Effective leadership for City Entities
17 March 2017
Yesterday, at the City’s 2015/16 Annual General Meeting (AGM) for Municipal Entities, the City took yet another significant step towards delivering the change the people of Johannesburg have demanded following last year’s local government election.
The AGM brings together the top decision makers within the City of Johannesburg and its entities and is an invaluable platform for City for coordinating all of the City’s 12 entities towards a single cohesive vision for the service delivery.
The City has struggled with achieving service delivery levels which have been satisfactory for our residents. At today’s meeting, I challenged the entities’ top decision makers to engage in an exercise of introspection wherein we all critically examined our performance.
I believe that in order for us achieve the service delivery demanded by our residents, every official, every board member and Municipal Entity must recognize that there are many problems within our system and then take proactive steps to eradicate them.
Indeed, becoming the competent, effective and responsive government the residents of Joburg demand means we must also demand more of ourselves as individuals and as institutions. By doing this, we will ensure that we are not a hindrance to the change our residents voted for.
In the spirit of this change, we also announced the appointment of the board chairpersons and various board members of Municipal Entities.
Our new chairpersons are drawn from various walks of life and each have demonstrated a commitment to serving the public. For them, public service is a vocation, not a career.
The following have been appointed as Chairpersons of Municipal Entity Boards:
City Power - Ms Lael Bethlehem
Ms Bethlehem possess a Masters of Arts in Industrial Sociology and a BA (Hons) in Political Studies. She began her career as a researcher in the union movement in the early 1990s, working in the Industrial Strategy Project, the Cosatu research centre (Naledi), and Nedlac.
From 1998-2002 she served as Chief Director of Forestry in the National Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, managing the Department’s commercial and conservation forests, and taking responsibility for forestry policy and legislation.
From 2002 – 2010 she worked for the City of Johannesburg, first as Director of Economic Development and then as CEO of the Johannesburg Development Agency.
Ms Bethlem has extensive experience working on boards of various institutions. She has served on the Boards of two international non-profit organisations, the Centre for International Forestry Research in Indonesia and the International Institute for Environment and Development in London.
She has served on the Board of South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) for the last 9 years, and has chaired several Board committees. She also serves on the Board of a Platinum mining Company, Sedibelo Platinum and on the Board of Karoshoek Solar One, a company currently developing a solar energy project.
Pikitup - Mr Bhekisisa Shongwe
Mr Shongwe holds an BA (Econ) from the University of Botswana & Swaziland and a MBA from the South Australian Institute of Technology, now called University of South Australia.
Over the past three decades, Mr Shongwe has acquired extensive business experience as an accountant, financial manager and senior executive in major corporations including SA Breweries, Shell Oil SA and Transnet-Autonet (Ltd), to name a few.
His recent roles include being Chairman of Matsamo Global Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd - a investment company he founded. He is also the founding MD of Afric Oil (Proprietary) Ltd, the first black owned and managed Oil Company in South Africa.
Joburg Market - Doris Dondur
Ms Dondur is a Charted Accountant with various qualifications, including an MBA from Stellenbosch University.
She has extensive experience in public sector and corporate governance. She has served within the office of the Auditor General as the Provincial Auditor for the Gauteng Province and has previously served on the Board of City Power as Chairperson.
During her time at the Auditor General, she was accountable for the audit of all Gauteng Provincial Departments, Gauteng Provincial Entities, Gauteng Municipalities as well as National Entities with their Head Offices in Johannesburg. During her time at the Auditor General, she was also responsible for a number of sensitive and high profile forensic investigations and audits.
Johannesburg Property Company - Pat Corbin
Mr Corbin possesses a wealth of business knowledge and experience as a former President of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chairman Johannesburg Tourism Association, CEO of the African International Airways, a cargo airline, and CEO of the Industrial Confirming House amongst other roles he has occupied.
Some of his current pursuits include serving as a Director International Chamber of Commerce – SA, working within Nedlac and the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Council and Finance Committee.
Johannesburg Roads Agency - Sipho Tshabalala
Mr Tshabalala is an entrepreneur with a passion for youth development and tourism.
Amongst other successful businesses, he is the owner of Restaurant Vilakazi, situated at the famous Vilakazi Street in Soweto.
In 2013, Mr Tshabalala was invited to the United Kingdom’s House of Commons in recognition of his contribution in the development of youth through Arts, Sports and Culture in Africa.
Amongst other roles, Tshabalala serves as the Chairperson of the Youth Charter for Sports (Africa), Deputy Chairperson of Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry and as a member of the Johannesburg Tourism Stakeholders Committee.
Johannesburg Water – Getty Simelane
Over the past 18 years of her career, Ms Simalene has held various senior executive positions specializing in Human Resources within the telecommunications, investment and fast-moving consumer goods sector – including directorships of various boards. Currently, she a director and shareholder of a consultancy people effectiveness consultancy business.
From 1994 to 2004, she served as a member of the Management Board in the office of the Auditor General. She is currently serving as a member of the South Africa Board for Personnel Practice, the body responsible for the accreditation of the HR qualifications and professional registration of HR practitioners.
