Minister Mackenzie welcomes boost for province’s green mobility ecosystem

Today, I delivered a welcome address at the Electric Vehicle Road Trip Africa Announcement Event at the V&A Waterfront. This event forms part of the E-Fest Cape Town series of events alongside the much anticipated Cape Town E-Prix taking place this coming weekend.

The event showcased two of the Western Cape Government’s  Electric Vehicles (EV) introduced into the provincial fleet with ‘Government Going Green’ and ‘Zero Emissions’ branding.

The Western Cape is the first province in South Africa to publish an EV Strategy, which aims to develop an EV Ecosystem to support collaboration between government and the industry for creating innovative mobility solutions.

As the Western Cape Government, we have taken bold steps towards co-creating an ecosystem with our partners that will make mobility more accessible for all citizens, while also reducing the impact of growing mobility needs on the environment.

My mission is to get the people of the province to and from work safely, so we can protect jobs, grow the economy and create more jobs.

Citizens need to be able to access opportunities with ease and dignity, while we also need to do more to offset our environmental crisis.

The Green Mobility Ecosystem includes transitioning to EVs, creating an EV industry, developing charging stations fed by solar and other renewable sources at government-owned sites. The first charging stations have been installed at the fleet offices in Maitland, with at least another three sites identified for installation in the new financial year starting in April. Partnerships will also be formalised with universities in the Western Cape to promote and expedite research and development in technology in the green mobility space. 

I look forward to engaging the minibus taxi leadership and other public transport operators to encourage them to join the provincial government on our journey to expedite the uptake of EV into public transport fleets. I also commend Golden Arrow Bus Services for the introduction and testing of electric buses in their fleet and Uber who announced their intention of achieving zero emissions by 2040 in Africa and the Middle East.

I am very excited about the potential of this journey towards Green Mobility, which we are working on with our partners across the province.

Media Queries:

Rebecca Campbell
Spokesperson for Minister Ricardo Mackenzie
Ministry of Mobility
Cell: 076 783 2583
Email: Rebecca.Campbell@westerncape.gov.za