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22 February 2021 Media Release: PPE donated to Garden Route municipalities by SALGA-UN Development Programme

Media Release: PPE donated to Garden Route municipalities by SALGA-UN Development Programme

For Immediate Release
22 February 2021

South African Local Government Association (SALGA) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) donated a total of R750 000 worth of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) toolkits to Local Municipalities in the Garden Route on 22 February 2021. The session was facilitated by the Garden Route District Municipality.

During the PPE handover ceremony, Local Economic Development (LED) Managers and representatives from five (5) of the (7) local municipalities (Hessequa, Mossel Bay, George, Knysna, Bitou, Greater Oudtshoorn and Kannaland) in the Garden Route were in attendance. Each toolkit contains facemasks, hand sanitisers, face shields and awareness material. Toolkits will be distributed by the respective municipal LED managers to Informal Traders and Spaza Shops.

The breakdown of the number of toolkits per municipality is as follows: George, Knysna, Mossel Bay, Bitou and Hessequa will receive 50 face shields each, while Kannaland will receive 20 and Oudtshoorn 30. Each municipality will receive 200 x 1 Litre hand sanitisers as well as the same number of face masks.

GRDM Executive Mayor thanked SALGA for the intervention also shared that the GRDM and its local municipalities are fortunate to receive the first batch of PPE toolkits from SALGA in the Western Cape. “It is a very huge task that lies ahead of local municipalities to ensure that the PPE toolkits land up at the correct recipients – Informal Traders and Spaza Shops.” He also said that the “the world is in dire need of PPE at the moment”.

The SALGA Provincial Executive Committee Member, Dr Annelie Rabie, said: “This initiative is currently being rolled out throughout South Africa and is meant to keep smaller informal food traders safe during this pandemic.” She highlighted that small businesses are all facing difficult times, “they do not all have backup plans, live from hand-to-mouth, and therefore find it difficult to purchase all the required PPE materials to keep safe”.

“As we stand here today, it is true that the whole of South Africa is responding to the challenges posed by COVID-19,” Dr Rabie said. She stressed that revenue at local municipalities is already an ongoing problem, which is why this type of funding by the UNDP, can help communities, which in essence, fills the gaps where Local Government do not necessarily have the funding to do it.

Each municipality today completed an “acknowledgement of receipt” form and will also be responsible for capturing details of each recipient and communicate the details to SALGA.

During 2020, the UNDP and SALGA launched a Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME) development assistance programme to assist up-and-coming local manufacturers of fabric facemasks. The idea was to strengthen South Africa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these donations received on 22 February 2021 included products manufactured by SMMEs from that initiative.

Caption of feature image at the top of this article: SALGA, GRDM and Local Municipal representatives (front, fltr): Shanon Louw (Mossel Bay), Sandy Esau (Mossel Bay), Dr Annelie Rabie (PEC: SALGA), Ald. Memory Booysen (GRDM Executive Mayor), Cllr Grant Riddles (Hessequa Executive Mayor), Joan Shaw (George Municipality Acting Deputy Director: Strategic Services), Nkosinathi September (SALGA Senior Advisor: Financial Resilience), Mvuleni Mposelwa (Knysna Municipality). Back (fltr): Greg Baartman (Oudtshoorn Municipality), Lesley Jacobs (Bitou Municipality), Lerato Tshefu (Hessequa Municipality) and Brandon Du Plessis (George Municipality).

ENDS