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Paseka Lesolang may have just turned 30, but he has been at the forefront of a brand new industry for the past 10 years.
The founder and managing director of Water, Hygiene, Convenience (WHC) produces several products that save water, including the Leak-Less Valve, which can ensure that up to 700 litres of fresh municipal water lost every day due to a single leaky toilet can be saved.
He invented the device in his grandmother’s garage when he was in matric after becoming annoyed with the incessant hissing of her leaking toilet. And so determined was he to make a go of his business that he turned down three international football scholarships he was offered after completing school.
To do this, he has overcome severe obstacles: his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a disrupted childhood that entailed moving schools frequently as his single mum held down three jobs, and raising $10 000 in less than six weeks in a crowd-funding campaign to take up an opportunity to study an MBA at the University of Colorado in the US.
But there is one problem that even Lesolang is finding it difficult to crack: the state of South Africa’s municipalities.
In December last year, then minister of Water Affairs and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, announced that the country’s municipalities had racked up a combined R10.7 billion in unpaid water bills which they owed to the water utilities. Some were so far in arrears and owed so much that they were threatened with being cut off. The bulk of the losses, Lesolang says, were from leaks.
With municipal finances in such a dire state, councils cannot afford to pay Lesolang to supply and install his product in their households, which could help them solve the problem.
“I have interest from municipalities, however they have serious financial challenges,” he says.
With such a crucial client base so under pressure, Lesolang has had to turn to the private sector for business, but the demand is “not enough to excite the machine”.
“I have the capacity to produce 6 000 units on a single shift. I can take it to 18 000 units on three shifts per day. However, I only have interest from individuals and I cannot switch on the machines to keep production constant,” he says.
“So I produce in tranches whereas the machines need to be singing. I have capacity I cannot use due to insufficient bulk demand. I have sufficient individual demand, but this is too little for us to scale. We’re constantly developing these projects where we’re trying to build this demand in bulk production.”
This situation has a severe impact on the financial position of WHC, which the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) gave a revolving credit facility to, after identifying Lesolang as an entrepreneur who could, with its help, grow an entirely new industry.
“The IDC is not stingy with money; the IDC actually gave me a lump sum. But terms and conditions apply: I can only use the money for bulk production and that is what I need most,” he said.
“Had it not been for the IDC, I would not be having the discussions I am having with the municipalities, saying, ‘Look you have a community with 10 000 toilet cisterns; I can take care of them and you can pay me later’. It is just the commitment from the municipalities that is now holding us back.”
One of the major problems Lesolang identifies in municipalities is unstable leadership.
“We are dealing with a municipality which has changed the municipal manager six times in 24 months. So we make progress with one municipal manager, then as we are about to inform the IDC and they are about to release the funds, it’s: ‘Paseka, about that, the past municipal manager is gone, you have to have a new discussion with a new one’.”
Lesolang also had no luck with the provincial government of the Western Cape which has been in the grips of the worst drought in a century.
“We were coming with a solution to avoid day zero. We were going to save Cape Town a minimum of 3 000 Olympic swimming pools worth of water every year.”
In the lonely world of entrepreneurship, Lesolang cannot allow these defeats to get the better of him.
“We need to keep on keeping on and I am constantly out of the office seeking new business,” he says.
He has secured an agreement with Massmart to stock the Leak-less Valve in their stores; this project was launched last month.
Lesolang’s company has created 26 jobs since 2015. Five of those are direct jobs and 21 indirect and include the plumbers – alumni of the department of water and sanitation’s War on Leaks programme – whom they have trained to install the product.
“If we could secure municipal business, that number would rise significantly. For one municipality installing 100 000 units we’d create 150 jobs. Then if the Western Cape gave us its business, we could create over 1 500 jobs,” he says.
Lesolang is now busy with his “Vision 2030” and has “all these other innovations both within the WHC framework, and of others beyond WHC which is disruptive technology in other industries from your climate all the way to finance, and from construction to mining”.
Also, it was confirmed last month that WHC will now be collaborating with the Global Water Partnership to stimulate youth involvement in the water industry as well as innovation, job creation and industrialisation in the SADC region. The company will soon be presenting its award winning water conservation and job creation project at the World Water Week in Sweden.
Lesolang is passionate about conservation, which he regards as a calling.
“My grandmother and my mother have groomed me with a very strong spiritual background and I believe that this is my vocation: to conserve natural resources, specifically water,” he says.
“Water is mentioned more than 2 000 times in the Bible so it goes to show how important it is, and here we are and it is running out.”
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