President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Thursday and Friday lead a District Development Model Presidential Imbizo in the Northern Cape province under the theme “Leave No One Behind”.

The fifth Presidential Imbizo will enable community members and stakeholder groups to interact with the President and leaders from all three spheres of government.

The community engagement will take place on Friday at the Mxolisi Dicky Jacobs Stadium in Upington, where community members of surrounding district will be able to voice questions and proposals on how service delivery can be improved to better meet the needs of residents.

“The Northern Cape DDM Presidential Imbizo will help to identify issues in the ZF Mgcawu District that may hamper service delivery and economic opportunities. This consultative forum will also showcase successful projects and allow government leaders to share information with residents,” the Presidency said in a statement.

The Imbizo will be preceded by the President’s visit to the Redstone Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Thermal Plant in Postmasburg, on Thursday.

The project forms part of the South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme (REIPPP), which aims to bring additional megawatts onto the country’s electricity system through private sector investment in wind, biomass and small hydro, among others.

At a national level the REIPPP comprises of 92 projects across the country with a collective generation capacity of 6 296MW to which the Northern Cape’s contributes 3 563MW with 3 249MW already operational.

The Redstone CSP Plant makes up 100 MW of the remaining 314 MW that is under construction.

The plant was presented at the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (SIDSA) in 2020 and forms part of the gazetted Strategic Integrated Project (SIP 8) which deals with the escalation of regulatory approvals and the unblocking of development challenges in line with the Infrastructure Development Act 23 of 2014.

Source: South African Government News Agency