No stranger to the City, she has also served as a non-executive director for City Power from 2001 to 2012 and was appointed as chairperson of the board from 2005 to 2012. She has also served as the Chairperson of the Johannesburg Development Agency.
Metropolitan Trading Company (MTC) – Leapeetswe Molotsane
Mr Molostane is no stranger to the South African public or business sector having served as CEO of Fedics from 1999 to 2003, CEO of Telkom (Pty) Ltd in 2005 and Operations Group Executive at Transnet Ltd. Previously, he acted as a director of Arivia.kom, and Fike Investment (Pty) Limited.
Mr Molotsane has a broad-based professional background in engineering, systems, operations, sales, marketing and human resources. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Services, a Bachelor of Engineering Technology and a Master of Science in Business Administration. He has also completed the Stanford Executive Programme in the USA.
Metrobus - Yolisa Mashilwane
Ms Mashilwane holds a BSc Applied Science, a BTech Transport Engineering and a Diploma in Civil Engineering.
She has over 15 years’ experience within the transport industry, with 11 years of managerial experience in public transport planning and operations.
Throughout the course of her career, Ms Mashilwane has overseen the planning and implantation of transport systems and projects for Ekurhuleni and the City of Johannesburg. Indeed, she was one of the founding members of the City of Johannesburg’s own Department of Transport and was part of the planning and implementation of the Rea Vaya Bus system in the City.
Joburg City Theatres - Nkopane Maphiri
Mr Maphiri is a media and communications professional with over 23 years of experience in public and private enterprises.
Amongst other activities, he has served as a Ministerial Committee advisor on the broadcasting policy, which led to the Broadcasting Act of 1999, and as a board member of AMARC, an international non-governmental organization contributing to the development of community and participatory radio. He has also served as the Chief of Operations of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), a statutory development agency for promoting and ensuring media development and diversity.
Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo – Mr Edgar Neluvhalani
Mr Neluvhalani possess a Masters of Arts in Environmental Education and a Bachelor of Education (Hons). He has 26 years of professional work experience in the NGO and Public Sector as an expert in project management, managing small to large projects at local and national levels.
Edgar has spent 13 years of academic research in the sphere of environmental education and indigenous knowledge, participating at a national and international levels.
During his 26 years of work experience in the Public Sector, Mr Neluvhalani has served on a number of boards of various institutions. He has served on the Boards of three reputable non-governmental organisations in the sphere of Environment and Sustainability; the South African Heritage Resources Authority, My Acre of Africa as a trustee, a board member of the Environmental Education Council of Southern Africa, and a member of the South African World Heritage Committee.
He has also published a number of papers on the environment, notably contributing to the education sector, where he, on a national level, coordinated and developed resource materials and educator development programmes. Mr Neluvhalani has extensive experience in facilitating and leading environmentally related organisations. He has over the last few years supervised 4 national managers as well as 6 regional managers within South African Parks.
Johannesburg Development Agency – Dawood Coovadia
Mr Coovadia is a Chartered Accountant and Registered Auditor with over 27 years of experience. Mr. Coovadia is a Member of various professional institutions, including SA Institute of Management, SA Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, Institute of Management Consultants and Institute of Internal Auditors.
In the course of his professional career, he has served on the Audit Committees of 17 public institutions.
Mr Coovadia has been a non-executive director of Rand Water since 2005 and has also served as a non-executive director of the Johannesburg Road Agency (Pty) Ltd and Gauteng Enterprise Propeller Board.
Johannesburg Housing Company – Mr Bhekisipho Twala
Mr Twala possess a PhD in Machine Learning and Statistical Science. An avid researcher in the field of Science, Mr Twala has spent over 15 years in putting Mathematics to Scientific use in the form of data comparison, inference, analysis, and presentation to design, collect, and interpret data experiments surrounding the fields of transport, medical, artificial intelligence, software engineering and most recently robotics.
Having served in a number of leading academic positions, Mr Twala brings to the Johannesburg Housing Company his wealth of leadership experience and innovation. Mr Twala is currently the Director at the University of Johannesburg for its Institute for Intelligent Systems. He is largely responsible for promoting, supporting the development of a research environment and culture within the Institute and University, focused upon the achievement of research strategies and targets.
Since 2016, Mr Twala has served on Johannesburg Housing Company’s Board as a Non-Executive Director, between 2014 – 2015 as a Non-Executive Director for Metro Bus. He is currently a member of Senate for the University of Johannesburg, notably serving on the Senate’s ad hoc committee and Institutional Forum.
As we continue to advance our efforts to transform Johannesburg into a City which delivers quality services and opportunities, each entity and board will be crucial tools to achieving our vision.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our board members who have made themselves available to serve the people of Johannesburg through Municipal Entities.
I have every confidence that of the caliber of candidates who have been elected to serve the residents of the City.
Statement issued by Cllr Herman Mashaba, Executive Mayor, City of Joburg, 17 March 2017
