Deputy Minister Steve Letsike: Aberdare Cables 80th anniversary celebration
Keynote address by Deputy Minister Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, MP, Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Aberdare Cables 80th anniversary celebration
Chairperson of the evening;
Leadership and Board of Aberdare Cables;
Representatives of Hengtong Group;
Industry leaders and partners;
Representatives of organised labour;
Government officials;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen.
Good evening.
It is an honour and a privilege to join you this evening as we celebrate an extraordinary milestone, the 80th anniversary of Aberdare Cables.
Eighty years is not simply a measure of how long a company has existed. It tells us something about resilience, adaptation, innovation and the ability to remain relevant through changing economic, political and technological circumstances.
Since its establishment in 1946, Aberdare Cables has become part of the story of South Africa's industrial development. Its products are found in the infrastructure that powers our homes, connects our communities, supports our mines and industries, enables telecommunications and drives economic activity.
Ladies and gentlemen, Today, Aberdare operates manufacturing facilities in Pietermaritzburg, Gqeberha and Gauteng and directly employs approximately 1,150 South Africans, while supporting many more livelihoods through its suppliers and broader value chain.
We congratulate the leadership, employees, shareholders, suppliers and partners of Aberdare Cables who have built and sustained this institution over eight decades.
But anniversaries are not only opportunities to look backwards.
They are also moments when we must ask ourselves what the next chapter should look like.
For me, that question is particularly important because South Africa's next chapter must be written by its young people.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We cannot speak about the future of South African industry without speaking about the future of South Africa's youth.
We cannot speak about industrialisation without speaking about skills.
We cannot speak about infrastructure development without asking who will build, install, maintain, manufacture and innovate the infrastructure of tomorrow.
And we cannot celebrate successful South African companies without asking how we bring more young South Africans into those companies.
This is one of the greatest challenges confronting our country.
Too many young people remain outside employment, education and training. At the same time, employers tell us that they struggle to find people with the skills and workplace experience required by industry.
We therefore have a responsibility to close the distance between the classroom and the factory floor, between training and employment, and between qualifications and economic opportunity.
This cannot be the responsibility of government alone.
Industry must be at the centre of this effort.
Programme Director, As the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, our approach is increasingly focused on preparing young people for demand-led industries with high absorption potential. We want skills development to respond to real opportunities in the economy rather than training young people for opportunities that do not exist.
Our Annual Report highlights the importance of training and capacitating young people in demand-led industries with high absorption capacity, massifying sector-specific skills development and preparing young South Africans for both the current and future needs of our economy.
That is why I want to use this occasion to make a direct appeal to Aberdare Cables, to the broader cable industry, to manufacturers and to every business represented here tonight.
Open your doors to more young people.
In particular, I want to challenge industry to take on more graduates from our Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges.
Our TVET colleges are producing young artisans, technicians and graduates with skills that should be powering South Africa's industrialisation programme.
These young people need more than certificates.
They need workplaces.
They need mentors.
They need practical experience.
They need their first opportunity to prove what they can do.
Government can invest in education and training, but ultimately industry is where skills become productive capacity.
We therefore need a much stronger partnership between our TVET colleges and employers.
I want us to reach a point where a young person studying electrical engineering, electronics, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, information technology, renewable energy or another technical discipline at a TVET college can see a clear pathway from the college campus into a company such as Aberdare.
We must strengthen workplace-based learning, internships, apprenticeships, learnerships and graduate placement opportunities.
But importantly, industry must also help us answer a fundamental question: what skills do you actually need?
Tell government and our training institutions where the shortages are. Tell us which occupations will be required in three years, five years and ten years. Tell us what the energy transition, digitalisation, automation and advanced manufacturing will require from the next generation of workers.
Our skills pipeline must be driven by the future of work and the real demands of the economy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
There are already mechanisms through which industry can participate.
One of them is the Youth Employment Service, or YES programme.
I encourage companies across the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors to participate in YES and to use the programme as a pathway for bringing young people into meaningful workplace experience.
I similarly encourage industry to work with Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and the broader ecosystem supporting young people into employment.
These platforms can help us bridge the gap between young people who are searching for opportunity and employers who require talent.
I therefore want to issue a very practical challenge this evening.
If your company can accommodate ten young people, take ten.
If you can accommodate fifty, take fifty.
If you can accommodate one hundred, take one hundred.
And if you cannot employ them permanently immediately, give them meaningful workplace experience that improves their chances of securing sustainable employment.
The first opportunity is often the hardest opportunity for a young person to secure.
Industry can change that.
And we must recognise that the young people we are talking about are not asking for charity.
They are asking for access.
They are asking for the opportunity to work.
They are asking for the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, their creativity, their discipline and their potential.
The responsibility of government is to create an enabling environment, strengthen institutions, coordinate programmes and ensure that young people are equipped with relevant skills.
But the responsibility of business is equally important. Businesses create the workplaces in which skills are applied, experience is accumulated and careers are built.
