Winners of the Awards, organised by the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (SEIFSA), were announced at a dinner at the end of the first day of the Southern African Metals and Engineering Indaba.

South African pump manufacturer Hazleton Pumps International took top honours in the Most Innovative Company and Customer Service of the Year Awards categories, with Scaw Metals declared winner in the Health and Safety and Artisan of the Year categories Power transmission specialist Voith Turbo scooped the Best Corporate Social Responsibility Programme of the Year, with the Most Transformed Company of the Year Award going to Africa Steel Holdings for companies with fewer than 100 employees and to automation technology group ABB for companies with more than 100 employees, In addition, the SEIFSA Chief Executive Officer Kaizer Nyatsumba presented four CEO’s Awards to:

  • Kgaogelo James Sello for being the Top 2014 Artisan Student for scoring the highest marks and achieving his Mechanical Engineering – N6 Certificate;
  • Melco Conveyor Equipment for being the company that had made extensive use of SEIFSA’s products and services and participated in the Federation’s workshops, events and forums;
  • The Construction Engineering Association of South Africa for being SEIFSA’s affiliated association that has been most active, having participated in various SEIFSA activities;
  • a Lifetime Leadership Award in the metals and engineering sector to Arthur Stuart(Tubby) Boynton-Lee.

The awards were established because of a need to recognise and encourage excellence in the ailing metals and engineering sector.

Mr Nyatsumba said that the sector was faced with several challenges, including the prevalence of cheap imports from Asia, the lack of competitiveness in local manufacturing and policy uncertainty.

“In such turbulent economic times and a challenging business environment, we at SEIFSA believe that it is critically important for those companies which excel at what they do to get the acknowledgement and recognition they deserve,” Mr Nyatsumba said.

He commended all the companies that had taken the initiative to enter for the Awards and congratulated the winners in the respective categories

“I would like to congratulate all the winners and encourage them to continue to work hard towards excelling and providing the sector with examples of excellence. This will inspire other companies to improve their operations so that they can be afforded the opportunity to win at future SEIFSA awards,” Mr Nyatsumba said.