By BAKANG MOKOTO

20 November 2024- More than 4000 job opportunities will be created by the China-African Precious Metals Company. This comes after the CAPM opened a newly refurbished gold processing plant in Orkney, near Stilfontein on Monday.

The plant which was resuscitated at a tune of over R200 million, forms part of the company’s R2 billion investment at its Orkney operations in the province.

The official opening of the plant was attended by Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, the North West Premier, Lazarus Mokgosi, the executive mayor of City of Matlosana, Fikile Mahlope and former acting North West Premier, Nono Maloyi.

Mokgosi said the investment, which will create close to 4000 work opportunities for locals, is a culmination of governments investment initiatives aimed at addressing the scourge of unemployment and poverty in the province. He further said this means all their investment initiatives from the 6^th to the 7^th administration, were not in vain.

“Moreover, our ongoing efforts to lure investments and address the scourge of unemployment and poverty is yielding desired results particularly in economically depressed communities like this one.

“More investment commitments are trickling in as the much anticipated gas to power project in the same municipality will be announced before the end of the year.

“On 28 November 2024, we will be meeting with a delegation of business people from the Henan province of China led by the Ambassador to engage on various investment opportunities in mining, tourism and agriculture, which are mainly the three economic drivers of the province,” he said.

Mokgosi added that these investment commitments come at a time, where the province has recorded 69 000 job opportunities in the third quarter of 2024. He said these efforts serve as a ‘glimmer of hope’ in the province’s ongoing endeavours to create various socio-economic opportunities for the people of North West.

Meanwhile, COSATU in North West said it warns against the false presentation of the CAPM jobs project. COSATU provincial spokesperson, Kopano Konopi said: “We want to warn against the disingenuous presentation of the CAPM company, which has been hailed for the expansion of its operations. We understand that the project is among the provincial government’s investment initiatives aimed at addressing the high levels of unemployment and poverty in the province in partnership with the private sector.

“Even though we applaud the collaborative job creation efforts by the provincial government, attempts to twist the truth by misrepresenting the details of this plant are misleading given CAPM’s defiled reputation and the conditions of the touted 4 000 jobs.”

Konopi said in 2021, CAPM exhibited traits of an apathetic employer, refusing to reverse a retrenchment notice to lay off 200 workers out of a workforce of 301 at its gold mine. He said its attitude hindered any progressive engagements with COSATU affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to save the jobs, despite countless endeavours to exhaust all options. 

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