MacDonald Mkhize
Macdonald Mkhize attended the University of Witwatersrand / University of Johannesburg and obtained the following: BSc( Building) , Graduate Diploma in Civil Engineering , Master of Science in Engineering and Master of Business Leadership from the University of South Africa.
Macdonald started his career working for the Soweto City Council as a technician, then promoted to Senior Technician/ Engineer and then acted as Assistant City Engineer. Macdonald joined Rand Water as the Project Manager in 1994 to supply water to a community of Winterveldt which had no water and introduced the program of the contractor development to train and retain as much capital as possible in the local community. He was thereafter promoted to Manager of Emhlangeni Pipe in 1996 where he was responsible for, managing pipe production, material supply, quality of pipes, legal compliance, financial management, risk control management, distribution of pipes, human resource management, and managing production of specials. Macdonald was then promoted to Vereeniging Purification and Pumping Station as Manager in 1998 responsible for the purification and production of on average of 1000Mℓ of potable water per day with a staff compliment of over 500 people.
In 2001 Macdonald was appointed as an Executive Manager and in 2002 was again promoted to General Manager Operations responsible for production of potable water to Municipalities, Mines and Industries covering a total area of 18 000 square kilometers, to ±12 million people and serving four provinces ie Gauteng and parts of Mpumalanga, North West and Free State.
Macdonald was also responsible for the establishment of relationships with Local Government with the aim assisting local governments to execute their water projects. He was also responsible for identifying projects in Africa and executing them in the spirit of NEPAD and WOPS to supply sustainable water and sanitation supply. He also assisted Rand Water Services (Pty) Ltd in their business ventures of providing infrastructure and management contracts to supply water Locally and outside South Africa (mainly in Africa).
In 2007 Macdonald was seconded to Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd (AVRL) in Ghana on a joint venture project as the Director of Operations responsible for production of potable water to a population of ±20million people in Ghana and industries in 12 districts. He managed ±1900 employees consisting of artisan, technicians, engineers, specialists, administration and human resource management. The work entailed strategic positioning of the organization in designing and implementing a sustainable plan to manage water resources, revenue management and introducing a culture of payment to consumers. Stakeholders involved the Public Utility Regulator, the Government (various departments) the World Bank (Funder), the Grantor (Ghana Water Company) Tender Board, NGOs,CBOs Community leaders and Trade Unions.
Macdonald is currently Acting Chief Operating Officer at Rand Water managing Engineering, Scientific Services, Water Demand Management, Operations and Strategic Customer Partnership Divisions.
Macdonald is Joint Chairman of the Organising Committee for the IWA Water Loss 2009 conference.