Automotive Business Review February 2015 | Page 16

South African Automotive Week

Providing a Platform

The Right to Repair campaign would be meaningless without the necessary support of industry bodies and the
players within the industry. Thus it was good to see that the RMI (Retail Motor Industry Organisation) was one
of the exhibitors at last year’s South African Automotive Week which took place from the 14 – 17 October at the
Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.

B

eyond showcasing what the RMI
as a body has to offer, the RMI
hosted the semi-finals of the
national WorldSkills competition for the
three motor trade skills.
“The RMI cares and has a vested
interest in automotive industry’s future
skills. The WorldSkills competition is a
great initiative to showcase and attract
school leavers to pursue automotive
career as artisans is in line with our goal
to elevate the status of trade career
awareness and development.
Joining forces with like-minded industry
partners to host this competition is one
way we are supporting the “Decade of
the Artisan” drive in South Africa” says
Jakkie Olivier, CEO at the RMI.
The finalists for each motor trade skill
were:
•

Andre Vermeulen, technical delegate for
WorldSkills South Africa says “This is the
first time that the three motor skills have
been included as an integral part of a
bigger event exposing the participants to
the general flow of the passing public.
Hopefully its attraction has raised
awareness that will promote and facilitate
through cooperative action a national
awareness of the essential contribution skill

“We see WorldSkills as a mechanism to
address skills shortages by attracting the
youth to technical careers. We set out to
replicate the setting of the international
WorldSkills competition standards at the
national trials.
We needed stakeholders and partners
to achieve our objective and we were
fortunate in the like-mindedness of the
sponsors.
We had mixed emotions about embarking
on this initiative at this scale and the
results were absolutely phenomenal”, says
Marwaan Davids, national training director
at the RMI.

Autobody Repairs
- Bongani Nkosi
and Thabiso
Mohale

•

One finalist from each discipline will then
earn the honour of representing South
Africa in the 2015 WorldSkills competition
in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

excellence can make to the achievement
of economic success and personal
fulfilment.”

Spray Painting Ntebaleng Seema
and Rabelani
Malema

•

These finalists will be going on to the
national finals, which will be hosted at the
Automechanika Johannesburg Expo in May
this year.

Automotive
Technology Willem Nel and
Jason dos Santos
Maraou

| words in action

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FEBRUARY 2015