A KwaZulu-Natal black-owned medical waste firm launched its new medical waste treatment facility on Thursday that will enable the company to provide quality services to clients. KZN MEC for Finance Nomusa Dube-Ncube with the managing director of Makhathini Medical Waste Bonginkosi Makhathini at the launch of the business in Cato Ridge, yesterday. Picture: DOCTOR NGCOBO
DURBAN - A KWAZULU-NATAL black-owned medical waste firm launched its new medical waste treatment facility on Thursday that will enable the company to provide quality services to clients.
Speaking at the launch and viewing of the facility in Cato Ridge, managing director of Makhathini Medical Waste Bonginkosi Makhathini said it was a privilege to be launching a facility of this magnitude.
The facility was initially a transfer station established 12 years ago that transported medical waste collected in the province to treatment plants for treating and disposing in another province, before increasing their scope of services and footprint.
Makhathini paid homage to the National Health Laboratories (NHLS) for providing a platform to be in the field of medical waste management.
“We wish to express our deepest gratitude to NHLS for the chance they gave us and for supporting emerging black-owned businesses. This augurs very well with the notion of creating a developmental state we all envisage to have,” said Makhathini.
He said with the launch of the facility, the company aims to create opportunities for the communities, clients and stakeholders in the value chain.
He added that the facility was an opportunity for the company to achieve two long-term visions of building capacity for health-care risk waste treatment and disposal in the province and the country at large, and to ease the burden of unemployment by providing sustainable jobs for local people and vulnerable communities.
The company has a large footprint which spans KZN, Mpumalanga, the Free State and Gauteng. The facility will process an estimated 90% of hazardous medical waste (needles, bandages, swabs, etc) collected in the areas of Cato Ridge, and continue to transport the remaining 10% of anatomic waste to Gauteng.
Provincial MEC for Finance, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, congratulated Makhathini on his “stride in the field of medical waste management”.
“Our belief is that the ability of resilience of our people is unsurpassed as we see Mr Makhathini here as a shining example of the work, from starting small with limited resources, to building big businesses like those that we are experiencing today,” said Dube-Ncube.
She added that this was a major milestone because the government is passionate about “the stride of black industrialists”, as they typically experience a number of hurdles in unlocking the industrial potential that exists within the various businesses.
“It is quite exciting for us that we have our black industrialists like Mr Makhathini, a family man and community leader, who is a full proof of black industrialists bearing fruits of success as a consequence of our black business and black empowerment policies that we would like to see bearing fruits in our country,” said Dube-Ncube.