Page 14 - Maritime Book 1

MASTERMINDING TNPA’S MARITIME TRANSFORMATION
COMMANDER TSIETSI MOKHELE
The Mastermind behind TNPA’s Maritime transformation was Commander Tsietsi Mokhele, who returned to South Africa to head up the Naval Integration Process within the Transitional Executive Council, which resulted from the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) process. As part of the process resulting from the historic democratic elections of 1994, he joined the South African Navy with the rank of Commander, tasked with ensuring the implementation of the pre-election agreed change processes and to lead the transformation of the South African Navy.
Being acutely aware of the criticality of the economic transformation of the country to the success of the new political dispensation and transition to democracy, he sought to empower himself by leaving the Navy to pursue further studies. It was in that time that he set up his boutique maritime consultancy company, which today has grown into a global maritime advisory, investment and strategic project implementation rm.
In 1999 he was headhunted by Transnet into its comprehensive Port Management entity, Portnet, to spearhead the transformation of its waterside maritime services entities. Transnet was in the process of separating Portnet into two operating divisions, the now Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) and Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA). While the organisation had developed suf cient knowledge capacity and was making progress in terms of the terminal operations, it did not have the expertise to transform the waterside of the business and position the business for the future.
There had been no signi cant investment in human resources, infrastructure or technical
systems at South Africa’s ports for 20 years – the last major investment being the establishment
of the Port of Richards Bay. The business lacked in demographic diversity, was light-years behind modern port management practices, and still based on a dated dysfunctional ‘comprehensive port management’ business model. The legal, statutory, and regulatory policy instruments
on South African ports were at odds with the global evolution which the industry had already undergone since the 1960s.
Adjusting Course
Having been part of the Transitional Executive Council during the CODESA process, Commander Mokhele understood the policy levers that would help the country move the sector forward. One of the rst things he did was to conduct a job and skills pro ling exercise, which revealed that almost all of the company’s seafarers were White - mainly expats - and there had been little investment into developing talent in South Africans, White and Black in the maritime services.
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