City of Mbombela water supplier, Silulumanzi celebrated 20 years of excellent service at Ingwenyama Conference & Sports Resort last Friday night.

Several employees also received long-service awards at the event. The speakers shared their own experiences on how Silulumanzi came about 20 years ago.

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Roelf Kotze, a former municipal manager, said it was a terrible time. “The management came together and said we cannot continue like this. We all agreed that we needed a creative solution. The development bank said they were looking for a pilot project from a municipality that is prepared to go into a public-private partnership,” he said.

“We went to see Mbhazima Shilowa, who was deputy general secretary of Cosatu at the time, at Cosatu House. All he wanted to know was if anyone would lose their job. When we said no, he gave us his blessing. The secret of a successful concession is balance,” he explained.

Shyam Misra, managing director of Silulumanzi, said, “At Silulumanzi we are on a journey to create a new vision, mission and value system for the company. A journey that will display transparency, equality and unity for all. We are entrusted by the City of Mbombela to deliver the primary energy of the world, being water. As a proudly South African water utility we will strive to live up to our company slogan ‘Conserving Water, Sustaining Life’,” he said.

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“On behalf of the board and shareholders, we want to thank all of our loyal and dedicated employees for the continued service to Silulumanzi. I am sure that many of our colleagues from the municipality will vouch that being in the service industry is a thankless job.

There is no praise when the service is uninterrupted, but when services are interrupted, all hell breaks loose. We salute all of those that have received their long service awards and thank them for the loyalty and dedication.”

He also thanked various stakeholders for their work and support.

“Mayor Mathonsi, thank you for gracing this event, Silulumanzi is looking forward furthering our service offerings to the City of Mbombela to realise the vision of becoming the ultimate destination,” said Misra.