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A worthwhile journey

Elizabeth Joseph



Entrepreneurs normally bite off more than what they can chew, hoping they might learn how to chew it.

The same can be said about Namibia Traffic Management Solutions managing director Felix Tjozongoro, who has overcome immense challenges with innovation and style.

After completing his matric, Tjozongoro started working at the transport ministry as a clerk in the legal department.

That is where he developed his skills and love for the road traffic and transport sector.

“I had an opportunity to hone my skills further in Japan under the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) sponsored programme,” he says.

He attended many Southern African Development Community (SADC) meetings, those dealing with NaTIS system development in South Africa, as well as South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) development and legal drafting meetings, among others.

This gave him the ammunition to develop a department everyone knows today as NaTIS.

“The same skills is what I took when I joined the private sector. I felt that as a great leader, one should not overstay in a leadership position. You should move on while you still command respect,” he said.

And that’s what Tjozongoro did when he left NaTIS to join the private sector.

He says the first three years in any business are the hardest.

“It’s a nightmare for any entrepreneur. But all in all, you don’t quit. You go home and cry and the next day you pick up your pieces and march on. That has been my journey too.”

With the many constraints faced daily by various parties in the private and public sectors, Tjozongoro plans to fix one of the biggest constraints they face - the lack of our government support.

He says government has paid lip service when it comes to supporting the small SMEs and when it comes to the provision of tenders and services to locals.

He wants to continue utilising every given platform to make sure this does not remain a growing issue.

His short-term professional goals run towards the IT sector.

“Our IT team is working hard to update our website with something new and fresh. The online testing solution will also be refined and hopefully by next month we will be able to launch this.”

The same IT team is also working on developing a cellphone app that will address the driver’s licence learning process.

This will be implemented before the end of the year, he said.

His long-term goals are to expand their footprint within SADC.

“We have done good