Call to Action: Stay safe to stay open for business

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND ASSET MANAGEMENT, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS

We are witnessing a significant increase in the rate of COVID-19 infections in Cape Town, prompting the Western Cape provincial government to consider localised restrictions to curb the spread.

For the sake of the health of the residents of the Mother city as well as that of our economy, we must all play our role in keeping each other safe. This means that where possible, avoid crowds – especially this black Friday – and practice safe hygiene such as washing or sanitising hands regularly, coughing and sneezing in our elbows and maintaining social distance.

When we all pull together, we can do amazing things. We have done it before when we faced Day Zero and we can do it again.

The City of Cape Town, through my Enterprise and Investment Department (E&I) have worked extremely hard to help businesses adjust to the next normal but to also get back to work and to remain viable.

To respond to the first wave, the E&I team created a limited edition SMME COVID-19 Toolkit, filled with the essentials to help get businesses back to work after the lockdown period. This was to help businesses combat the spread of COVID-19 and ensure the health and safety of employees and customers.

To download key informational poster on workplace safety,  please visit http://wordpress-local:8081/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/UPDATED-Workplace-Safety-Poster_02.pdf and for a poster on customer safety, please visit http://wordpress-local:8081/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A4_poster_V3.pdf.

Learn more about the SMME COVID-19 toolkit with this short video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WYgOrkSA0P8GTu-f5-HBligfi57jgrq_/view

My priority remains to get our economy back to business and our residents back to work. The strategic plans we put in place have seen significant investment and job creation over the last six months.

Between April and September 2020, the City’s Strategic Business Partners (SBPs) collectively facilitated R8.8 billion worth of investment, created 4 980 jobs and trained 1 366 people, despite the various stages of lockdown and economic downturn we have faced.

A key component of the Economic Action Plan (EAP), developed by the Economic Task Team I set up to respond to the impact of the lockdown on our economy, was to ensure that our SBPs pivoted their plans and used the funding from the City to support businesses.

The collective achievements of our SBPs, under very difficult circumstances, makes it clear that the City’s EAP is the best chance for economic readiness and recovery because it is working.

Now we need to change our behaviour to keep safe, save lives and save livelihoods.