Coega wins most empowered enterprise award

MARCH 20, 2014: COEGA was last night named the Most Empowered Enterprise at the second annual South African Premier Business Awards in a glitzy celebration of the country’s best business innovators.

Finalists attended the awards ceremony – hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry, in partnership with Proudly South African and Brand South Africa – which celebrates business excellence and honours enterprises which promote the spirit of success, innovation and job creation, at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.

Coega emerged as winner after competing against finalist in its category, Meondo Trading 369cc, to bring the award home to the Eastern Cape.  The award marks Coega’s dedication to broad business empowerment activities and a commitment to empowering people and communities. 

“It is with great pride that Coega accepted this award. The award and recognition is humbling, but not central to our ethos. The work we do is because we have to do it, the future of the Nelson Mandela Bay, Eastern Cape and even South Africa, hinges partly on the catalytic role Coega has to play in plotting a diversified industrial future that prioritises investment, people and community,” said Ayanda Vilakazi, Coega Development Corporation (CDC) head of marketing and communications.

“We simply cannot ignore the importance of the work that is to be done – and Coega takes its mandate very seriously, which I believe, in part, is why we are being recognised at this level.”

The award encourages and promotes compliance with Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) and speaks to the development of small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs), promoting adherence to the codes of good practice, socio-economic development as well as adherence to procurement codes and policies.

Coega endeavours to include a benchmark of 35% SMME participation on all its projects. Last year SMMEs benefitted from 41% of the overall share of supply chain business created by the CDC, mainly infrastructure and construction sector work.

The South African Premier Business Award comes hot on the heels of the CDC being recognised as South Africa’s best achieving government parastatal/agency for 2013 at the National Business Awards held in Johannesburg in November.

“We have had quite an exciting run over the past six months. Naturally this is recognition of hard work paying off, but the job is far from done, we are simply taking the first determined steps to changing the status quo and shaping an industrial future which has real impacts on people’s lives, enabling them to become active participants in the economy,” added Vilakazi.

“The theme for this year’s awards, ‘celebrating 20 Years of business innovation and excellence’, is a hand-in-glove fit to Coega’s approach to doing business and ensuring that empowerment is central to everything we do.”

The finalists and winners were chosen by an independent and specialist panel of judges from business, government, organised labour and community constituencies.