MBABANE – One of the driving forces behind Swaziland’s railway transportation growth in recent decades, Gideon Mahlalela, former CEO of Swaziland Railways, died last week at Mbabane Government Hospital. He was appointed to the board of South Africa’s Transnet in 2014.
In numerous interviews with FTW over the years, Mahlalela spoke of his vision to expand Swaziland’s rail system as a cost-effective alternative to road transport. Under his stewardship, Swaziland Railway harvested a crop of major new clients when Swaziland’s garment industry was established following the country’s inclusion in the US trade scheme the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) in the early 2000s. However, he later had to steer the company through the 2008-2010 global recession that saw several major customers in Swaziland close their businesses, such as Sappi Usuthu.
“Swaziland can make more money with transit traffic from other countries than from our own local customers,” Mahlalela told FTW in 2002.
He worked with South Africa to create a new rail line from Gauteng to the Swaziland border via Lothair, Mpumalanga, which will provide the most direct rail route from Johannesburg to Maputo. When the line is functioning, up to 90% of Swaziland Railway revenue will come from transit traffic, which is now also passing through the country from DRC and Zambia.
Mahlalela was an advocate for region-wide development of rail systems. He was re-elected several times as president of the Southern African Railways Association (Sara), of which he was a founding member when the organisation was formed in 1996.
A persistent scholar, Mahlalela earned degrees and took frequent study leave to study at the University of California in Los Angeles, Antioch University and the Burlington Northern Railway Leadership Centre in the US, the Helsinki School of Economics, the Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology in Canada and the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute in Arusha.
In a statement distributed to employees of Swaziland Railway, Mahlalela’s successor as CEO, Stephenson Ngubane, said that Mahlalela had remained with the company as an adviser.
“While on paper it appeared that Mahlalela had left Swaziland Railways, the reality was that he was still a part of our lives,” Ngubane said.
More than once, Mahlalela told FTW: “Rail will always be a viable form of transport because rail most efficiently handles bulk cargo on land, and is more environmentally friendly than road transport. You can say that rail is the transportation of the future.”
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Gideon Mahlalela.
