Malawi company expands from sweet beginnings

LEONARD NEILL FRED MLOMBWA operated a small transport company in Malawi when South Africans went to the polls in 1994 to elect their first democratic government. At that stage Malawi, he says, was becoming overrun with more and more transport operators entering that country’s domestic and overborder market. “I saw an opening down south, and I decided to take it,” he says, bringing with him the contract with Malawi’s major sugar company, the Ronrho Group, to handle their transport movements to South Africa. Establishing Umodzi Transport in Johannesburg’s City Deep that year, he began delivering materials for both the Sucoma Sugar Mill and its staff needs from this country. But when the mill was bought out by Illovo Sugar in Kwazulu Natal, the volume of work began to expand rapidly for Umdozi. It opened up a completely new transport service between the two countries. With it came the mill expansion and the needs for new materials and maintenance and repairs as these mounted. Regular trips were made to and from Durban where repairs were undertaken, and with it developed the need for a trailer to convey a special piece of equipment, a four-meter wide gear wheel, which could not be conveyed by normal transport because of its width. “So we had a special trailer designed which enabled the gear wheel, all eight tons of it, to be slotted in upright in a vertical position and mounted on the shaft of the trailer. This called for a trip to and from Durban twice a year. The trailer itself is adjustable however, and the slot design is covered over at other times to enable it to be used for normal operations.”