Former anti-apartheid activist and civic leader who grew up without electricity directs a leading power producer, promotes literacy and plans to “brighten the dark continent”

Only a handful of electrical power providers exist on the African continent.  One of the most successful manufacturers of transformers is situated near the intersection of Diamond and Platinum Streets in a Johannesburg industrial site of South Africa.  The Business Development Director of the Desta Power Matla factory, Tebogo Kenneth "T.K." Molete, believes that true power involves far more than physical outputs and profits.  He advocates power as a matter of helping people achieve their potential.  Applying this philosophy to his own business practices, T.K has enabled all 222 of his staff to receive unusual training—adult basic education and literacy.  The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) financed this unique skills development approach through the South African International Business Linkages (SAIBL) Program. 

T.K. states emphatically, “I am passionate about education.”  The 51-year-old executive and co-shareholder at Desta knows first-hand how apartheid’s discriminatory education policy debilitated millions of South Africans who are still under-educated today and battling 30% unemployment to support their families.   

He is the number two in charge of a leading manufacturer of transformers, but T.K. grew up in a Soweto home without electricity.  “Candles and paraffin provided lighting,” said T.K., “and we cooked using coal stoves.”  Only in 1990 did he move into a South African house serviced by electricity. 

T.K. worked his way up, literally, from the age of 12.  As a boy, he sold oranges, apples and peanuts in trains and at stations near his modest Soweto home.  “I did it to help pay for my education,” said the man who has earned five of the most sought after academic and business qualifications from the Universities of Cape Town and South Africa.  T.K. also had his fair share in the school of hard knocks, including detention without trial as punishment for professing his political beliefs publicly.  “I didn’t think I’d live to see age 30,” he recalls.  Ask T.K. about his 1977 Christmas in prison (after South Africa's apartheid government banned political organizations) and he says he was glad he could read because all he had in his desolate cell was a Bible.  T.K. also spent time traveling extensively in Africa, gaining insight into opportunities across the continent that are now helping him project business targets.  Democratic liberation in 1994 caused T.K. to celebrate “being proudly South African” as he voted in his country of birth for the first time in his life.   

Literacy isn’t often associated with workplace training, but T.K. is adamant that, “Uplifting the literacy and skills levels of employees builds a business’s foundation.”  He convinced USAID’s SAIBL project of his claim.  SAIBL specializes in training and technical assistance for businesses run chiefly by and with historically disadvantaged South Africans.  But T.K.’s appeal for reading and writing lessons for his staff was a new one for SAIBL’s stable.

Business Development officer, Peter Mwanza, explained, “USAID through SAIBL arranges training and assistance for developing business plans, obtaining industry standard qualifications and accreditation, and learning how to market.  But Mr. Molete’s request to organize literacy courses was a first for us.  We saw the merit of his concept and supported the training.”

Established in 1953 and restructured in 1999, Desta Power Matla is fully equipped in every way to service its 350 clients that range from municipalities and shopping centers to small contractors.  But the realistic visionary sees his country’s marketplace as saturated: “South Africa won’t have any more need for our products in five years.  The real market is in Africa.  The rest of Africa needs power.  This is still a dark continent and I want to brighten Africa.  If you have electricity, there are so many things you can do for yourself.  There are many ways of fueling other industries and everything that uses electricity, including appliances.”   T.K.’s business plan will help sustain Desta’s operations for the next 30 to 40 years.  USAID and SAIBL endorse the strategy.  Mwanza says, “We don’t give businesses a hand-out and spoon-feed them.  We want them to maintain their operations after the lifespan of SAIBL, so we give a springboard for clients to invest in their own companies.”  T.K. has proven that investing in his employees has reaped profitable dividends beyond financial returns.

T.K. said that USAID’s SAIBL program not only helped train his staff and management, including computer literacy for management development, but they are working together to market Desta’s line, “so we can try to ensure our products reach the length and breadth of Africa.”  In T.K.’s experience, “SAIBL helps blacks overcome huge obstacles in not only finance, but also education.”  He has opinions on both international aid and trade, saying, “This is the time we need USAID most, during South Africa’s transition, to help us sustain our businesses in the long-term, so we can compete wherever we choose.” 

Desta is highly efficient and competitive, offering three product ranges (including miniature substations) and flexibility to suit customer needs with expert engineering.  But most BEEs (black economic empowerment companies) are caught in a debt trap and regularly “bite the dust”, according to T.K.  He considers financing and funding clauses too restrictive, “They need to be tailored to enable BEEs to gain and sustain the capital for their operations.”

Desta Matla Power has an excellent reputation and track record.  T.K. Molete is the brain and heart of the operation.  Only two people at Desta arrived with technical skills.  “All the others were taught in-house,” beams T.K., proud of his staff’s accomplishments.  The former schoolteacher was a founder of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union and still promotes education in the school of life for people of all ages, “Empower people through education and give people correct business skills so they can sustain themselves and get involved in funding their companies to create further jobs towards sustainable job creation.”

T.K.’s philosophy is illustrated by Mr. Ntshaba’s life.  Mr. Ntshaba worked at Desta for 35 years before his retirement two years ago at the age of 65.  The elderly man learned to read and write at Desta when he was 64 years old.  T.K. describes the self-taught boilermaker as “very smart.”  Mr. Ntshaba flourished after becoming literate and contributed substantially to Desta’s productivity.  Mr. Ntshaba passed away recently.  T.K.reflected on his former employee with a smile, “Mr. Ntshaba bought two goats after retiring and took a huge stack of newspapers home to KwaZulu-Natal that he said he would have time to read in retirement.” 

Desta Power Matla empowers its staff and seeks to provide power across the continent.  Export on a small-scale is already underway to Zambia, Botswana, Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. 

NOTE:  SAIBL is administered in South Africa by Ebony Consulting International (managed in the U.S. by the Corporate Council on Africa).  SAIBL is USAID's five-year, $4.6 million business linkages program that has so far facilitated transactions in South Africa worth more than $141 million.