Keith Whitelock: Lesotho's Mining Guru

(MENAFN- The Post) THE legacy of Keith Whitelock, the doyen of Lesotho's diamond mining industry who died at 90 on September 1, is best told through the eyes and experiences of people whose lives he touched.

Those who worked by his side tell stories of how he inspired confidence, mentored, nurtured, coached, empowered and transformed.
Those on the other side of the table talk of his honesty, tenacity, focus on the big picture and commitment to the mutual benefit.

They say although he liked to win he derived immense pleasure from knowing that“all have won” and the victory was sustainable enough to transcend generations.
Their stories mirror Whitelock's colossal role in building Lesotho's mining sector from virtually non-existent and no-player to contributing 20 percent of the economy, creating thousands of jobs, attracting investors and creating an appetite for investment in other sectors.

The stories are not anecdotes to each other. They are the essence of the life Whitelock lived with zeal and passion but still without bringing shine on himself.
His life is a complex puzzle that can only be solved, still partially so, by appreciating his love for diamonds, the people he worked with to mine them and the places he mined.

“He brought his humanity and values into business,” says Attorney Tiisetso Sello-Mafatle who worked closely with Whitelock for years.

His career of more than six decades in mining took him to Botswana and Namibia on several stints but each time he would find himself back in Lesotho, the place he called home and whose people he called his.

Lesotho was home because it was where he found all the things he enjoyed in one place.
It was 'heaven' for the hardcore miner who devoted his life to finding where the country's jewels lay. Its mountains thrilled Whitelock, the avid mountaineer and hiker who somewhat struggled with the strictures of corporate life and the mundanity of city life.
And the snow exhilarated the skier in him.

It is telling that for all his career's travels across the region, Lesotho is where his mining had the most significant and lasting impact on the country's economy and its people.

Thanks to Whitelock, Lesotho is now considered a giant diamond mining country routinely producing high-value and rare gems that stun the world.
Incidentally, Lesotho is where his mining career began in earnest soon after graduating from the University of Witwatersrand with a Degree in Mining and Engineering Geology.

A significant chunk of his career was spent as part of the first diamond exploration teams that descended on Lesotho during the 1950s and 60s.
Those early days laid the foundations of his confidence and faith in Lesotho as the diamond mining giant it would later become.
Whitelock was an authority on Lesotho's kimberlite pipes and their economic potential.

He had earlier worked with the man who discovered the Kao Kimberlite. He was part of a different exploration team when Letšeng was discovered in 1957.
He had worked for companies with operations at Kao, Letšeng and Mothae.

It could be said he knew where nature had buried Lesotho's treasures but he bide his time in returning to help the country find them.
He had retired from the rigours of corporate work at 61 when he set out to acquire the mining lease for Letšeng in 1994.

Yet he was not under any illusion that he would have to move mountains to get the Lesotho government to grant him a lease.
He had been Letšeng's general manager before De Beers closed it in 1982 following a slump in diamond prices and a fallout between the government and Harry Oppenheimer.

Whitelock would have known that Oppenheimer, who had transferred him to lead another De Beers mine in Botswana, could have used his outsize influence as a powerful and rich mining magnate to sow doubt about Lesotho's diamond mining sector.

Still, he went ahead to try to persuade the government to grant the lease and charm investors to fund the project. He knocked on government doors for four years but nothing came out of it. The government was sceptical and wary of mining investors after the Oppenheimer debacle that had led to Letseng's abrupt closure some 12 years earlier.

There was also a strong but false narrative that Letšeng was not economically viable. Whitelock knew from years of experience in exploration and subsequent work at the mine that the issue was not that Letšeng Kimberlite was unviable but that it was complex.

Letšeng occasionally yields rare and high carat stones. And for sure the massive gems later discovered would vindicate his faith in the Lesotho mining industry.
Frustrated but undeterred, Whitelock decided to change tact. For him that meant finding the right person who could help him achieve his vision.

In his entire life, Whitelock always trusted his intuition to find the right people to come along with him on a“journey”. Keith understood the dreams are not achieved by individuals but teams. His intuitive leadership style made it possible to find the right people to come along with him.

One of those people is Paki Kolobe, who became Letšeng's resident director and Whitelock's close friend, was one of the first people to be sold on the Letšeng dream.
Kolobe had just retired from the government after 26 years as an assistant accountant general and was starting a new job as World Vision's head of finance when he had a chance meeting with Whitelock.

As he tells the story, he arrived at the Harare International Airport from a World Vision meeting to find chaos. Flights had been cancelled following the death of a prominent African leader whose name he doesn't recall.

