Home | News | DEATH THREATS WON’T STOP VISION - ACTING RSTP CEO

DEATH THREATS WON’T STOP VISION - ACTING RSTP CEO

01/09/2024 08:40:00 Ntombi Mhlongo

Font size:

NOKWANE – With reports that he received death threats recently, one many wonder how acting Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP), Dr Andile Metfula has been coping.

However, he has come out to say that, while he did not take the threats lightly, the vision of the RSTP has kept him going. He mentioned that the RSTP vision was not small, meaning it superseded the personal challenges he was going through. “Yes the death threats have changed my life a bit, because now I have to be careful but the fear I have now is that this might make me forget about the vision that RSTP and the country has. I cannot do that. This vision is bigger than me,” he said. He assured that he will not allow personal feelings to interfere with his work. When asked if his life was still the same even after the death threats, he responded to the negative. In jest, he said when someone said they wanted to kill another; it was different from wishing them a happy Christmas.

“But at the end of the day, the vision at hand, which needs to be attained is bigger and is expected to grow even beyond our borders so that is what I am focused on right now,” the acting CEO said. On another note, the acting CEO emphasised that, while the Special Economic Zones was the baby of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade, he was of the belief that supporting it is crucial as such a concept will bring many gains for the Kingdom of Eswatini. He said the RSTP is responsible for implementing the concept and that there are many investors who are showing interest in coming to the country to take up space and do business. Furthermore, he emphasised that the Kingdom of Eswatini will benefit a lot in the newly-introduced project known as ‘Government in Your Hand’. The project, he said, was going to prioritise the youth as the leaders of tomorrow.

Acting RSTP CEO talks radical transformation, income generation

NOKWANE – He has been given a huge task of leading a parastatal, which when established brought many hopes and high expectations, but a decade later; nothing concrete has come out of it. Instead, it has scored itself a front seat in the golden circle of parastatals that have become a burden to government, as they have made losses and continued to survive on subventions. But acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP), Dr Andile Metfula is confident that the fortunes of the parastatal can be turned around. Dr Metfula said one of the strategies that RSTP needed was to become a revenue generating entity.

Money making machines
He said technology parks in other countries were money making machines. The acting CEO made an example of one such entity in Taiwan which he said made over US$30 billion (approximately E540 billion) per year. “We have seen it in Europe and other parts of the world, the parks generate a lot of revenue. When His Majesty King Mswati III opened Phocweni in 2018, he gave a directive of a target of E10 billion a year. It is supposed to be a money-making machine and our strategy is centred around that,” he said. According to Metfula, for the entity to be a success, there was a need for the staff to come together and work as a team.

After that, he said, they have to go out there and engage all stakeholders to work with them. “What we need to do is go out there and engage all stakeholders including government, the private sector plus those outside the borders and encourage them to come and work with us. For RSTP to work there is a need to understand that it exists in an ecosystem. It is a nucleus of the ecosystem. If it becomes a success, all the other sectors of the ecosystem will spend their money here,” he said. Metfula mentioned that the RSTP needed partners all over the world, as that was where its impact was supposed to be felt. He said Eswatini had a population of around 1.2 million and that it is a benefit in that the standards of a small country are high, as it will be looking at exporting its products and services. Elaborating, he said they still believed that achieving the target set by His Majesty King Mswati III was possible in the long-term.

He said after the directive issued by the King, they sat down as an entity and discussed how they could start by attaining at least E1 billion and then in the long-term reach the E10 billion.
The acting CEO was asked to shed light on what plan was in place to foster the culture of working together among the staff of the RSTP. He responded by saying that in any institution, it was crucial to build a strong team.

Serious team building
“Basically, we need a serious team building so that we all subscribe to the vision. Also, we need to develop a culture of business unusual. This means that our culture has to change. We need to make sure that everyone who is inside subscribes to the vision. The units also have to work together so that they see the vision the same way,” he said. On another note, the acting CEO emphasised that the RSTP is working closely with the ministry in terms of implementing the strategies. He said the RSTP depended on the ministry and was in existence, because of the legislations and regulations developed by the latter.

“We are in sync and are improving the relationship on a daily basis. Most importantly, we have this big vision as a country and it can only work if we have a good relationship,” he said.
He said one of the things the RSTP needed to do was improve the data centre so that clients can be happy with the service. “The good thing is that we have a minister who has connections all over the work and that is an advantage, because it means that we can attract as many investors all over the world who will come to keep their data with us. We believe that international investors and come and use our data centre,” he said. The acting CEO said they were working together with other parastatals such as the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC), an entity he said was crucial since data centres consumed a lot of electricity. He said currently, the RSTP was trying to obtain a dedicated line from EEC through the Ministry of ICT.

