Building on a dream

When Afrocon, one of South Africa’s most respected construction companies, was started 30 years ago in 1979, it consisted of a couple of shovels, picks, wheel barrels and “two buggies,” says Sithembiso Mthembu, BDM of Afrocon. Started with the vision and hard work of Colin Kuiper, Afrocon has grown to a 300 million rand per annum organization.

Afrocon today is part of the Afro Group, which was in a sense a dream of the founding members. Within the group, there are a number of companies which also operate in the plant environment, all doing various undertakings pertaining to the construction industry.

Dedication and vision

The rapid success of Afrocon can be credited to the dedication of the employees to the business and its vision. “It is what driving this business for the last 30 years,” says Mthembu.  Predominantly active within the province of South Africa, Afrocon is one of the few privately owned construction companies. “We also believe this has enabled us to be lean in terms of resources. There is a lot of direct one-on-one engagement; it’s not corporatized. Our people and our determination have been our success,” continues Mthembu.

Management

As Afrocon is not a corporation there is no formal board at the company. Decisions are made organically in meetings between founders who have a common outlook on the way a business is to be driven. “It’s a lot more personal and that’s how we’ve done it for all these years. We have a number of individuals who have come up through the ranks who joined the companies nearly 10 years ago, now in the management level of the company and involved in the decision making,” says Mthembu. It is a tribute to the unostentatious, no-frills management style that has taken Afrocon to some of SA’s biggest projects.

Projects

Clients say the Afrocon is a company that can be called to be a reliant and solid partner in the most high-profile constructions projects in SA. Included in that list is the Durban City Council waterfront renewal project, 90 per cent completed. The eThekwini Municipality, in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, upgraded and extended the Durban Central Beachfront walkway from Country Club Beach to uShaka Beach in preparation for the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup. This included the of facilities at Addington Beach, New Beach, Dairy Beach and the area around the existing XL Restaurant as well as to upgrade the Mini-town facility.

“That has actual become a very public affair, the biggest in the country, so that’s the one we’re very proud of,” says Mthembu.

Afrocon also participated on the N3 freeway interchange as well as finished two projects for the same client as well, a prominent one being the Time Gardens.
“It was an interesting job because it was more of a landscaping and civil infrastructure job than just a straight forward project. As part of the group, there is a company that does property development and we’ve been jointly with them in a number of developments in the Durban area,” says Mthembu.

Vision

Afrocon’s strategy for future success hinges on the expansion model. “I think everyone wants to continuously grow the business and that’s what we intend to do,” says Mthembu. “At this stage, though, we are not particularly keen on going the route of listing, which is what many African companies have done. We would like to remain a private company for as long as we possibly can, but we are currently exploring the possibility of expanding beyond the borders of the province.”

The long-term plan of the company is to grow the local business and then apply the business to national clients and ultimately take Afrocon international. Currently, 90 per cent of Afrocon operations have been domestic, but time will show the company go beyond its backyard. With plans to go national in the next few years, Afrocon will be taking on a larger piece of the market share in construction.

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