Has the government gone too far, too fast in its drive to make Transnet an affirmative action role model? Mungo Soggot reports
TRANSNET has one of South Africa’s most aggressive affirmative action programmes, and deputy managing director Saki Macozoma concedes it is not only hitting the company’s “Broederbond” contingent but is affecting morale and performance.
The shake-up at the R16-billion state-owned transport giant, which used to be a bastion of white job reservation, is being spearheaded by Macozoma, a former ANC MP, and five other black executive directors who were all appointed in April this year. Along with chair Louise Tager, they run the company.
But as Macozoma and some of his colleagues have relatively little business experience, the move has sparked criticism in business circles. Some claim that the government has gone too far, too fast in its drive to make Transnet an affirmative action role model.
Macozoma’s only business experience is a stretch as business development manager at South African Breweries before taking up his post as chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting.
However, he argues that his lack of experience in business does not mean he is unequal to the job. He believes that because his main task is to transform Transnet and rid it of its staid, “Broederbond” culture, his lack of a business grounding is not that crucial.
“There are few managers here in touch with the reality of the transformation that has to take place. People in Transnet make the mistake that they call someone they have never seen inexperienced just because they have been cocooned in an Afrikaans white world.
“But I don’t want to underrate their experience … My view is that I accept my shortcomings and I will find out about, or delegate what I don’t know. Management is not about knowing everything.”
When Macozoma — who spent five years on Robben Island — arrived at Transnet, the plan was that MD Anton Moolman would mentor him in the run-up to his retirement. However, Moolman last week announced he will quit early and step down at the end of August. Macozoma, who will take over as MD, dismisses any suggestion of a coup, saying the perception that he and Moolman have had an antagonistic relationship has been overblown.
He says the new team effectively robbed Moolman of his authority, ruling out a clash. “It is precisely because he had no authority that there was no clash. There was no role for him. It was his personal decision to go.”
Macozoma says Moolman wanted him and the six others to go on training courses to Harvard and Stanford in the United States. But this was out of the question as the new team had to get on with the job of transforming Transnet.
“There is not much he can mentor me about,” Macozoma adds. “He is not about transformation.”
Macozoma is not impressed with what he has inherited at Transnet. He complains of widespread inefficiency and numerous cosy deals between Transnet officials and friends and relatives. The company is currently investigating the appointment of a consultancy firm that employed Moolman’s son.
Macozoma homes in on the practice of hiring outside consultants at the drop of a hat — a habit which landed the government with a R500-million bill last year. This, he says, has to stop.
The parastatal, which owns Spoornet and South African Airways, has had its staff decimated from 282 000 to 115 000 in the past 15 years, in the process of being “commercialised” from a lumbering state monolith. Last year it recorded its first profit since becoming “commercialised”. Macozoma says this year will not be as good, because of a slow-down in economic activity and because of a slump in morale.
Macozoma’s list of goals as future MD includes further cuts, the possibility of some sell-offs and management of the parastatal’s huge pension fund deficit.
He knows Transnet’s affirmative action crusade has to work — “we are aware of its demonstration value” — but he is also mindful of the lack of skilled blacks he can hire and the compromises that have to be made.
The programme has in some instances led to the unusual situation of people being appointed to high posts and then sent on management training courses. “I can live with this compromise. We need programmes which give people the skills in the shortest possible time, and during that period we need to give them responsibilities equal to or even greater than their skills. There is a delicate balance between making them tokens and overwhelming them with responsibilities.”
He notes that many highly trained black employees have in the past quit Transnet because they found the culture unacceptable.
Transnet’s transformation strategy includes giving at least half the value of its contracts with other companies to black enterprises wherever possible. Naturally, says Macozoma, this means at first mainly “soft areas” like catering, law and accountancy. “The companies simply aren’t there in fields like engineering.”
He believes one of the keys to a successful affirmative action programme is giving employees a goal to work towards. In the past, he says, black trainees remained trainees forever because their trainers refused to help people they saw as competition.
The morale problem among the white employees is not omnipresent, and he believes there are many whites who welcome the changes.
Symptoms of turmoil within the parastatal have leaked out during the past few months, first with allegations by the South African Harbour and Railway Workers’ Union (Sahrwu) that SAA was bugging its phones. Then there was news that some senior officials, including one of the new executive directors, had been misusing their credit cards.
Transnet this week announced it had tightened its controls on company cards. The parastatal’s predominantly white union, the Transport Workers’ Union, is understood to have been pushing for action to be taken on this.
Macozoma says the company is investigating the bugging claims. Although it is too early to say if there is truth in the allegations, he says the accusation is symptomatic of uneasy relations between management and the unions.
When he was headhunted for the job, his first reaction was: “What do I know about transport?” But after discussions with President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki about whether to take the plunge into the corporate world or remain in politics, he decided it was the right move.
He accepts that at 39 he has put his future “on the block” by taking such a challenging job. But that, he says, is exactly what he has been doing since he joined the ANC at the age of 16.