Above: Ellisras Primary School Interkleuter Day, Lephalale (read the full story in Lesedi News, November 2016)
A word from the CEO
In order to highlight an exciting period of growth and diversification in both our client portfolio and business value propositions, and to better position the company going forward, we have developed new vision and mission statements. They reflect a new and evolved business structure, strategy and way of working with our stakeholders – employees, clients and partners.
As part of this transformation, we also redefined our company values. These values are essential for our long-term success. They also represent the set of standards that should underpin the way we do our work and run the business of Lesedi. They will also serve as a basis against which the performance of every team member will be measured and rewarded. Training remains one of our key areas of focus, as the requirement for all sorts of soft and hard skills is an important business driver. This year, we have rolled out numerous training initiatives to empower Lesedi employees.
The establishment and maintenance of a learning culture is crucial to the success of any learning programme. As Lesedi management, we have identified this as a critical success factor and have therefore invested considerably in ensuring that adequate opportunities are created and made available to all levels of Lesedi staff. At present we have over seven learning programmes aimed at various target groups to assist in personal and professional development.
In the past few months our business has been an active participant at a number of industry events, mostly in Gauteng. The first of these was the Powergen Africa, which took place at the Sandton Convention Centre. Following this, we took-up an exhibition space at the Women in Energy Business Summit, where a number of Lesedi female employees represented the business. The Summit was aimed at empowering women with information on business opportunities, funding sources, and enterprise development opportunities in the energy sector.
The knowledge gained from the Summit will no doubt motivate South African women to fully participate, contribute and benefit from the economic growth of the country. The theme of the Summit was “Women in Energy, United in Moving South Africa Forward”. Ms Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the Minister of Energy, and Deputy Minister Thembisile Majola were both present at the event on behalf of the host department.
Our very own, Shane Pereira, was invited to participate as a panellist in one of the plenary sessions on Nuclear Industry Participation. The session focussed on the opportunities in the nuclear industry sector. A number of B-BBEE companies in the sector had also been invited to share their experiences from their various perspectives.
While the country waits for the government decision on the nuclear new build, we had the privilege of attending the NNR Info Regulatory Conference/Exhibition. The conference provided a platform for industry professionals to interact, share information and discuss new and emerging issues, as well as trends related to the regulation of safety and security in the nuclear fuel cycle. In addition, the conference served as a mechanism to review and assess ways of further improving the regulatory effectiveness for nuclear safety and nuclear security during nuclear fuel cycle activities in South Africa. Various companies within the Nuclear space attended the exhibition and also hosted young minds from various schools within the Pretoria region, providing them insight into the world of nuclear and the career opportunities available in it.
As Lesedi Nuclear Services, we have fostered a strategy that deems it necessary to promote and influence economic and social change in the communities in which our facilities and projects operate and where our employees reside. Furthermore, Social Responsibility features as a key value in our corporate values charter.
It follows from this that we pride ourselves as a company with a social conscience and that strives to use its resources for the long-term benefit of society.
As such, in the past few months we have endeavored to bring this commitment to life through various CSI initiatives in the communities neighboring our operations. We did this through the soup kitchen at Joe Slovo Township during the cold Cape winter. This initiative was very well received by the community and local leaders. Our colleagues in Medupi, Lephalale also showed their support towards the Interkleuter Day at the Ellisras Primary School where Lesedi also donated some gifts to the learners as awards following their athletics activities. We are also pleased to have the Water Treatment Plant System completed at the Shongoane Orphanage in Lephalale. The installed water system will provide much needed clean drinking water to the kids living at the orphanage as well as the neighboring school and community.
During Women’s Month (August), the Lesedi ladies led the Women’s month commemorations with a sanitary towels drive. Each one of our ladies donated packets of sanitary towels and benefitted from additional support from the business, which donated boxes of sanitary towels that were handed over to the Inkwenkwezi Secondary School in Dunoon. You will all agree that it has been an eventful period indeed. I now look forward to looking back at celebrating another year full of extraordinary achievements, at the end of December.
Let’s keep walking this road together!
Read the November 2016 edition of Lesedi News here.
Contact Lesedi Nuclear Services.
Francis Carruthers, Lesedi CEO
