Community
The Copperton Wind Farm Project is situated in the Siyathemba Local Municipality (Northern Cape), specifically within the small settlement of Copperton. The Municipality hosts three main towns, namely Prieska, Marydale and Nierkershoop. Thanks to its central administrative and geographical role within the Municipality, the Wind Farm Project chose Prieska to host its Community Liaison Desk, namely a project office open for the benefit of the local communities.
The purpose of the Community Liaison Desk is to:
- Disclose reliable and updated information on the Copperton Wind Farm Project (including employment and business opportunities)
- Collect candidacies for the open job opportunities,
- Collect quotations for the open tenders,
- Collect grievances from community and workers.
Our Community Liaison Officer (CLO) and Admin Assistant are both based at the Community Liaison Desk.
Our Community Liaison Desk is on 6 Market Street, Prieska and it is open from Monday to Friday, from 8.00am to 5.00pm (Tel: 087 551 2677; Email: info@coppertonwindfarm.co.za).
Steering Committee
A Project Steering Committee has been established to ensure that all voices in the municipality have a seat at the table – elected community representatives are able to hear first-hand from the project as well as voice their community concerns, thoughts and feelings directly to the project.
The Steering Committee compromises the following members:
- Copperton Wind Farm representative – Chairperson
- Raubex Infra representative (Civil and electrical Balance of Plant contractor)
- Nordex representative (Turbine supplier and installation contractor)
- Siyathemba Municipality Council representative
- Siyathemba Municipality Council representative
- Siyathemba Municipal administration representative
- Business Council representative
- Ward 1 Representative
- Ward 2 Representative
- Ward 3 Representative
- Ward 4 Representative
- Ward 5 Representative
Additionally, the Copperton Wind Farm Administration assistant will attend as secretary to record minute meetings. These minutes will be made public and posted in Notices and on social media.
All the members of the Steering Committee are bound by specific terms of reference. Meetings are scheduled on a monthly basis for the entire project construction phase or whenever urgent issues need to be discussed.
Grievances
Copperton Wind Farm takes community engagement seriously and strives to have an open door policy ready to listen to the thoughts, compliments and complaints of any interested and affected stakeholder. The environmental authorization from the Department of Environmental Affairs as well as international sustainability standards stipulates that a mechanism needs to be established for the submission of grievances from the local communities.
Further information or to submit your grievance visit our Grievances page
Employment and Business Opportunities
During the construction and operations phase of the project the first priority for employment of individuals and procurement of goods and services from businesses is from the local communities. The Copperton Wind Farm Project, as an Independent Power Producer in South Africa, is obligated to fulfil certain requirements by the Department of Energy, in particular in terms of Socio-Economic Development (SED) and Enterprise Development (ED) spend and job creation.
Clear and transparent procedures have been adopted at project level to ensure that all contractors involved will efficiently achieve these important Local Content targets.
Check out all available Employment and Business Opportunities on the Employment and Business Opportunities pages.
Socio-economic development
To ensure that local needs are met most effectively the Steering Committee has discussed and agreed upon the following focus areas for Copperton Wind Farm’s socio-economic development projects:
- Health programmes (HIV & AIDs awareness programmes)
- Youth and Women upliftment
- Infrastructure development
- Sports programmes
- Education support programmes
