WHAT ROLE IS THE CITY PLAYING TO HELP REBUILD THE ECONOMY AND SOCIAL FABRIC?

We believe we lost close to 15000 jobs, and these are permanent jobs. Many centres, especially retail shops, had to close down. We know very well that, for example, church street became a ghost town in a matter of two days and nothing was left. But we are glad that various businesses have committed to rebuilding and reinvesting in our city; and to us, that is a vote of confidence to the city and its leadership because had it not been for us working together with the private sector, we believe many would have found opportunity to close down and leave the city and invest somewhere else. But because of the work we have down with various property developers and businesses, the majority of them are still investing in our city.

This means that, of those jobs that were lost, surely one way or the other people will be re-employed. Yes, it will not be the same people that were working in those factories, but the reality is that people will be employed.

Take Brookside Mall for example. We know very well that come July next year it will be 100% operational. We have just opened Edendale Shopping Centre, which is operational as we speak. The majority of businesses affected are now working because, when this happened, the central and provincial government came on board and tried to assist businesses, and especially the businesses that were uninsured. We worked with them to make sure they tried to claim from Sasria so that they could reopen because we know our role, as a city as well as the government of the republic, is to make sure that we salvage those little jobs while we also work towards improving the economy of our country, and in this case, our city.

Hence, we had a dedicated unit at Local Economic Development (Led) to work with everyone affected by the unrest. Previously with Covid-19, we had put together a plan that was starting to get results, and then the unrest happened.

We are glad that the majority are still with us and reinvesting in our city.