This is the partnership our country needs.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Our Department is already demonstrating what is possible when skills development is connected to emerging economic opportunities.
Through a partnership with the Energy and Water SETA, 22 young women from rural provinces, including Limpopo, North West and the Free State, were trained in India through the Solar Mamas programme. This is a good story to tell!
These young women received practical skills in renewable energy design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance.
This is important because it demonstrates the direction in which we must move.
We must deliberately position young people, particularly young women and young persons with disabilities, in the industries that will define the future.
Renewable energy.
Digital technology.
Advanced manufacturing.
Infrastructure.
Telecommunications.
Engineering.
Artificial intelligence and automation.
These cannot become industries in which young South Africans merely consume technology produced elsewhere. Our young people must design, manufacture, install, maintain and ultimately own businesses within these value chains.
The Department is also coordinating work around Fourth Industrial Revolution skills to equip young people to participate meaningfully in the digital economy.
But training alone is not enough.
A certificate without an opportunity does not transform a life.
This is why we need employers at the table.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The transformation we seek must also include young women and persons with disabilities.
As we build the industrial workforce of the future, we cannot reproduce the exclusions of the past.
Captains of industry, We need more young women becoming engineers, electricians, artisans, technicians, manufacturers, entrepreneurs and industrialists.
We need workplaces that are accessible to persons with disabilities and recruitment practices that deliberately open opportunities to them.
We need procurement and supplier development programmes that create opportunities for youth-owned, women-owned and disability-owned enterprises to enter industrial value chains.
When a company such as Aberdare grows, we should not measure its developmental contribution only by the number of people employed directly inside its factories.
We should also ask how many small businesses it has helped develop.
How many young artisans it has trained.
How many young graduates have received their first workplace opportunity.
How many women have entered technical and leadership positions.
How many persons with disabilities have been meaningfully included.
And how many South African suppliers have been brought into its value chain.
That is how industrial development becomes inclusive development.
That is how growth becomes transformation.
And that is how business becomes an active partner in building the society we want.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The original story of Aberdare is about cables, but the deeper story is about connection.
Cables connect homes to electricity.
They connect businesses to digital networks.
They connect industries to infrastructure.
They connect communities to economic activity.
As we celebrate 80 years of Aberdare Cables, I would like us to extend that idea of connection.
Let us connect our young people to opportunity.
Let us connect TVET colleges to industry.
Let us connect skills development to real employer demand.
Let us connect young entrepreneurs to industrial value chains.
Let us connect young women and persons with disabilities to sectors from which they have historically been excluded.
And let us connect South Africa's industrial ambitions to the enormous talent and potential of its young people.
This is particularly important as South Africa enters a period of major infrastructure expansion and economic transformation.
The modernisation of our electricity transmission network, renewable energy expansion, digital connectivity, industrial infrastructure and logistics development will require new skills and new workers.
These investments must therefore leave behind more than physical infrastructure.
They must leave behind skills.
They must leave behind enterprises.
They must leave behind jobs.
And they must leave behind a generation of young South Africans who can say: I helped build this country.
That is the developmental dividend we should demand from every major investment.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Aberdare Cables has survived and grown over eight decades because generations of workers, engineers, technicians, managers, suppliers and partners have carried this company forward.
The question before us tonight is: who will carry it through the next eighty years?
The answer must include the young people of South Africa.
I therefore challenge Aberdare and the broader industry to make youth development an integral part of your growth strategy.
Partner with our TVET colleges.
Expand apprenticeships and workplace-based learning.
Take on young graduates.
Join and expand your participation in programmes such as YES.
Work with Harambee and other partners in the youth employment ecosystem.
Create opportunities for young women and persons with disabilities.
Develop young suppliers and entrepreneurs.
And importantly, work with government to tell us what skills you need so that our training system produces young people who are ready for the industries of tomorrow.
We must move beyond simply discussing youth unemployment.
We must build pathways into employment.
Every workplace opportunity matters.
Every apprenticeship matters.
Every internship matters.
Every young entrepreneur who enters a supply chain matters.
Because behind every opportunity is a young person who wants the dignity of being able to build a life through their own talent and labour.
As I conclude, let me once again congratulate Aberdare Cables on reaching this remarkable milestone.
Eighty years of manufacturing is an achievement worthy of celebration!
But perhaps the greatest legacy that companies such as Aberdare can build over the next eighty years will not only be measured in kilometres of cable manufactured, factories expanded or markets entered.
It will also be measured in the generations of South Africans whose lives were changed because someone opened a door.
Let us open those doors.
Let us give our young people a chance.
Let us build an industrial economy in which women, youth and persons with disabilities are not standing at the margins waiting for opportunity, but are at the centre of producing, innovating, leading and owning.
And let the next generation of South African engineers, artisans, technicians and industrialists look back at this moment and say that when our country faced a youth unemployment crisis, government and industry chose to act together.
Happy 80th Anniversary to Aberdare Cables.
May the next eighty years be defined not only by what you manufacture, but by the people and possibilities you help build.
I thank you.
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