Africa

ELB Engineering Services has an entrenched position in the South African mining industry thanks to over a century of experience and the alliances it has formed with the best local and international technology partners.

Consol Glass has been part of South Africa’s history for nearly 70 years, but it is anything but old-fashioned. Priding itself on innovation and engagement with the local community, the company pursues success in every area.

Solving the world’s water problems is not going to be an easy task, but drought-hit Bitou Municipality in South Africa’s Western Cape is making an effort to relieve local water shortages through the construction of a new seawater desalination plant at Plettenberg Bay.

Amatola Water operates over an area of approximately 47,500 square kilometres in the central region of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. Its vision is to extend that to the entire province; and it has taken long strides towards this goal.

To keep up with South Africa’s rapidly growing demand for electricity, and a distribution system in need of modernisation, state-owned utility company Eskom is undertaking a massive construction and development programme.

Australia’s Equatorial Resources Limited has acquired a 19.9 per cent interest in African Iron Limited, it has been announced.

African Iron owns an 80 per cent stake in the Mayoko-Lekoumou iron project, which is situated next to Equatorial’s 100 per cent owned Mayoko-Moussondji iron project in the Republic of Congo.

Life is not easy in the construction industry, even in South Africa; but Protech Khuthele’s history is an object lesson in how to entrench and expand a niche capability.

It’s taken Spark ATM Systems under five years to deploy a nationwide network of ATMs across South Africa, using cutting-edge technology and based on a strong ethos of customer service. Managing director Marc Sternberg talks to Gay Sutton about the innovations behind this success and the plan to capture 50 per cent of the market in the next two years.

Jeff Daniels looks at an emergency service that knows no bounds to its possibilities.

Like many an African country, Botswana has a few large-ish urban centres where a sizeable but minority proportion of the population live, and then lots of wide open spaces where the remainder of the two million inhabitants are to be found (if you look hard enough—Botswana still has around 10,000 Bushmen living a nomadic life, much as they have for centuries).

There’s work to be done in Africa, the Middle East and—following the lead it took in the movement that is being called Arab Spring—in Egypt itself. Eng Hisham el Kheshen, CEO of Samcrete Development, and Yahia Adly, business development director of Samcrete Investments, tell John O’Hanlon how the group is ready to do its part.