Fruit vendors, meat sellers,
car washes and spaza shops
(mini convenience stores) are all
enterprises that are commonly
found in townships. Mzoli’s Place – a
hot tourist and local’s destination
point for “braaied” meat and social
gatherings – started as one such
township venture in Cape Town’s
Gugulethu in 2003. The owner,
Mzoli Ngcawuzele, started cooking
and selling meat from his backyard
with just R2,000 as start-up capital.
With the increasing popularity of his
business, he acquired a loan from
the South African Development
Bank. These new funds enabled
Ngcawuzele, better known as Mzoli,
to become the meat mogul that
he is today. In addition to running
the enterprise that is Mzoli’s Place,
development were outlined. Issues
such as township residents not
working and spending in their
residential areas were identified. Also
discussed was the victimisation of
township entrepreneurs that used to
occur in the townships before South
Africa’s political transition. Before the
mid-1990s, the ANC was strongly
identified with communist ideology.
This created a threat against all
potential entrepreneurs in townships
as they represented a capitalist
approach which did not coincide
with the powerful ANC movement
at the time. This, along with the
repressing economic structures of
the National Party, created potholes
in township enterprise.
However, in the last 10 years there
has been an increase in efforts
“Bringing people together from all
walks of life through a piece of meat.”
Mzoli is also a big stakeholder in the
one of the few malls in Gugulethu,
Gugulethu Square. Mzoli is not the
only one to get involved in township
development. Richard Maponya,
owner of Maponya Mall in Soweto,
has also invested millions into what
is fast becoming a money tree for
Soweto residents. Maponya Mall has
more than 150 stores and employs
more than 1,800 people.
Initiatives such as Maponya Mall
keep income and expenditure
in Soweto, further enriching the
community. At the University of
Johannesburg conference themed
“Transforming Black Townships
Into Economic Powerhouses” in
2010, problems that deter township
to support Small and Medium Micro
Enterprise (SMME) development.
Initiatives such as the Gauteng
Township Enterprise Hubs
(TEHs), which launched in 2012,
and the Youth Entrepreneurship
Development Programme
are specifically designed to
counter youth unemployment by
encouraging and financing small
enterprises. Another venture is
the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller,
which has announced that it intends
to produce at least 1,000 new
businesses that are youth-owned
in the 2013/14 fiscal year. The
reason the focus is directed mainly
towards the youth is that they form
the bulk of the unemployment
Photos by Chris Kirchhoff/MediaClubSouthAfrica.com
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