Durban - EThekwini Municipality and its investments promotion unit, Invest Durban, have collectively scooped eight Diamond Arrow Awards in the prestigious PMR.africa awards, an annual awards event which is designed to augment competitiveness, enhance excellence and set benchmarks in the industry.
PMR.africa, a division of CJ Hattingh & Sons, is a leading South African consultancy and research company.
It publishes a business journal, together with an online version, serving as a vehicle for the publication of the results of its various surveys, thus branding companies and institutions identified in such surveys as entities with massive potential, whilst recognising excellence across all industry sectors.
The 2018 PMR. africa KwaZulu-Natal Province Business Excellence Awards Ceremony, held at the Greyville Convention Centre on Tuesday saw the city and incorporating Invest Durba being nominated as the 'Highest Rated' municipality in a total of eight different categories.
Invest Durban (formerly known as DIPA), a unit of the eThekwini Municipality responsible for the vital promotion and facilitation of new business investment in Greater Durban, received Diamond Awards in two categories, the municipalities doing most to attract foreign/international investment to KwaZulu-Natal and municipalities doing most to attract local investment in KwaZulu-Natal.
Top honours in a further six categories went to eThekwini Municipality. These included municipalities doing most for social upliftment, municipalities doing most for job creation, municipalities doing most to fight crime, municipalities doing most to develop and enhance infrastructure, municipalities doing most to clean the environment and municipalities doing most to attract tourism to KwaZulu-Natal.
Ethekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede said:
"We are greatly encouraged and very pleased that our business stakeholders and other community leaders are recognising the renewed efforts by eThekwini Municipality to further improve in key performance areas. By winning these awards, we do not want to be complacent, we need to work hard unceasingly to ensure that eThekwini is head and shoulders above the rest at all times"