Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) President and SanDock Austral Shipyards (SA Shipyards) CEO, Prasheen Maharaj, is passionate about creating an environment conducive to business, and boosting self-employment, so entrepreneurs can flourish and fuel economic growth, writes Lyse Comins.
Maharaj’s dream for the economic growth of the city starts with an immediate plan – for organised business, through the DCCI, to play a role in channelling a portion of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s R17,5-billion infrastructure fund.
He wants to use it to fix the flood-damaged infrastructure that hit the city’s tourism sector, and to build a safe environment where citizens, corporates and small businesses can build skills and flourish.
Maharaj, though now in an influential position of leadership, is not unfamiliar with the struggle to build a business in a tough economic climate. He has experienced the advantages of inventiveness and hustling to develop his own entrepreneurial skills.
Maharaj was raised in a poor working-class family in Durban’s Newland’s West, but thanks to an entrepreneurial uncle and his own resourceful spirit, he quickly developed a mind for business.
“The good thing about the township was that within 100m there were at least 20 houses and my friend’s dad worked for a bakery. When cakes – like snowballs – were not sold after two days – we would get them free and sell them for R2 each. Within two hours they would sell out,” he recalls.
“I grew up in a poverty-stricken household, but I was never poor. I always had pocket money to buy brand name shoes and things I liked. My uncle worked himself into the middle class. He would always find opportunities without being given a handout. He had an insurance brokerage, and at the end of the year we would help address letters to clients thanking them for their support and asking them to review their portfolios.”
Maharaj cleaned his uncle’s office, and as business grew and he opened an estate agency, he got more opportunities.
“We would help him put boards up. I would help with plumbing and building maintenance and handing out pamphlets.”
In 1995 his uncle bought the old Savoy Hotel in Berea Road and started marketing it as overnight accommodation to vendors who travelled by bus from the then Transkei (Eastern Cape) to purchase blankets in the city to take and sell in the undeveloped rural area. The vendors would sleep where the buses parked on the beachfront and in a CBD parking lot.
“I would wait for the buses on the beachfront and at The Workshop Shopping Centre and would tell the driver to take the bus to the accommodation. My uncle would charge R10 for a dormitory-type accommodation and gave me R1 for every person who stayed the night,” he says.
Maharaj went on to complete his Bachelor of Commerce Degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He subsequently obtained an MBA in Finance and Master’s Degree in Strategy from the University of Portsmouth in the UK, and a Master’s Degree in Supply Chain Management from the University of Chichester London School of Business.
Still in touch with what it’s like to grow up in a poor household and in need of opportunity, he wants to transform the local business landscape to help artisans and SMMEs develop enterprises.
He is doing so using SA Shipyard’s 4 000 strong database of small business suppliers. The firm employs some 180 full-time staff, but at any given time there are between 400 and 700 contract workers for its various projects.
As he noted in his inaugural DCCI presidential speech, entrepreneurship holds the key to unlocking job creation and economic growth.
“This country needs an entrepreneurial revolution if we are to address the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment. Entrepreneurs – through starting a business – can create jobs quickly. The US Chamber of Business has three million members, ninety percent of which employ fewer than one hundred people and seventy percent employ fewer than ten people.”
He believes being self-employed offers better job security.
“Just look at the situation at SAA where staff thought they were in a state-owned company and had jobs for life. They lost their jobs. Denel had some of the brightest minds in the country and they lost their jobs and their homes. They thought they were safe, but they weren’t,” he says.
The situation got Maharaj thinking, and he decided to create an online platform where former Denel staff and other skilled artisans and entrepreneurs could register their skills and availability to provide services to SA Shipyards. It’s worked like a charm, providing entrepreneurs with work opportunities and the business with a flow of skilled people.
But if entrepreneurs, corporates and SMMEs are to survive and thrive, he believes it’s vital to build an environment where there is sufficient decent infrastructure and security for all people – a point he says Durban unfortunately failed to deliver on this past December, hitting businesses and tourists. The impact of high E. coli levels in the city’s seawater, due to flood damaged municipal sewage water works, led to the closure of many beaches and impacted hotel occupancy which hit between 70 and 75% during the festive season according to the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa.
“Especially in KZN right now, there is a very low level of positivity because of the lack of decision-making capability, a multitude of broken promises,” Maharaj says.
“We promised the tourism sector we would get the beaches ready, and then we didn’t get the beaches ready, so the tourism industry has lost faith. We as organised business (DCCI members) offered our services to help the city clear and fix the water works free of charge, but they couldn’t find a way to take up our offer, maybe because there was no rent-seeking opportunity, or due to a lack of faith and fear of being shown up for incompetency if we managed to fix in a week what their contractors couldn’t fix in months. Business sentiment is very negative because no matter what we bring to the table in terms of solutions, even when it is free, there is no acceptance,” he says.
Despite the negative sentiment Maharaj remains hopeful. He dreams of a city where water and sanitation are world-class, electricity supply is constant, and the safety of citizens is top priority. However, the task to fix these top three challenges is almost insurmountable if tackled all at once.
“We as business have decided we are going to do one thing – come up with a solid plan as the private sector and apply for a budget from the Presidency’s infrastructure fund to fix the city’s water treatment plants, so that procurement takes place from the Presidency level. So many jobs are dependent on tourism.
“The infrastructure is so badly damaged. We will get all the waste-water treatment plants unclogged, so that clean water enters the ocean. The one thing we want to get back is Blue Flag beaches, which are about both cleanliness and regulating trade in the area,” he says.
Despite the recent challenges of Covid-19, the July 2021 riots and the April 2022 floods that collectively cost the province more than R50-billion in losses, Maharaj views the economic outlook with confidence, not least the big national picture and that the JSE hit an all-time high in January 2023.
“The JSE is the strongest it has ever been – and the property market is high – and why is that? Because the clever people know more than you and I. There is institutional investor confidence in this country and when looking at the flow, around fifty percent is from overseas. The big picture is actually very positive – we must just live through the rollercoaster and that’s my job as a business leader, to give hope when there is hopelessness,” Maharaj says.