SA Affordable Housing September - October 2019 // ISSUE: 78 | Page 38

PROFILE
Every RDP
home is an
achievement
Yanga Njozela (33) is founder
of Chwai Trading & Projects, a
Cape Town-based construction
support services and building
material supplier. It is dedicated
to providing solutions to uplift,
specifically black-owned,
construction companies.
By Eamonn Ryan
N
jozela is a rising star of the construction support
sector, transferring his banking experience to the
construction industry to help contractors find
that most elusive asset – capital.
While he describes the core function of his business
as the supply of business materials to medium-sized
contractors, he says the heart of its operations is advising
them in areas where they struggle: accessing finance;
rental services for site set-up; bookkeeping and legal
services; as well as project management and diversifying
their sources of revenue.
“That’s a value-add at present, something we don’t
charge for but it enables us to grow together.” Not all
that advice is available within the Chwai business,
but Njozela helps them source it as necessary, and it
has also partnered with a hardware franchise, the
Brights Group.
“The impact I seek to make in society is one of
assisting historically disempowered individuals, and
especially creating employment through the assistance
we offer them. When measuring our broader impact, we
take a societal and human view. We’re involved in the
business of building homes for individuals – it’s not just
a numbers game. We measure our success by how well
our contractor customers are doing. We’ve contributed
Yanga Njozela, founder of Chwai Trading & Projects.
36
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019
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