Kusile said they sourced more steel locally

Since last year the Southern African Institute of Steel Construction (SAISC) raised concerns about the immediate future of the local steel industry.

Already then SAISC executive director, Paolo Trinchero said that on average South Africa produces about seven million tons of steel per year of which about five million tons is locally consumed.

The load of food given to Solidarity Helping Hand, from Round Table on Tuesday, March 29.

He added that China exported 100 million tons of steel in 2014 and has the capacity to produce over 750 million tons. “It is not uncommon for imported Chinese fabrications to land on our shores at a lower cost than that of raw steel and there is a very real possibility that practices such as these could have a catastrophic effect, not only on the South African industry but on the global steel industry.”

Then the devastating news came, Evraz Highveld Steel closed down on February 10.

One of the biggest reasons apart from its huge debts was the cheaper steel imports.

Eskom smothered rumours that steel imported from China was used to build Kusile Power Station, which is only 24.9km away from Highveld.

Mr Stef Mamojele from the Communications Department from Kusile Power Station Project said the Kusile project is not aware of steel being sourced in China.

Patric Kunze and Charl Venter from Round Table with some of the items delivered to Solidarity Helping Hand on Tuesday, March 29.

“Project schedule was the main driver for steel procurement at projection inception,” he said.

He said Kusile Power Station project has been sourcing more steel locally than offshore for Boiler Unit one and two. Furthermore, more steel was sourced locally for platework and ducting of the Air Cooled Condensers (ACC) for the project.

“The ship has sailed, neither Kusile nor Medupi Power Stations can now save Highveld,” said Trinchero.

He said government now needs to step up and assist.

“It is a tragedy that our local industry is being decimated and it is surely in our interests to support and protect it through incentives. We are working closely with government along the lines of the following, investor confidence is key and government policy needs to create confidence. Work has to be released into the economy, prioritise and implement parts of the National Development Plan that will have the biggest impact. Encourage localization. While this is being done by the Department of Trade and Industry already, it needs to be embraced by state-owned enterprises and large local businesses,” he said.

Trinchero said the entire industry needs protection from unfair competition.

“We are encouraged by the latest initiatives of the government, industry and labour task teams. It’s tough times at the moment for our industry, but we remain confident that we will get through it,” Trinchero concluded.

James Masango Democratic Alliance Leader in the Provincial Legislature said the closure of Highveld Steel has had devastating effects, not only on the 2 000 workers who were retrenched but it has indirectly affected approximately 13 000 people based on recent studies.

“Further noting that this stance was in direct contrast with the Mpumalanga Government’s plan to create the much needed employment and the ruling government’s plans for economic freedom in our lifetime,” he said.

Masango hit hard when he said the closure of Highveld Steel emphasized the dysfunctional nature of government’s training layoff scheme.

“It is dysfunctional because to date these workers remain untrained and has to collect handouts as the company was not in a position to pay retrenchment packages,” he said.

The Democratic Alliance called on Finance and Economic Development Member of the Executive Council Eric Kholwane to assist Highveld workers in ensuring that they obtain their retrenchment packages and Unemployment Insurance.

Highveld’s Business Rescue Practitioners had a meeting on March 17 informing affected parties of the process that will be followed in terms of Proposal 3 of the Business Rescue Plan.

The outcome of that meeting was not communicated by the time of going to press.

On Saturday, March 12, Round Table was at Saveways Centre Spar when they handed out cards with R2 coins on them. In this way, shoppers could donate R2 of each purchase to this project. An astonishing R12 000 was collected.

“Thanks to our ‘R2- project, we delivered food to Solidarity to the value of R12 000, which we collected in approximately five hours,” Charl Venter from Round Table said on Tuesday.

This was to help Solidarity’s Helping Hand meet their demands in giving employees, who were affected in the retrenchments of Highveld Steel and Vanchem, food parcels.