The 767 plane meant to fly to Johannesburg had been diverted to take President Robert Mugabe and his entourage to the funeral.
Kolobe says although he understood the situation, the inconvenience annoyed him. He was also worried about his son who was waiting for him at the airport in South Africa.

And so he began arguing with an airport official, insisting that he fly out or the airline put him up for the night in a hotel in Harare.
As their argument dragged on the irritated airport official threatened to lock him up until he calmed down.

To which Kolobe retorted by daring the official and reminding him to also inform the newspapers that he had locked him up for insisting on his rights.
Tempers would however thaw and the official invited Kolobe to his office for coffee.

It was when a calm Kolobe emerged from the official's office that a“tall lean white man” approached him. The man asked his name and where he came from. And before he could answer, the man said“You must be a Mosotho”.

”Why?” Kolobe asked.

“You people are stubborn. I saw how you kept arguing with the official,” said the man with a chuckle before introducing himself as Keith Whitelock“a Mosotho from Ficksburg”.

Whitelock requested that Kolobe sit next to him on the plane because he wanted to give him a special message.
On the plane, Whitelock recommended that Kolobe have gin and tonic to calm him after his quarrel at the airport. Kolobe ordered brandy instead, and Whitelock called for gin and tonic.

“Why gin and tonic?” Kolobe asked.“I am a miner and miners drink gin and tonic,” Whitelock said.

And so Whitelock started delivering the special message he had promised. Kolobe soon realised that this was a message and a pitch.
The message was what he wanted Kolobe to deliver to the government and the pitch was a job offer to Kolobe. Whitelock said he had been trying to get a mining lease for Letšeng for years but the government had been giving him a run around.

He wanted Kolobe to help him convince the government.
Kolobe was doubtful about the job offer but Whitelock insisted that he was the right candidate.

“He said you are stubborn and that is exactly what the situation needs now,” Kolobe says.

They missed the flight to Maseru and Whitelock offered to book Kolobe into a hotel for the night. Kolobe would listen as Whitelock kept him busy with his Letšeng dream over dinner that night, on the flight to Maseru the next morning and on the drive into town in Whitelock's car.

Whitelock was working his charm to recruit him on his mission. By the time Whitelock laid out the mining plans on his table at a meeting at his office the next Monday, Kolobe was as excited about the vision as he was.

Kolobe, who started knocking on government doors, was leaving an international organisation to work for a company whose future was not certain. It had neither the mining lease nor the capital.

“He was the most persistent and persuasive person I had ever met,” says Kolobe.

Whitelock had the man he wanted to help him get the Letšeng lease.
As fate would have it, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili replaced Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle.

“A relative told me that Mosisili was a friendly man who could listen to anyone,” Kolobe says, describing how he walked into Mosisili's office without an appointment and pleaded with him to grant Whitelock and his business partner an audience.

A few months later, Keith, Kolobe and other Letšeng officials were sitting across Mosisili and the mining subcommittee of the Cabinet that included Monyane Moleleki, the then Minister of Natural Resources.
The lease was granted after several months of negotiations but all Whitelock had at that time were just promises from potential investors.

Advocate Mazvivamba Maharasoa, who later replaced Whitelock as Letšeng's chief executive, was part of the government team that negotiated the lease.
She was the principal legal officer of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

“There were long nights and tough negotiations but you could see that Letšeng was not just a business to Keith,” Maharasoa says.

“He wanted the mine to benefit Basotho and had a strong conviction that he could revive the mine.”

His tenacity was based on his historic and intimate knowledge of the potential of Lesotho's diamonds. Whitelock started the mine with M150 million, M50 million of which was an Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) loan guaranteed by JIC Mining Services' shares.

Maharasoa says the loan was“small change that any other miner would not have managed to stretch very far”.

“Only Keith could start a mining operation like Letšeng with so little.”

That, she adds, speaks to Whitelock's determination and ability to manage little resources to achieve big things.

“To this day, I don't believe any other miner would not have achieved what he did at Letšeng with that kind of money. He pulled Letšeng with bootstraps on a shoestring budget.”

But Maharasoa also says even that capital and JCI's backing as an investor would not have come if it was not for Whitelock's credibility and reputation as an honest businessman and exceptionally competent manager.

“Those qualities also played a tremendous role in the government's decision to grant the lease when there was so much uncertainty and a history of failure.”

