The Acting General manager of Gledhow Sugar Mill in KwaDukuza, in an interview with Business Report, broke down the R1.8 billion expansion of the mill and the opportunities it creates, along with 400 jobs that were saved.
Image: Supplied
The acting general manager of Gledhow Sugar Mill in KwaDukuza, in an interview with Business Report, broke down the R1.8 billion expansion of the mill and the opportunities it creates, along with 400 jobs that were saved.
This follows the relaunch last week, which was attended by Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Zuko Godlimpi. Gledhow had previously entered business rescue in the 2023/2024 period.
Dawid Louw said that Kenyan-based Chatthe Group bought the business out of business rescue last year in January.
“Since then, we have started or embarked on a massive factory expansion upgrade,” he said.
“Gledhow Mill is well over 100 years in existence, and during the period of business rescue, there was not an enormous amount of maintenance done, so it needed an uplift and it had to be rejuvenated substantially.”
Louw added that the new technology introduced by the Chatthe Group will enable Gledhow to be more efficient.
“It will provide bigger efficiencies with steam on cane, as well as the fact that it will drive our green agenda because we will eliminate coal as part of our whole production process. That is apart from the substantial savings that it will bring; it has a massive environmental impact,” Louw said.
“We will also be in a position to supply electricity or power and steam to Sappi next door, which will also help them to reduce coal.”
Louw said that the expansion of Gledhow will be completed in phases.
“We will start up the factory on the 22nd of April. We will start crushing cane. Our refinery will only come online in May because, obviously, with the process of crushing, you start with brown sugar and then later on your refinery comes on,” Louw said.
“We are in the process of finalising everything that we need for the startup. However, some of the projects will only be completed towards September or October.”
Louw added that along with the 400 jobs that were saved, thousands of people are dependent on Gledhow.
“Our mill may be a smaller mill, but besides 400 jobs, there are between 26,000 and 30,000 people that are dependent on our mill which includes workers' families and the community. We also expect that there will be opportunities towards the end of the year when we reach full completion of the expansion project,” he said.
“During the expansion project, we have used an enormous amount of additional people. We have recruited heavily from our local community and have a good relationship with the local traditional leader, and we've taken between 150 and 200 people.”
Louw said that they would continue to recruit people.
“We feel that that is our duty and we would like to continue with that and to have that kind of relationship with the local community. So we have created that, and we have people that have been here for a couple of months on fixed term contracts.”
Louw added that in the sugar industry as a whole at the moment, there's not an enormous amount of good news.
“Us spending this amount of money on upgrading and rejuvenating our mill has a massive impact in the industry. This will probably be the most modern mill from a technology point of view in South Africa.”
Louw concluded that the survival or the continuous operation of the sugar industry has a massive impact on local communities, which includes Gledhow and the survival of Tongaat Hulett, which has about 250 000 people dependent on it.
BUSINESS REPORT