KwaZulu-Natal’s Dube TradePort Corporation
KwaZulu-Natal’s Dube TradePort Corporation (Dube TradePort) has extended the contract of its chief executive Hamish Erskine after concerns last year that his future at the entity hung in the balance.
Erskine’s contract has been extended by three years, Dube TradePort board chairperson Mpumelelo Zikalala told the Mail & Guardian this week. His previous five-year contract expired in August 2023 and he was being retained on short-term, six-month contracts until the latest renewal in October.
This comes after African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) caucus leader in the eThekwini municipality Jameel Essop raised allegations of cadre deployment last February, saying former KwaZulu-Natal economic development, tourism and environmental affairs MEC Siboniso Duma had planned to axe Erskine.
But Duma’s spokesperson Ndabezinhle Sibiya dismissed the claims and instead praised Erskine “as a professional who is leading a dedicated workforce” and whose career was “being destroyed” by “lies, fabrication and cheap gossip” peddled by the ACDP.
Essop said at the time that the province had suffered many disasters in recent years, including storms, flooding and the July 2021 civil unrest, added to which cadre deployment had “resulted in poor service delivery, collapsed infrastructure [and a] decline in tourism and investment”.
He said Erskine’s leadership had led to various awards and had attracted “many investors, ensuring the economy is growing, resulting in job creation”.
Essop said skilled artisans, business leaders and investors had been leaving the region because “the ruling party’s cadre deployment policy” was harming the economy.
“Critical positions should not be for family and friends but for those most qualified to achieve the desired goal to better our province and city. Hands off Mr Hamish Erskine!” Essop said.
Erskine is one the four initial employees of the state-owned entity located in the fast-growing special economic zone, which has offered investors preferential tax deals since its planning stages in 2003.
Performance review
This week, Zikalala said the Dube TradePort board had taken the decision to extend Erskine’s contract in terms of the KwaZulu-Natal Dube TradePort Act of 2010 which provides for it.
“The decision was taken following an extensive review of the CEO’s prior performance as well as an in-depth assessment of a report requested by the board in which the CEO detailed his vision, priorities, key objectives for the organisation, as well as a medium-term (five-year) and long-term (10-year) delivery programme,” Zikalala said.
“In the coming year, the CEO will lead the implementation of Dube TradePort’s newly adopted five-year strategic plan which focuses on job creation, industrialisation and localisation across the organisation’s industrial, commercial and agricultural zones, as well as logistics and export growth via the Dube Cargo Terminal.”
Essop welcomed the board’s decision.
“There is a saying, ‘don’t touch or replace what is working’,” he said, adding that this was the reason he had challenged Duma to “take his hands off the removal of Mr Erskine in the previous years”.
“The outcome resulted in Mr Erskine retaining the position but also assuring all investors, both foreign and local, that our province and city is open for business,” Essop said.
“In recent months, we have seen more pledges from the automobile sector, specifically the Mahindra Group launching an assembling facility at the Dube TradePort. Ogihara South Africa and Toyota SA collaborated to make an investment of some R1.2 billion,” he added.
“These investments attest to the leadership, competency and vision of Mr Erskine.”
He said the province and city had experienced major setbacks due to natural disasters and political instability but it is “time for everyone to focus on the call to unite and build”.
“This extension in the contract for Mr Erskine is a part of that process to build a better city and province.
Dube TradePort markets itself as “a commercial and light industrial precinct offering globally integrated logistics and manufacturing infrastructure and support for a range of airport-related activities, including cargo operations, warehousing, agricultural growing, processing and cold storage, as well as commercial real estate for office, retail and hospitality”.
International and local firms such as Pepsico, Samsung SA, Air Chefs, HBM SA Health, DB Schenker, Tufbag and Rossi SA have invested in manufacturing plants and warehouses in the special economic zone, as have many small, medium and micro businesses.
But several local business people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Erskine was being retained on a six-month contract.
Erskine could not be reached for comment and the department had not responded to questions from the M&G at the time of publication.