NEWS RELEASE                                                                                  10 September 2001 

COUNCIL MAKES LAND AVAILABLE FOR FISH PROCESSING FACTORY AT PHILIPPI

The City of Cape Town has given its full backing to a proposed R40 million fish-processing factory to be built in the Philippi/Mitchells Plain poverty zone. 

Originally intended for the Mitchells Plain Industrial Park but due to negotiations still ongoing between the City and the Mitchells Plain Trust the development corridor was settled on as the best location. 

To help the process along, the City has agreed to sell a 14 000 square metre site in Sheffield Road to Cape Fish Processors (Pty) – but the project hinges on a successful application for an additional quota of 6 000 tons of fish. The application has to be submitted to the authorities by 21 September 2001. 

When the factory is built, it will provide 400 permanent jobs and 800 semi-permanent jobs in the impoverished Metro southeast, which has been identified as a major development node in the Wetton-Lansdowne corridor. 

Cape Fish Processors is a successful black empowerment company with an impressive track record in the industry.

Its CEO Harry Mentor, a subsistence fisherman turned respected businessman and Mitchells Plain community leader believes that Cape Fish Processors’ contribution to development and job creation is essential to the company’s business strategy.

“The fishing industry cannot operate in a vacuum, it must meet the broader development needs and IDP of the region in which it operates” says Mentor.

Mr. Mentor has been instrumental in assisting the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the formation of the policies that are meant to restructure the industry.  He was consistently consulted throughout the drafting of the new legislation governing the industry and today is actively implementing this transformation. 

The City will sell the land – adjacent to the future Philippi Fresh Produce Market - to the fish company for R560 000, a market-related price in the area. 

In assessing the project, the City has found it to be highly beneficial to both the City and the Philippi community in several respects:

·        As a catalyst it will kick-start private investment in the area.

·        It will attract further private investment in the Stock Road area into which the City has already ploughed R50 million for infrastructure.

·        It will provide jobs in a poverty zone.

·        It will reinforce a black empowerment group’s access to economic opportunity and will boost the economy of the Metro south-east.

 The City of Cape Town’s Executive Member for Economic Development, Tourism and Property Management, Councillor Kent Morkel, said the Council had moved fast to release the land for development. 

“This is exactly the type of labour intensive project that is needed in Philippi,” he said. “An additional development spin-off is the fact that the R560 000 raised from the sale of the Council land will be used for further economic upliftment projects.” 

“If the quota is granted to Cape Fish Processors, it will give new hope to a community that has suffered from high unemployment in the past,” he said.

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