Speech Delivered by the Deputy Minister in the South African Truck Drivers Awards Ceremony – 14 October 2022

The Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Chris Hlabisa

The TASA executives

The sponsors to this strategic and important awards events

The awards’ prospective recipients   

Please accept our warm greetings.

As a department of small business, we are pleased to have been invited to participate in this important event.

I want to state right from the onset that, our coming to this event is not only to share our inputs but also to listen to your frustrations and draw lessons for the work we are doing as a department of small business development. The task facing us is huge. We have to create employment for about 9 million people and the majority of them should be young people and we need you and your ideas for this huge task

We are meeting here today during the transport month to witness the first freight award ceremony aimed at acknowledging and rewarding excellence in this strategic sector of our country’s economy.   

Let be said for all to hear that as we speak, currently , it is the truck drivers that makes the pulse in the  heart of our country economy  to tick !

The trucking (road-freight) industry remains strategic in the country’s economy. It is a fast and flexible link in supply chain management logistics. It is   an important job creator, and makes our country’s economy to perform better.