Finance and Economic Development in Gauteng, MEC Lebogang Maile, has hailed the Tshwane Automotive Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Silverton for having enabled the creation of 3 244 permanent jobs, to date.
He said more than 65% of beneficiaries were from the surrounding communities such as Mamelodi.
“Of these jobs, 32% were filled by women and 65.4% by the youth,” he said.
During his visit to the site this week, he also shared that the SEZ has so far recorded more than 5 071 construction jobs.
This was made possible by a R16 billion investment injected into the upgrade of a Ford vehicle manufacturing plant by Ford Motor Company Southern Africa.
In 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the SEZ with a multibillion rand investment from Ford and a further R4.3bn investment from automotive components suppliers located at the project.
Through the SEZ’s completion of phase 1 and phase 1A of the special economic zone development saw the beginning of the production of the first next-generation Ford Ranger getting into gear in November 2022.
The manufacturing vehicle company is investing an additional R5.2 bn for the production of the first-ever Ranger plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in the next two years.
Maile said: “This is in line with the department’s objective of strengthening access into the economy for marginal communities. This brings the total of direct jobs created through SEZ to over 8 000 direct jobs, resulting in more than 18 396 indirect jobs.”
His visit to the zone forms part of his ongoing commitment to ensuring the functionality of institutional vehicles geared towards promoting sustainable and inclusive economic development.
“Over the coming weeks, more initiatives aimed at ensuring revenue enhancement, industrialisation and job creation by the provincial government will be communicated,” he said.
The department said the special economic zone through the inter-governmental relations agreement between the three spheres of government has secured R392 million for internal bulks.
The government has also secured R932m initial top structure funding for the establishment of a Ford sub-assembly of after-market components and sequencing facility for national and international markets.
“Through these investments, the manufacturing capacity of the Gauteng Province will be strengthened, while more jobs are created,”the department said.
The Star