It would take another five years for Letšeng to start full operations.
The discovery of the first three high-value diamonds in 2004 would vindicate Whitelock's confidence that Letšeng was special.
Maharasoa says even those discoveries would not have saved Letšeng were it not for Whitelock's expertise.

“He understood that Letšeng was a mine that would be stingy for many months and then be generous for a few days or hours.”

“To manage it well you have to understand these seasons. Keep doing the work and be patient when the production is low. When you hit the rare good times don't be extravagant with the money because that is a passing phase to be followed by many frugal months.”

Maharasoa recalls how one director once aptly described how Whitelock viewed Letšeng.

“He said Letšeng is not a mine but a jeweller”.

That is to say its kimberlite pipe produces rare diamonds that are a form of nature's majestic and brilliant work of art.

“Letšeng required someone who understood the long game and Keith was just that kind of person.”

Whitelock would later hire Maharasoa as a resident director and mentor her to be his successor when he left in 2012.
Maharasoa believes Whitelock chose her, a lawyer, because he understood that the mine was entering a corporate phase that required a different set of skills because of Gem's listing on the London Stock Exchange.

“He could endure the corporate motions but only to a point until he had to move on to the next hunting trip where he could get his hands dirty, the very thing he liked.”

“Beyond that, he was a very pragmatic man who truly believed in empowering and was youth-friendly. Gender was not an issue.”

Jon Tully, who worked with Whitelock as Letšeng's chief financial officer, recalls how Keith's financial prudence helped Letseng navigate through the 2008 financial crisis that knocked out companies in different sectors and left economies fragile many diamond mines across the world.

“When others were struggling and closing, Letšeng did not have debt and had money in the bank. That was thanks to Keith's leadership skills,” Tully says.

“He would never spend money on things that did not add much value to the business.”

Tully says Whitelock could find simple and workable solutions to complex problems but his biggest skill was understanding people and inspiring them to do great things.
Whitelock's reputation and credibility would also play a crucial role in bringing Gem Diamonds as the new investor after JIC's exit.

Clifford Elphick, Gem Diamonds' chief executive officer, says a lot of risk factors that could have put Gem Diamonds off were mitigated by Whitelock's skills, experience and credibility in the diamond sector.

“It is not just about the mineral but putting the right team together, capital, equipment, relations in the world and selling at the right prices to make the mine work. We knew we were building on the strong foundation Keith had built,” Elphick says.

“Keith inspired loyalty and strong teamwork. That is why he could manage to convince a group of different people under uncertain situations to coalesce around a dream and bring it to life.”

When Whitelock left Letšeng in 2012 at 79 some outsiders thought he was done.
But those who knew him understood that he was only moving on to the next phase that would further elevate Lesotho's status as a diamond mining country.
Whitelock was on the hunt again and he was going back to Kao, which was still familiar territory.

Attorney Sello-Mafatle, who had worked with Whitelock as a non-executive director at Letšeng, joined him at Kao as the company secretary.
Sello-Mafatle recalls how they briefly haggled over the name with Keith preferring Stormberg Mine while she insisted on Storm Mountain Diamonds.

Whitelock did not persist further and Sello-Mafatle registered the name Storm Mountain Diamonds. The two had formed a daughter-father relationship over the years and Whitelock took it upon himself to mentor and nurture Sello-Mafatle.

“Keith had a way of drawing you in without being overbearing. I have never met anyone who understood the power of motivation and persuasion like Keith,” Sello-Mafatle says.

“His was a modest and had a soft approach but was consistent. He empowered you with the knowledge to make the right decisions.”

Sello-Mafatle had a front-seat row to how Whitelock worked with colleagues, stakeholders and investors.

“He could nurture the human spirit. He understood that means with the right kind of attitude of mentorship you could change lives.”

Like many others, Sello-Mafatle believes Lesotho's diamond mining industry and the whole economy is where it is because of Whitelock's work.

“He genuinely loved Lesotho and its people. He wanted to do what is right for the country and its future generations.”

“He paved the way for other diamond companies in Lesotho. They would look at what he had done at Letšeng and say it's possible to thrive in Lesotho. I believe we owe him a debt of gratitude as a nation.”

Keith never stopped working until he passed on.
After he moved from Kao he worked on other diamond mining ventures in South Africa.

A week before he died he was discussing board matters for a new diamond mine in South Africa.
That was Whitelock: Always pushing boundaries and building both people and mines.

''Keith's was a life well lived and an illuminator of note. Let's all bow out with gin and tonic (G&T)...So long, Ntate Keith, so long!'' Sello-Mafatle says.

Shakeman Mugari

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