We employ locals, says mall
The Acornhoek Mall management and staff have refuted claims that the mall is overlooking local people for employment opportunities.
This is after the mall fell victim to what they termed an “unjustified protest” arranged by a group of people that wanted to canvass support from the community to boycott Acornhoek Mall. The group, that called itself a community forum, accused the mall of not employing local people, a claim that was rubbished by the mall’s management and workers in most of the outlets.
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“The facts, however, clearly show that 70 per cent of all tenant employees at Acornhoek Mall are from Acornhoek itself. Even more impressive is the fact that 85 per cent of tenant staff are from the Bushbuckridge municipal region that indicates that the entire region has benefited. Such a high percentage of local employment from Acornhoek and the surrounding villages not only directly benefits the people who are actually working at this mall, but also their family members and other dependents who rely on this income,” said New Africa Developments CEO’s Japie van Niekerk.
New Africa Developments own Acornhoek Mall. He continued, “New Africa Developments’ investment into the upliftment of the community through the creation of employment opportunities, comes from a place of passion for the people and their surrounds. Great care has been taken to encourage employment from the Acornhoek community and surrounding villages, in order to uplift and develop the area from within. Developments such as Acornhoek Mall and Dwarsloop Mall have positively changed the lives of the people of this community, and the upliftment of these communities is something we take extremely seriously.”
Van Niekerk said Acornhoek Mall and its tenants have already made a substantial contribution to the well-being of many residents. “New Africa Developments would like to thank and congratulate retailers for their contribution to the employment of such a large number of Acornhoek staff,” he said.
Van Niekerk said while the retailers are responsible for the employment of their own staff based on their individual employment procedures and practices, New Africa Developments has always placed a great amount of care into the employment of people from the local community.
With the opening of the mall in 2018, it received more than 3 000 job applications through various platforms and passed these on to the retailers for consideration as an impartial and unbiased recruitment source.
“Over the past three years New Africa Developments and the tenants of Acornhoek Mall have been involved in a number of initiatives to support local community causes and will continue to do so. False claims and outright lies relating to the employment at Acornhoek Mall will do nothing but harm the community that the mall is trying to support, and such actions will simply not be tolerated,” he stressed.
