SASOL AND DIPALESENG LOCAL MUNICIPALITY ENGAGE

31 Oct 2017 11:54

Sasol has quarterly meetings with Dipaleseng Local Municipality with the purpose of reporting back on Social Labour Plan (SLP) projects, Social Investment projects as well as recruitment and/or employment opportunities, particularly for the local population.

The Municipality was also granted opportunity to make presentation on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) programs to enable Sasol to get broader version of the municipality and its planning trajectory for possible future alignment and partnering.

In terms of SLP projects, Sasol entered into an agreement with the municipality back in 2012 for a period of five financial years involving a few projects such as the Fencing of Reservoirs which was completed in 2013 as well as the Upgrading of Roads both in Nthoroane implemented in the 2013/14 financial year.

Currently Sasol is busy with the biggest project in that agreement, being the Upgrading of the Sewer Reticulation Plant in Nthoroane 2015-2017 as well as Sewer network reticulation 2018- 2020 in Greylingstad and Willemsdal amounting to about R45.5 million anticipating to create about seventy (70) local job opportunities.

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) have been completed and approved and a process of appointing a contractor and ready to commence work in January 2018 with remedial work commencing from then and ending at the end March 2018.

The Municipality and Sasol have agreed to utilize Department of Labour for all recruitment and selection processes for potential job opportunities at an ad hoc basis, particularly those earmarked for locals. The department was part of the meeting contributing to deliberations in line with their mandate of improving work prospects for work seekers across the country.

Department of Labour was requested to embark on a major recruitment drive and further to that strengthen their ongoing recruitment drive at the three local youth centres, the department will visit them on a regular basis as well as wherein the centres will be used as drop off zones for job seekers to register on their database.

Sasol Mining is also involved in a massive recruitment for operators for particularly from Dipaleseng and Goven Mbeki local municipalities, absorbing five candidates per month from November 2017 with the last group to be taken in January 2018.

As part of addressing skills shortage challenges in the municipality, Sasol also committed to fund a training programme for 10 leaners to benefit from the Basic Traffic Officer NQF Level 4 at the Mpumalanga Traffic College in the year 2018 to the value of about R1 million. These candidates will be recruited through the Department of Labour. For the sustainability of this initiative, the municipality has committed to absorb six of the ten learners from this program into their system. The other four will be included in the budget in the next financial year.

For the whole of 2018, Sasol will be spending half a million rands on implementing a substance abuse prevention programme that will be implemented in the local schools.

Amongst others, Sasol is also implementing an Orphan & Vulnerable Children programme in Nthoroane by Topsy foundation wherein; 510 people are benefiting, 46 home gardens, 8 communal gardens with 1403 beneficiaries at a total project cost of R 432 000.

“We are continually grateful to all the Sasol interventions to the municipality, I am so elated and you continue to amaze us with your support. This really shows us that you remain true to your commitments,” said the Executive Mayor during his remarks.

Over and above the implementation of all these projects, the municipality and Sasol mining also have the task of finalizing the next set of projects to be implemented by Sasol from the year in line with its SLP commitments, driven off course by the municipality’s priorities as set out in the IDP.

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Dipaleseng Local Municipality