistance directly to community entrepreneurs. This supplements the work of the Business Hub office located in the Cape Town CBD.
Six pillar destination marketing strategy, to position Cape Town as the premier destination to visit, live in, work, study, play and invest in.
Tourism 10-point strategy to rejuvenate the sector:
Late last year, the City put together the Tourism Task Team, with assistance from our official destination marketing organisation, Cape Town Tourism, to support the tourism and hospitality industry, while also focusing on future prospects.
The ten-point strategy is a multi-pronged approach to help the tourism industry survive in the challenging months ahead. Secondly, it is vital that tourism reclaim its status as a significant and key driver of employment for the residents and businesses of Cape Town.
To view a presentation on the ten-point tourism strategy, click here: https://bit.ly/3rHrY4I
Hospitality and tourism sector gaining momentum:
Daily flights to Cape Town have increased to 150, up from only 20 last year during higher levels of lockdown. It is key that we are able to keep this sector open as far as possible as we work to help the sector recover.
Next month, the Jobs Connect CT programme will be launched – aimed at training up to 30 000 people across the city. This will focus on an outcomes-based development project to support talent sourcing, work-readiness training and placing these candidates in internships or work opportunities. Unemployed residents between the ages of 18 and 65 can participate in the project.
Long-term recovery strategy:
The City is in the process of developing a 10-year capital project pipeline aimed at stability and direction in infrastructure development. This will unfold over multiple financial years.
Over the short, medium and longer term, well-planned economic infrastructure investment plays a central role in improving competitiveness and leads to economic growth above and beyond the initial stimulus. The City remains focused on stabilising service delivery and investing intelligently.
The Executive Director for Corporate Services Craig Kesson presented an overview of the City’s Covid-19 response plan and how efforts are focused on stabilising and recovery.
Health system response is very much continuing:
We are recruiting additional contract employees to assist with the national vaccine rollout logistics once vaccines are procured as part of a combined effort between provincial government, the City of Cape Town and the private sector (health and non-health) to ensure we are able to support the efforts to achieve herd immunity.
However, it must be emphasised that the City does not have control over the timeline of the national vaccine rollout strategy, but will work with provincial and national governments to support the rollout as more vaccines become available.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
