Page 50 - RB-95-20-4

BOTSWANA
The Zimbabwean Working to Promote Retreads in Botswana
“When an idea strikes, put it in practice however small it may be, it may turn out to be successful.” It is on this premise that Paul Mlambo, a Zimbabwean citizen resident in Botswana, established 633 Tyres, one of only two retreaders in Botswana, in 2017. Mlambo’s journey into the business of retreading started
cold retreads. In addition, it had two earthmover factories with milling of rubber compounds being carried out in Harare and Bulawayo. Five years later, he enrolled for a course in Retread Process and Workshop Practice with the Retread Manufacturers Association in the UK (RMA), under the guidance of City & Guilds, a global vocational,
education and apprenticeship scheme, from April 1995 to November 1995.
Two years later, he went back to the internationally renowned course facility for the second part of his programme. The RMA was then headed by Sheila Ikin. Mlambo secured an appointment with Tyre Treads immediately after his programme as the company’s quality controller in both passenger and commercial tyre retreading.
“I was responsible for the supervision of producing quality products, which give the end user maximum
mileage. Due to the desired results, I was tasked to supervise the earthmover section where I trained, monitored and carried out claim adjustments, scrap tyre analyses and fleet tyre inspections,” Mlambo told Retreading Business.
Mlambo’s life didn’t follow through an easy career path; he has had the ups-and-downs of every entrepreneur, both in his home country of Zimbabwe and abroad, but this didn’t deter him from his vision.
In 2007, he left Zimbabwe for Botswana in search of greener pastures and joined Maxiprest Tyres in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana as their technical adviser. Four years later, he left Maxiprest and moved on to Eastern Tyre, a tyre
retreading company under Chinese ownership, but unfortunately, things soon turned sour for him and his Chinese employer. “My boss then hired me because he had no option; he was paying me a good salar y which was like a thorn in his flesh. So, we were always at loggerheads. This prepared me for my exit by purchasing a 7-tyre chamber for a small factor y.”
In May 2017,
Mlambo started
with a small
retreading facility
with meagre
operations at
Mochudi located
22km east of
Gaborone.
Production was carried out twice a week giving him a total of 14 units of tyres.
As the work has taken off, it has earned Mlambo broad recognition across Botswana. He has managed to build a brand for himself and is known by most transport operators in Botswana.
“When you come to Botswana
back in 1990 in his home country when he secured employment with Tyre Treads Zimbabwe. While working as a cleaner in the company’s factory, a vacancy opened for a machine operator. He secured the contract and began to learn on the job.
In the factory set up, he managed to learn all the factory operations including receiving bay, buffing, skiving, repairing, cement application, tread application, stitching, and enveloping. At that time Tyre Treads Zimbabwe had 16 sales branches throughout Zimbabwe, with 3 retreading factories for car and commercial tyres in Harare, Bulawayo and Masvingo. The Harare and Bulawayo plants processed both hot cure and
and you talk about Paul Mlambo, you are simply talking about retreaded commercial transport tyres because they all know what I do and they patronise me.” Mlambo said. His central goal is to upgrade the chamber from seven to 14 tyres. But challenges abound, from getting enough funds to having the government enact laws prohibiting importation of
tyres from the Far East.
“The biggest challenge was the fact that I am in a foreign land with no access to capital to grow my business, so I focused much more on repairs of damaged tyres to raise funds.” He told Retreading Business.
To achieve his ambition of upgrading his tyre chamber from seven to 14 tyres, Mlambo reached out to Leadertread in South Africa for a
50 Retreading Business