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Our country and its metals fabrication industry are, undoubtedly, in the midst of very harsh economic times right now, and the SAIW is far from immune. Many of our supporting member companies and users of SAIW services are having to cut costs by shortening working hours, retrenching staff and setting annual pay increment of 0%.
Delivering his 2020 Budget speech during the last week of February, Tito Mboweni opened by referencing one of Southern Africa’s indigenous plant species, the Aloe Ferox, which is widely used to make medication and cosmetics. “The Aloe Ferox survives and thrives when times are tough,” said Mboweni. “It actually prefers less water. It wins even when it seems the odds are against it.”
I cannot say that we at the SAIW prefer “less water”, but we know we have to respond to tough times with realistic plans to ensure we grow our revenues and cut costs so that, like the Aloe Ferox, we survive and are still around to benefit when the upturn comes. “Our Aloe Ferox can withstand the long dry season because it is unsentimental. It sheds dead weight in order to direct increasingly scarce resources to what is young and vital,” said Mboweni in his address.
With respect to the budget, we applaud the principles underpinning much of Mboweni’s plans. Strengthening the macroeconomic framework; delivering certainty and transparency and lowering borrowing costs; focusing spending on education; modernising our state-owned enterprises; opening markets to trade with the rest of the continent; reimagining our industrial strategy and lowering the cost of doing business are all worthy goals. It is easy to envision a successful ‘jump-start’ in these areas as having a significant positive impact on the economy.
In particular, we look forward to seeing benefits for our industry from the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s R200-billion Infrastructure Fund for packaged mega-projects. We are also at one with our Minister of Finance with respect to the need to raise skills and, more importantly, to improve “the matching of young people and jobs”, as is evident from the time, effort and energy we have put into our pilot QCTO apprenticeship.
Also on the training side, we are currently seeing exciting things in our work in Africa. Uganda and Ethiopia, for example, are currently looking to partner with the SAIW to develop local welding training initiatives to service their local fabrication industries. Our training manager, Shelton Zichawo, has just returned from a trip to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, where he was asked to assist in setting up the National Welding Training Institute (NWTI). Ethiopia has seen the need to improve the competitiveness of its local manufacturing industries and sees the NWTI as a way of providing them with internationally certified welders.
The SAIW has an important role to play in Africa and we are starting to work with the dti as a key enabler of industrialisation through ‘train the trainer’ welder training, while also establishing ATBs in several African countries North of our borders.
We also have the capacity to provide training for welding support services, such as Welding Inspectors and NDT technicians, to further capacitate the metal fabrication industries in those countries. To present this offering, we will be joining the dti on the upcoming National Pavilion in Rwanda and will also apply to participate in selected business-to-business missions in the coming months.
We see the most important role of the SAIW as nurturing its membership so that, like the Aloe Ferox, the fabrication industry can become more resilient, sustainable and able to thrive for the benefit of all South Africans.
John Tarboton
