Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) has spent more than R300 million training women across varying disciplines over the past five years, the parastatal announced on Wednesday.
TPT said in a statement on the status of gender empowerment that women now made up 50% of the parastatal’s executive committee, as part of its goal to fulfil its transformational agenda. Operationally, women representation grew from 24% in the 2020/2021 financial year to 29% in the 2021/2022 financial year across engineers, artisans and operators.
TPT general manager of people management, Caroline Mayeza, said: “In the workplace it has always been a norm for top performers to go up ranks. We find ourselves at a time when women within the maritime logistics sector are finally gaining momentum, furthering their studies, requesting exposure across the business, and taking initiative.”
She added that while ensuring a pipeline of leaders in the company, skills and merit were still primary in the selection process.
Overall, including women in middle management, women now comprise 32% of the total TPT population of 9 179 employees who are responsible for loading and offloading cargo on ships across a network of 19 terminals nationwide. The target for the representation of women as employees had been set at 39%, but Mayeza said the parastatal had already reached “an encouraging number” of women in its ranks considering the nature of maritime logistics.
The supply chain focus has also seen TPT spend 31% of its total procurement budget of the 2021/2022 financial year on suppliers that were 30% black women owned. She said TPT was also forging ahead with its Exporter Development Programme which currently has 30% women representation.
“For us at TPT, fair women representation is not a tick-box exercise but one that meaningfully seeks to make the company competitive by maximising its skills base and granting deserving suppliers an opportunity,” Mayeza said.
