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N2WCTR will create up to 55 000 jobs in the Eastern Cape - Sanral

Port Elizabeth - About 5% of the budget for the 112km greenfields section of the N2 Wild Coast Toll Road (N2WCTR) will be spent on labour, according to Craig McLachlan, a project manager at the SA National Roads Agency.

More than R400m will be allocated to wages for unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers employed directly on the N2WCTR project. A further R1.5bn is destined for local SMMEs comprising of local contractors and local suppliers of goods and services to the road and bridge construction projects.

Sanral’s direct job creation forecast is 1.8 million man-days or 8 000 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs over the construction period of four to five years. These jobs will not just be for unskilled labour but will include semi-skilled and skilled jobs as well, including local builders, engineers, grader operators, excavator operators, welders, mechanics, foremen, drivers and bricklayers.
 
According to economic employment opportunity propensities indices for road construction projects, up to 25 000 additional indirect FTE jobs will be created by subcontractors and suppliers over the construction period. These indirect jobs will be derived from a variety of fields: security, plant hire, manufacturing, catering, logistics, and aggregate and hard rock products, among others.

READ: Debating the N2 Wild Coast toll road

McLachlan says wages earned have been shown to have a two to three times multiplier effect in the local economy as the monies are spent and re-spent in the local economy boosting local retail and service businesses.
 
"Adding to this, the new route that both opens up access to the Pondoland area and creates a shorter and faster link between KZN and the Eastern Cape will promote local and regional economic growth in a number of alternate areas including manufacturing, transportation and logistics, hospitality and tourism, agriculture and agri-processing," he says.  
 "Tourism, particularly, is seen as a high growth potential area with an international study indicating that one new job is created for every 30 additional stayover tourists brought to an area."

The 2008 specialist tourism study done as part of the EIA report estimated that over a 10 year period post construction an additional 674 000 tourists would be brought to the Eastern Cape as a direct result of the construction of the N2WCTR.
 
"Opponents of the project who decry that the essence and attraction of the Wild Coast will be destroyed by rampant commercial development as a result of the N2WCTR either do not know or do not acknowledge the many layers of protection granted to the Wild Coast by both new and old laws and regulations," said McLachlan.

"Similarly, critics who say government should not be spending public funds on major infrastructure projects in a period of economic downturn are either ignorant of or are deliberately ignoring fundamental economics."

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