Africa-Press – Eswatini. Minister of Commerce Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo has tasked incoming Ubombo Sugar Limited Managing Director (MD) Muzi Siyaya to come up with a project that will assist the country meet its energy demand.
The minister said this was because indications were that there would be no energy supply from South Africa post-2025.
The minister challenged Siyaya when he officially met him at the Hilton Garden Inn yesterday.
Siyaya was appointed the Managing Director of Ubombo Sugar Limited effective August 1. He has held various senior and executive corporate roles in Eswatini and South Africa.
During his meeting with the minister, Siyaya presented plans by Ubombo Sugar Limited.
He expressed happiness to be back home. Siyaya explained that he saw it appropriate to meet with the ministry of commerce industry and trade primarily because it was their line ministry in terms of industry related activities.
According to Siyaya, Ubombo Sugar plays a major role in socio-economic development as they employ approximately 2 500 people. “If you apply the dependency ratio it essentially means we are feeding close to 40 000 people,” the managing director stated. He said their responsibilities stretched a very long way, especially with the key focus on small grower and medium skilled growers who are in the sugar cane business.
He explained that they had managed to merge with a number of growers and hope that the numbers would grow as government continues to expand the LUSIP II. He said when LUSIP II comes on the stream it could lead to further expansion of the factory.
“That could be a foreign direct investment (FDI) opportunity for the country and also an opportunity to create more employment. LUSIP II is obviously addressing the poverty-stricken areas of the country,” Siyaya stated.
He added that Ubombo Sugar had been actively working with ESWADE and the ministry of agriculture to ensure that LUSIP II was completed.
The minister, on the other hand, said the wealth of experience that Siyaya possesses would ensure that he was successful and also the organisation that he will be leading. The minister said Ubombo Sugar is a very key player in the country’s economy.
He challenged Ubombo Sugar to rescue the country in terms of providing a lasting solution to the challenge faced when it comes to the supply of electricity.
“There are just three or four challenges that I would like to highlight the first one being energy,” the minister said. He said biomass would be a very significant contribution in the country’s energy mix after 2025.
Energy
“We are possibly looking at renewable forms of energy and we see the sugar industry as one of the key players that should form one of your key strategies to see what are your contributions to the grid,” the minister urged Siyaya.
The minister also informed Siyaya that the country has come up with a sugar association, which is more of a sugar strategy that led itself to them creating what he could call a sugar industrial park. He urged the managing director to familiarise himself with it.
He said the idea behind it was that they sell sugar outside of Eswatini but also look at what other tertiary products they can bring back to the country so that they have both industries here.
“It is a very important growth strategy because I think depending on one country so much, as most of our sugar goes into South Africa may not be the best strategy, in particular because sometimes we hear them saying they want to limit sugar coming from their neighbours,” the minister stated. He said if they could decrease their capacity they would really limit sugar that the country sells to them and that would put a strain to the industry.
The minister appreciated that Illovo has empowered a lot of Emaswati in the different skills sectors. He said Ubombo Sugar has empowered a lot of young and small entrepreneurs to provide services.
He said Ubombo Sugar must grow that as far as they can as it promotes participation in the economy.
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