Cooling and power
“As you may be aware, data centres survive through connectivity, cooling and power, otherwise there will be challenges. Without stable power, data centres cannot operate efficiently,” he said. Also, he said the RSTP was working hard to deal with issues of cyber security. According to Metfula, for clients to trust the RSTP with their data, they had to be guaranteed of safety.
He said they were working with Taiwan in dealing with cybersecurity. Detailing the challenges that have affected the parastatal over the years, Dr Metfula said, while he could not dwell much on what had been happening in the past, the RSTP had a mandate to promote innovation. He said succeeding on such a mandate was not about having beautiful structures and infrastructure but there was more.

He said the innovation in the country was a crucial aspect and that if RSTP was to be a success, there was a need for every liSwati, company and government to come on board.
“What I am trying to say is that if you look at the system that we have, there are a few companies that will confidently say that they want their systems to be developed locally. Here I am talking about start-ups. The truth is that it will take time. For example, if a company wants to develop a system, they will call a South African entity. Through that, we do not realise that the more such happens, the more our own entity gets weakened,” he said. He said even consultants believe in going outside the country and that currently, even if the Biotechnology Park could produce medicines, there would be less interest, all because it was produced locally.

We want to export
“Charity begins at home and we are only around 1.2 million in Eswatini and now and again we argue that we want to export but that is not happening. For us to export, we must produce the products here. So basically, we need to ask ourselves if we are pro-Eswatini products,” he highlighted. He made an example of countries like China saying the products they exported were more like surplus as they ensured that they consumed their own. “Same thing with data centres, when people want to keep their data, they use the cloud and not here. It is all about the ecosystem, that for us to make this thing work, we have to understand that this is for us as emaSwati to come together and say that we will support this thing no matter what.”

... redeployment, change of staff not personal

NOKWANE – Days after Dr Andile Metfula was appointed as the acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Royal Science Technology Park, reports surfaced that some staff members have been removed from the positions they held previously.

This was said to have caused some division among the staff members at the parastatal. During the engagement with the media on Friday, the acting CEO stated in no certain terms that the changes were personal or malicious. Instead, he said the decision was all about the vision and that RSTP was a machine like many others. “Whenever you make such decisions, you do so in such a way in the end, your machine delivers. It was all about ensuring that we are able to deliver efficiently and that staff members are placed in positions where they have the right skills and will be able to deliver,” Dr Metfula said. Worth noting is that for years, there have been concerns that the parastatal was slow in terms of hiring qualified staff for key positions.
One of the positions that have been vacant was that of chief financial officer (CFO).

However, the post was recently advertised and this will help address a glaring anomaly that has existed ever since the parastatal was established in 2012. The Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP), located in the Kingdom of Eswatini on the continent of Africa, is a public enterprise established through an Act of Parliament in 2012. The sole objective of RSTP is not only to be the leading oasis of science and innovative technologies for wealth creation, but also to promote the development of information technology (IT) and research and development.

Divided into two divisions
It is divided into two divisions, which are the Nokwane (headquarters) Site and the Phocweni Site. The Nokwane site is responsible for biotechnology, while the Phocweni site is liable for information technology (IT). RSTP manages a total of 317.7 hectares of land, of which its master plan comprises 159 hectares for industrial development ideally located in close proximity to import and export routes through highway access to the Republic of South Africa and Republic of Mozambique and a dry port railway leading to Maputo Sea Port (Mozambique) and Richards Bay (South Africa).

The entity has now been designated as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), and this was implemented through the SEZ Act of 2018. The head of State is still the brains behind the SEZ Act initiative targeted at attracting foreign direct investment into the Kingdom of Eswatini.The SEZ drive is designed to help promote export-oriented growth, generate employment with the intention to ensure technology transfer among the Eswatini populace, and subsequently stimulate economic growth. Currently, at least 80ha of the industrial development land at Nokwane is serviced and readily available for the potential targeted investments to set up shop.

Despite its potential, the RSTP has been found to be heavily reliant on government finances, which it unsustainable. Also, the Office of the Auditor General, Timothy Matsebula, has in recent years decried that the entity also has a huge wage bill, that is 87.4 per cent of the subvention received from government and that it also witnessed significant increases in its operating costs. The public enterprise only generated income of around E2 miliion from its operations, and government was pushed to increase the shareholder loan to keep the entity running, which is not sustainable.