​Tshediso Matona

Tshediso Matona is a long-serving professional public sector executive, on the level of Director-General (DG), akin to CEO, with close to 20 years of management and technical experience in Government. As DG of the Department of Trade and Industry (2006-2010) and now DG of the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE, 2011 to present), he has deep policy and strategy knowledge and expertise in the economic, industry and business sectors: and strong, proven strategic and leadership capabilities.

He has been at the centre of Government policy-planning, and has led execution of its major strategic programmes, in the fields of International Trade, Industrial Development and Investment Facilitation, Enterprise Development, Economic Regulation, Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment, Infrastructure Development.

He has played a key leadership role as the Coordinator of Departments and DGs in the Economic and Infrastructure Clusters in Government, where he interacted at Cabinet-level and with the President, Deputy President and Ministers. Also, in his role as DG, he has regularly interfaced with Industry, Business, and Organized Labour leaders and stakeholders, as part of relationship-building and consensus-building around key Government policies and programmes.

As DG of DPE, he is the Head an organization of over 200 staff and professionals (with a budget often in excess of R1,5bn, depending on transfers), and is responsible for supervising strategic, technical, financial and legal expertise required for the Minister’s oversight of 8 major State Owned Companies (SOC) that include Eskom, Transnet, Denel, Safcol and Infraco. At DTI, he headed a 1200-staff organization with a budget of around R9bn.

Achievements

His achievements in his long career in Government started in the International Trade field in the 1990s, where he led negotiations and trade agreements through which the SA economy re-integrated into global and African economy after the end of Apartheid, such as the SA-EU Free Trade Agreement; the World Trade Organization; and the SADC and SACU agreements.

As DG DTI, he oversaw and supervised key policy initiatives and legislation, such as Industrial Policy Framework/Action Plan, Industry and Enterprise Financial Incentives, notably for the motor industry; BBBEE Codes of Good Practice; new Companies Ac; Competition Act; and Credit Act.

At DPE, he has been supporting the Minister to enforce stronger corporate governance in the SOC, including enhanced accountability and transparency: and on this basis to strengthen the strategic alignment of the SOC with Government’s policy objectives and priorities.

From his experience in Government economic policy planning and implementation, he has deep appreciation of the centrality of Eskom to the economy’s growth, and hence to investment and employment growth.

At DPE, he has for the last four years or so been intimately involved in monitoring Eskom’s business and developments in its industry, from the shareholder perspective. He has acquired good knowledge of the technical and strategic challenges of the company; of the arising risks to Government and the economy. He has been working with Eskom and key stakeholder Departments (DoE, National Treasury) on options to overcome the company’s challenges, and the support it requires from Government in the short, medium and long-term.

Qualifications

He holds a Masters in Development Economics degree from the University of East Anglia (UK, 1994), Bachelor/Honours degrees in Economics and Political Science from University of Cape Town (1992), and since then various certificates, including in Executive Management (2005) and Infrastructure Development (2011), from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (USA).

Personal Attributes

He is a well-recognized and widely respected public official with a solid professional, performance and ethical track-record. He is hardworking, principled and accessible technocrat, and the longest-serving DG in the economic sector. With a long history of anti-Apartheid political activism in students and youth movements in the 1980s/1990s, and in the ANC underground at that time, he is driven by a strong desire to realise the vision of a free, prosperous and inclusive South Africa; a desire to make a positive difference in society; and to use his public position to assist various deserving stakeholders that can help achieve this vision, including SOC.

Mr Matona left Eskom at the end of May 2015.