Chemical Technology • September 2013
34
This quote
by the world’s revered icon
resonates well, with Consulting Engineers
South Africa (CESA)’s newly appointed
CEO Lefadi Makibinyane. Born and bred
in Kroonstad, in Free State Province, he
regards himself as a ‘farm boy.’
“As a young boy, my ambition was to
succeed against all odds. I was always top
of my class and pushed hard to achieve
greater heights. After a reality check, I
discovered that chemical engineering
was the only engineering field that will
optimise my competence level and chal-
lenge me above my intelligence,” declares
Makibinyane.
Makibinyane holds a Bachelor of
Engineering Degree with Honours (Chemi-
cal Engineering) from the University of
Teesside, Middlesbrough, in the United
Kingdom, a post Graduate Certificate
Management Development Programme
(in project management) as well as
Masters in Business Leadership from the
University of South Africa (UNISA) School
of Business Leadership, in Pretoria.
He sees expanding the market base
of CESA members for the trading of their
services, as one of his primary tasks as
well as to invigorate the advocacy voice for
CESA members in both public and private
sector. This will help in bringing back
the rational that consulting engineers
are the front-end engineering loaders of
every technical/infrastructure develop-
ment as their service focal area lies in
design, material selection; as well as
specification, overseeing of construction
against the design specifications towards
quality and sustainable performance and
after-care support during operation and
maintenance.
On the issue of corruption, Makibin-
yane believes that it destroys value and
compromises quality of service by denying
the community delivery of service and
efficient infrastructure. “It is crime against
humanity and must be uprooted at all
costs. The engineering profession pro-
motes ethical behaviour and conduct as
an integral principle of technological work
and service. The work of an engineer cen-
tres on harnessing the might of science
for safe human use and benefit within
the constraints of the natural environ-
ment. One cannot achieve any quality of
service as an engineer if you are corruptly
natured; hence fairness and equality is a
prerequisite requirement for the develop-
ment of an engineer”.
He cautions that any consulting engi-
neering member firm caught participating
in corrupt activities shall not only lose
their membership of CESA but their work
and existence as a firm. CESA will ensure
that such a member gets blacklisted on
the National Treasury database and gets
removed as a vendor for Consulting Engi-
neering Services from the databases of
both public and private sector clients.
“It should therefore be the premise and
commitment of CESA under my leadership
to inculcate in members the proper and
ethical conduct in discharging of their du-
ties to our clients. This is the only way that
we are going to succeed in promoting our
work in a sustainable manner ensuring
the continuity of the consulting engineer-
ing service to both public and private sec-
tors. We are going to strive to make mem-
bership of CESA the premier membership
sought by any practicing engineering firm
across the racial divide so that clients
requiring consulting engineering services
begin to associate astute quality, integrity,
sustainability of service to the member-
ship of CESA locally, in the continent and
across the globe,” avers Makibinyane.
He argues that since CESA is a mem-
ber of the International Federation of
Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), its mem-
bers are not only the recipients of the
best knowledge in the world, but are the
creators of such knowledge. These best
practices from South Africa will be shared
at FIDIC on an equal footing because we
need each other across the globe to fight
poverty, inequality and ensure sustainabil-
ity of the earth for future generations.
Makibinyane has worked for the City of
Tshwane as a strategic executive director
in the services infrastructure department,
West LB AG as a director, vice president
of Fieldstone Africa and also held various
senior positions at Sasol, Industrial De-
velopment Corporation, Engine Refinery,
Anglo American Coal Division, Nampak,
South African Breweries as well as the
Export Credit Insurance Corporation of
South Africa.
The full report is available on the CESA
website
Makibinyane to steer CESA to new heights
“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can
become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of a farm worker can be-
come the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one
person from another,” Nelson Mandela.
Lefadi
Makibinyane,
CEO CESA.
Contact details:
Lefadi Makibinyane
Tel: 011 463 2022 or Email
CESA Media Liaison, Dennis Ndaba
Tel. 073 981 2066 or Email
