Development Bank of Southern Africa
Pretoria – The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is encouraged by National Treasury’s commitment to its new growth strategy, its chief executive officer Patrick Dlamini said.
The state owned bank said the substantial need for infrastructure finance in the country and the rest of the continent meant that the bank has had to reconsider an expanded role beyond being just a “municipal finance” institution to a broader infrastructure finance institution.
Dlamini said the bank’s restructuring exercise started officially in September 2012, whereby it held a series of meetings with employees that were also allowed to make their inputs.
“All employees of the bank were given an opportunity to make contributions into the new organisational strategy of the bank. This culminated into the approval of the new growth strategy and a management structure of the bank on 22 November 2012,” he said.
Dlamini was speaking at a briefing to clarify its restructuring processes which had been incorrectly implied that well qualified staff would be retrenched.
The bank had informed all employees of its intentions to restructure, a process that was done in consultation with all the recognised unions and non-unionised staff members.
The bank had also introduced a voluntary severance package (VSP) and Early Retirement (ER) scheme for employees who intended to leave on voluntarily basis and those who were eligible for early retirement.
“The Bank also ensured that while it implements the severance package scheme, all essential and critical skills for business are retained,” said Dlamini.
“There was a need to take into account that over the years the scope of sectors that are covered by DBSA had progressively increased,” he said.
The bank wanted to enhance its development impact, improve operational efficiencies to maximise its development reach and financial sustainability, it said last week.
Also in its statement released last week the DBSA said the review of its strategy was influenced by factors such as increased competition in its traditional markets, increasing operating costs and lower margins which have resulted in the downward trend on the bank’s profit.
In the 2013 budget, National Treasury approved a R7.9 billion recapatilisation facility over a period of three years to support the DBSA’s refocused mandate to drive its infrastructure funding by increasing municipal lending, state owned enterprise infrastructure plans, regional lending and private public partnerships.
“We are encouraged by the Treasury’s commitment towards the Bank’s new growth strategy. This facility will enable us to improve the scale of development impact and as well as bridge the infrastructure gap, to enhance the prosperity and well-being of people in South Africa and the continent,” said Dlamini. – SAnews.gov.za
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