Damasane speaks out on TPT restructuring

Transnet Port Terminals’ huge new restructuring plan, possibly the country’s largest in one fell swoop, is all about a smoother, more efficiently running corporate engine, chief operating officer, Nosipho Damasane, said in Cape Town last week. It’s not about trying to fit square pegs in round holes but focusing instead on particular, demonstrated skills of senior management. There’s also a strong emphasis on across-the-board training, with customer needs first and foremost in mind. To this end, 159 Sri Lankans recruited to train operators of the newgeneration cranes in Cape Town are being replaced by a group from Thailand, and Transnet has just approved deployment of Sri Lankan trainers for the new planning department. Quizzed on whether the sweeping senior management changes were triggered by the realisation that all was not well within TPT ranks, she agreed that the organisation had not looked at whether the skills were in the right places. She adds TPT tends as a rule to check every few years whether it is “still on course”, what it can do differently, where it is lagging behind and how it can best utilise particular individual skills. Little has been said about the move of Cape Town Container Terminal business executive, Oscar Borchards, to the new Durban-based TQM and Continuous Improvement division, Damasane stressing once again overall skills. “Oscar has been with the organisation for more than ten years, he is very strong operationally and we cannot lose that sort of excellence. But sometimes one who is strong operationally might not necessarily be strong in other aspects to lead a terminal the size of Cape Town.” Damasane dismissed claims that TPT had displayed arrogance and a take-it-or-leave it attitude toward customers. “I would love to meet a customer who says we are arrogant. When we started with construction in Durban and Cape Town it was an alignment with customers we would take the pain together. “In the past four months we realised Cape Town was feeling too much pain and we sent in extra personnel,” she says, adding customers have commented favourably since then. Velile Dube, appointed head of the new TQM and CI department, steers clear of the nature of structuring, save to say: ”Once we understand what procedures and processes are a frustration to our customers in achieving the levels they seek, we will have to make sure we respond accordingly. I want to find solutions.” Current Durban Container Terminal business unit executive, Moshe Motlohi, will assume duties as terminal executive (the new naming for this position) for the merged Cape Town Container Terminal and multi-purpose terminal on January 1, his successor to be announced at a later stage.