Thoughts of my childhood

Ever since I was a young boy - I have been mildly obsessed and intrigued by business, all forms of enterprise still excite me today, from the vendor at the taxi rank, to the Somali national who owns the neighbourhood shop, to the Spar franchisee and every other business in between. These are all the unsung heroes that keep South Africa afloat, growing, strong and full of prospects.

Mind you my understanding of business back then was made up of the various general dealer shops, bottle stores, funeral parlours and taxi operators I saw all around me; not forgetting all the butcheries as well – all buzzing in my little township on a Karoo 'dorpie' (small town).

Back in Apartheid South Africa, the township seemed to be a blaze with enterprises and developing entrepreneurs (a term I would only fully understand at University).

These men and woman, yes woman were also prominent as shebeen queens and what can be best described today as micro-financiers, lovingly referred to today as omatshonisa (what can be best described in the English language as loan sharks).

Those were the days, I tell you.

These entrepreneurs though under immense pressures thrived and built good lives for themselves and their children, ensuring that their kids were amongst the blessed few who got to go to secondary and tertiary institutions across the country. Ensuring upward mobility as a family and going on to gain affluence in township society.

Subsistence enterprise as well as bona-fide entrepreneurial ventures become the bedrock of breadwinning for many a black family.

As soon as the new South Africa got announced with various new and wonderful Laws and Acts promulgated, the rate of entrepreneurship in the township decreased drastically.

Not that I am unhappy about Apartheid being over, it’s fun to go where I want and when I want, to earn as I should and have opportunities as big as my ambitions. We now all enjoy the fruits of democracy - but the captured market that township entrepreneurs had, ceased to exist, wiped out by abolition of Groups Areas Act and similar laws confining all blacks to the designated township.

I am also not advocating that, DEMOCRACY killed black entrepreneurship (maybe I am, it is very interesting thought to have, though), but the whole process from Apartheid to democracy had a definite and far reaching impact on the black psyche, enterprise in the townships and black entrepreneurship and all its subsequent subsets (tenderpreneurship, etc.).

Impact which the black economic empowerment laws and initiatives has failed to recognise or address. It is not by mistake that almost two decades into democracy the black business council is reinstated.

I have heard very impressive stories on how black enterprise grew in spite of great obstacles, now without minimal opposition – do not get me wrong, the red tape that government mandates on small enterprises does make one very discouraged – but this is minimal opposition compared with the laws under Apartheid.

It’s great that we have extra-ordinary black entrepreneurs who have scaled up empowerment deals to become multi-billionaires. As a black dollar billionaire in training, it gives me great inspiration, hope and encouragement that one day I also will achieve these great feats. These men and women throughout South Africa and the rest of the African continent set the foundation on which we as young entrepreneurs, of any colour, should build on.

Back to my current observations about South Africa and the decline of black enterprise in townships - we seem to have lost the ability to be competitive entrepreneurs, to follow in the iconic steps of Mr Richard Maponya  and so many other pre-democracy entrepreneurs.

Getting a foot into the ruling party or into a cushy government job has become the only means to which we think we will gain upward mobility, where our dreams of a better future for ourselves and our families will be realised.

 Enterprise is dying – replaced by our immigrant brothers and sisters from the rest of the continent, a tenacious group of entrepreneurs, worthy of praise and admiration.

We cannot all chase after mining concerns, construction businesses and the other handful of areas in which black entrepreneurs are so entrenched. We need to develop further, foster new ideas and grow the level of black capital to fund future entrepreneurs – the Afrikaner entrepreneur community did it, why can we not learn from that?