There can be little doubt that the SA mining industry is facing numerous challenges at present. Amongst these is its need to comply with the Mining Charter and its directives around Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and enterprise development. Nonetheless, it seems strange to suggest that something as simple as a laundry service could assist these mines to meet their legislative challenges. Yet that is exactly what Andrew Coates, sales director at Bidvest Laundry Group proposes. He says that the right laundry implementation can boost the BEE scorecard, enlist local community commitment and drive its upliftment, all while being a boon to enterprise development.

“Bidvest Laundry has three divisions. Boston is our centralised laundry offering that provides solutions for clients such as Southern Sun and Sun International. First Garment Rental supplies overalls and specialist work wear for large companies, while Montana provides laundry equipment, spares and maintenance. It is the Montana division that delivers what we refer to as On Premise Laundry (OPL) solutions,” he says. Coates describes OPL as a one-stop-shop offering, whereby the company can supply the required laundry equipment, design and implement a laundry for a client and provide the skills to operate and maintain it. In fact, he adds, mining firms such as Goldfields, Anglo Gold and Harmony already utilise such solutions. “What we are now proposing is to provide a solution of this nature to the mines, but instead of merely managing it ourselves for the contracted period, we want to partner with entrepreneurs in the local communities by building businesses that are owned by entrepreneurs in the community. We would thereby assist the mine in promoting enterprise development, while also uplifting the community itself.”

“Moreover, by stimulating job creation and skills development in the region, we will be able to ensure that both Bidvest Laundry and the mine in question are able to leave a lasting legacy in the area,” says Coates. He points to a project the company has already undertaken in Lesotho as a good example of what can be achieved in this manner. Bidvest Laundry has been involved in a public private partnership with the government of Lesotho and Netcare in the development of a 450-bed hospital, says Coates. Bidvest has put in place some R2 million worth of equipment and is currently training local people to operate and maintain it. “Our plan now is to extrapolate this concept into the mining sector.” “We already have standard Montana contracts with a number of the major players in the sector, but these offer very little in terms of community improvement. After all, what the standard contract effectively boils down to is a situation where these mines are spending a lot of money on their laundry contracts with precious little to show for it at the end. This is why our new solution is ideal, as quite literally, everybody wins in this scenario.”

Coates explains that Bidvest understands that teaching members of the local community to operate the machinery in a laundry is reasonably simple. Ensuring that they are able to maintain it as a successful business operation for years to come is, however, the true measure of success. For this reason, business training and management is an integral and vital part of the skills development process. “This truly is a win-win situation for everyone – the local community are provided with jobs, skills and business acumen, while the mines are able to develop the local communities, improve both their BEE and enterprise development initiatives and ultimately save costs. In fact, if you look at the development goals of the government, you will find that our new laundry initiative matches perfectly with these,” he concludes.