30 March 2006
The Department of Roads and Transport in the Eastern Cape will host a
graduation ceremony for 120 public transport small, medium and micro
enterprises (SMMEs) at the Good News Christian Centre in King Williams Town on
Monday, 3 April 2006, at 10h00.
This forms part of the Departmentâs capacity building programme funded by
the Transport Education and Training Authority, which benefited bus operators,
taxi operators and emerging business people in freight logistics from around
the province, who undergone training in business planning, financial planning,
policies and procedures, and health and safety systems.
It supports the objectives of the Provincial Growth and Development Plan,
which highlight the importance of skills development for sustainable economic
growth and development.
It further strives to fulfil governmentâs vision of a society, in which the
people share in the countryâs wealth through ensuring the realisation of
governmentâs strategy of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment and other
interventions designed to fast track the inclusion of the previously
marginalised in the mainstream of the economy and simultaneously transform the
structure of our economy.
As the nation gears up for 2010 Soccer World Cup finals to take place in
South Africa and the Eastern Cape Province, we are repositioning our public
transport sector in order to present our people and visitors with transport
service that would meet world-class standards.
With the implementation of the taxi recapitalization project expected to
commence this year, training programmes of this magnitude will assist in the
preparing those involved in the industry to ensure that they become fully
fledged entrepreneurs, who can play a significant role in the transformation
and formalisation of the taxi industry.
Last year alone, we trained approximately 400 taxi operators on generic
business skills, customer care, interpersonal skills and professional driving
from areas such as Mount Fletcher, Dimbaza, Butterworth, Alice, Mount Frere,
Keiskammahoek, Ginsberg and Ilitha-Ndevana.
The bus industry is also getting equal attention as government continues to
intervene strategically in an effort to promote mobility of our people,
especially in rural areas.
A single legal entity called Africaâs Best 350 Ltd has been established by
185 small bus operators in the former Transkei region, which will get subsidy
from government to service 166 identified routes, which are predominantly in
the most rural areas of the region.
Enquiries:
Ncedo Kumbaca
Media Liaison Officer
Cell: 082 442 2388
Cell: 073 206 6569
Issued by: Department of Roads and Transport, Eastern Cape Provincial
Government
31 March 2006
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecprov.gov.za)
w<EOD
