As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide us with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods - merchandise that has been produced at the expense of South African labour. This year will be different. This year South Africans will give the gift of genuine concern for other South Africans.

Massive public enterprises are still battling to get maintenance off the back-burner while at the same time huge investment is going into new-build projects, according to Tracey-Lee Zurcher, the project director of Reliability & Maintenance Week, taking place in Johannesburg in November. 

Two Western Cape winners of the regional SA Productivity Awards, WastePlan (Pty) Ltd and Fair Cape Dairies (Pty) Ltd have done us proud by also winning the national awards in their respective categories of emerging and corporate sectors.