Tapiwa Samanga on a mission to build South Africa’s manufacturing future

Tapiwa Samanga, chief executive of the Production Technologies Association of South Africa, says his childhood resilience shapes his vision for development. Picture: Supplied Tapiwa Samanga, chief executive of the Production Technologies Association of South Africa (PtSA), is on a mission to build a new generation of skilled employees who can position South Africa’s manufacturing industry on the global stage. PtSA, a membership-based organisation representing the Tool, Die, Mould and Special Machining (TDM) sector, has long championed industrial competitiveness.

Under Samanga’s leadership, it is sharpening that mission: shaping policy with government, benchmarking against international standards and driving skills development through global networks such as the International Special Tooling and Machining Association (Istma), where he serves as Istma Africa chair. Born in Eastern Zimbabwe’s Honde Valley, Samanga’s formative years were steeped in rural resilience and the turbulence of the liberation war. Those early experiences – herding cattle, dodging bullets, and learning survival instincts – forged the independence and risk-taking spirit that now drives his vision for Africa’s industrial development.

For him, manufacturing is not just an economic imperative but a calling: the pathway to jobs, innovation and sustainable growth across the continent. “Looking back, I see that the basic skills I use in life and in business I acquired as a young boy herding cattle and dodging bullets long before I set foot in a classroom,” he says. “I am a child of war.

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When I first came to know what was around me, it was during the Zimbabwe liberation war.” Honde Valley borders Mozambique and “was one of the key fronts during our war of liberation”, he says. He attended primary school in Manga and high school at St Augustine’s Secondary School – an Anglican institution which was the first secondary school open to blacks in colonial Rhodesia. The school produced many of Zimbabwe’s freedom fighters and liberation leaders.

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