A central theme that permeated through the discussions at the ESG Africa Conference was to create opportunities for SMMEs in the value chain and to create a balance with localisation to keep a competitive advantage.
It is not just about regulations, leadership, and courage. It is about partnerships. We are all actors of change, ESG Africa conference.
With this in mind, we turn your attention to Thandeka Mayiji- Rafu of Likhona Lethu Services, an incredible entrepreneur who has walked a long road to the business she has today.
Before beginning her entrepreneurial journey in nature conservation, she worked a clerical job at a hotel in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, until a series of unfortunate circumstances led to her unemployment. Faced with the challenges that this presented, she came across a public notice published by The South African National Parks (SANParks), inviting participants to join their contractor development program at the Table Mountain Nature Reserve. Despite not knowing what the work would entail, she signed up for the program in 2010 and began working as a contractor, clearing alien vegetation.
The SANParks program on its own was intense, covering a wide range of topics, including the basic principles of tree-cutting, the use of herbicides, business development skills, and financial management. However, it also allowed her to participate in other similar initiatives to grow her knowledge and skills. Over the three years, she worked with the City of Cape Town’s Nature Conservation Department, the Cape Nature Working for Water Project, and the Kader Asmal Integrated Catchment Management Project (ICMP). These diverse training opportunities exposed her to the importance of controlling alien plants in water conservation and the need to protect indigenous vegetation. Through this process, her passion for conservation was ignited, and Likhona Lethu Services was born.
Likhona Lethu Services
As a business, they specialise in the provision of Horticultural Services (Alien vegetation Clearing), Garden maintenance, Grass Cutting in Parks and Open Spaces, management of Fire breaks, and Cleaning of streets. To date, she has worked as a service provider for The City of Cape Town, Cape Town Film Studios, and The Nature Conservancy, employed over 800 people within her business, and is currently making an annual turnover of more than R30M a year. Yet this has been no easy feat, and like every successful entrepreneur, she recognises that it has been a combination of perseverance, hard work, a keen eye for opportunity, and weathering the storms that enabled her to grow her business to where it currently is. Had she not seen the opportunity beneath the muddy overalls, she would never have set foot into the business world.
Siyakha, in partnership with Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (TMACC) is working on a Localisation project aimed at replacing imported products with locally manufactured goods. The project enables job creation and skills development and supports the poor communities within which it operates. As a business that runs on the breathtakingly Table Mountain, under the management of SANParks, its ethos and values require and promote the use of environmentally friendly products. These products are imported from overseas, and as such, they seek to localise their manufacturing. This led to an extensive study that explored the viability of setting up a local Compostables processing and manufacturing entity within the ambit of increasing local manufacturing and creating opportunities for job creation. This process also entailed identifying a Black Industrialist with a specific profile and set of skills that could effectively be trained and supported in developing this business.
After a lengthy search, Likhona Lethu Services was selected as a candidate for consideration. Her passion for conserving the environment, her current business savvy and performance, which sees her interested in diversifying, growing, and expanding her business offerings, and her commitment to the empowerment of young people, especially young Black females in South Africa, by creating job opportunities and providing access to skills development. The compostable business opportunity will be phased in over a 3 to 5-year period.
The first phase is the implementation of a Processing plant that will be used to create the input stock required for the manufacturing of Compostable eat ware and products. Once established, the second phase will commence, which is the implementation of the Compostable Manufacturing plant. While the rollout of the project is still in the beginning phases, we as an organisation are excited about the possibilities that the next 3-5 years hold as we continuously seek to make development happen.
Like Theodore Roosevelt, we believe that “… the best prize that life offers are the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” And as such, we see the opportunity to partner with and develop an enterprise like Likhona Lethu Services as us playing our part in the rollout of the national agenda by ensuring we reindustrialise the country and create local job opportunities.
