Mary Bomela appears in the corridor of her office in Johannesburg, stopping every second to greet and speak to staff. It’s easy to see why she draws people to her – she’s assertive, forthright and has a ready smile.
“Okay, that’s enough, get back to work now,” she then tells them, laughing.
Bomela is CEO of Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC), a sustainable asset base for the benefit of mine, energy and construction workers and their dependants. She always knew she wouldn’t follow a traditional career path like her parents did. She knew a qualification in finance would enable her to work in any industry and break the glass ceiling. Thus she studied to become a chartered accountant and also acquired an MBA degree.
“In my previous life, I worked for the mines. Actually, it’s funny. The irony of it is that, as the Mineworkers Investment Company, we don’t invest in mines,” says Bomela.
A former Financial Manager at De Beers, Bomela worked both in mine operations and in the corporate office before discovering that her investment knowledge made her an asset to MIC. For Bomela, the male-dominated industry is easy game once you have the know-how.
“I don’t think it’s about being male or female. It is a bit daunting sometimes being a woman and there are only males but once you’re in your comfort zone, it’s just about being yourself especially if you know what you’re talking about. It’s preparation over everything. If you have your facts, it makes it so much easier, just stand your ground.
“Along my journey, I’ve always had mentors for different aspects of my life and stages of my life. I use men as mentors because they know how to manoeuvre this world – the political world, the inside stories that you sometimes don’t get,” says Bomela.
In spite of being able to hold her own alongside her male counterparts, Bomela admits that being a woman often poses other challenges.
“I’m a CEO, mother and wife, I just found that a lot of my counterparts have wives at home that they can lean on whereas as a mother if your child is sick, you have to make sure that you can take care of them or if there’s a dinner, you don’t want to drive alone. Sometimes our male counterparts don’t appreciate that challenge.”
Bomela juggles her many roles but is adamant that a balancing act is a myth. A strategist at heart, she broaches everything like an investment decision – options weighed and priorities set.
“Equal balance does not exist – where you want to be perfect at work and perfect at home. I just say as you go along your journey at different times in your life, your priorities change. There are times when other things have to suffer because you’re concentrating on another. But for me the important thing is never to compromise for too long. It’s a short-term sacrifice.
“Sometimes as women we have so many balls in the air that we think we can catch them all at the same time. If we do that, one is bound to fall at some stage. Juggle fewer balls and set your priorities, they will change as you move along – your commitments will change with your life,” she says.
Bomela is pioneering the work-life balance at MIC which focuses on prioritizing over balance. Research by Kenexa Research Institute in 2007 showed employees were more favorable towards an organization’s efforts to support work-life balance. For a woman, it’s a necessary model.
“Our office is about 70 percent women and it’s nice to have an environment where people can relate to each other and understand the problems and issues. There’s flexibility, you can work from home if you need to, you can rearrange meetings. There’s an understanding.”
For Bomela, her priorities are set, leading MIC and her family – all the other balls just fall in place.

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Work. Life. And The  Female Juggler

The music industry in South Africa for local artistes is not easy to navigate. LeAnne Dlamini should know, having been in it for almost 20 years now, she has done it all to find her own niche. Yet, does she have it all?
“In South Africa, I think people get so used to seeing your face and hearing your voice, that you are almost nothing to them anymore, and when you go outside the country, you get appreciated more which is so sad,” she rues.
Dlamini lived in Dubai and Los Angeles for a number of years before realizing the harsh truth that people back home were soon forgetting her.
“When you are out of sight, you are out of mind, that’s why I needed to come back.” But she also saw opportunity in returning home.
“I saw the potential. Other places are developed already, they have everything they need. I needed to come back to SA and be the next best thing in RnB because it is lacking [here]. Africa is definitely where it is happening. It doesn’t matter if everyone in LA knows you if back home no one knows who you are,” says Dlamini.
Growing up in a middle class family in Eldorado Park, one of Johannesburg’s infamous colored neighborhoods, Dlamini’s career began at the age of 13. She was part of the church choir, and also started a girl group in high school called Cherry.
“We wanted to be the Destiny’s Child of South Africa, but that didn’t happen, we hustled, went to record labels, everyone thought we were crazy,” says Dlamini.
The group did not make it but at least Dlamini’s solo career took off. She started singing for famous local artistes, one of them being Loyiso Bala.
“That’s when I was bitten by the bug, just being around Loyiso, just being in that studio environment, I loved it,” says Dlamini.
When she was only 22, Dlamini married her producer, Sipho Dlamini. While being a mother (she has two children) and wife will always be her first priority, it did somewhat lead her away from the path to stardom.
“I felt like my career needed a boost. But I wanted to do something that was out of my comfort zone. I didn’t want to record a track with a hip hop artiste or a house DJ, I wanted to do something I wouldn’t necessarily do here [in South Africa],” says Dlamini.
And she chose an offbeat route to make a comeback. In 2012, Dlamini packed her bags and headed to the United Kingdom, to enter the X Factor reality show. She received praise from the judges and qualified for the next round, almost making it to the final stages of the competition.
“Just for me to be there and hear the producers and judges tell me that was great, it was a boost,” says Dlamini.
It was just what she needed.
“I am now 30 and I can fully dive into my career and I feel like now is when my life is fully beginning. It feels like this is the first album that I’ve ever done. It’s insane,” says Dlamini.
And she proved just how ready she was in 2014 when she participated in Strictly Come Dancing South Africa. Dlamini made it to the semifinals, before she and her dance partner were sent home.
She is now working on her third album and hopes to release it later in the year.
Determined to be the superstar, Dlamini’s journey has been a long one and if she were to do it all over again, she would, she has no regrets.

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If Not Destiny’s Child, Then What?

Outspoken and fearless. Those are the principal character traits that define Charlize Theron, the South African amazon whose brazen attitude towards life is every bit a match for her striking beauty. The Oscar-winning (for Monster) actress is an independent woman who could take on any man, and tends to swear like one, too.
Directors and co-stars have described the 39-year-old Theron as a “ballsy” woman but one with enormous talent and sensitivity as anyone who would have seen her performances in films like The Burning Plane or Young Adult would attest.
Theron is about to achieve another career milestone with Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller’s retake of his own original 1979 Mad Max film and cult classic that helped propel Mel Gibson to Hollywood stardom. This time out, British actor Tom Hardy takes on the iconic role while Theron plays the female desert warrior who joins Hardy’s Max Rockatansky in an epic road war in their joint effort to cross the wasteland. For Theron, the film gave her the chance to throw herself into the kind of supercharged powerful role that suits her fiercer, feminist side.
“The original Mad Max created such a vivid world&#8230;George [Miller] really created a female character that I’ve never read anything like [before],” Theron declared with respect to her taking on the role of Imperator Furiosa.
“It’s a really challenging piece of material. Originally&#8230;I was like, ‘Uh, I’m not going to play the f*****g girl for ‘Mad Max’.’ Then I read it and I was like, ‘Oh, Mad Max, I feel sorry for you.’ [Laughs] That rarely happens&#8230;It’s two great characters. It’s not the original ‘Mad Max’. It’s the revamped ‘Mad Max’. It’s Tom Hardy, who’s incredible. So, the whole thing is just exciting, very, very exciting.”
Theron’s naturally self-confident and assertive personality explains why her boyfriend Sean Penn may well be the ideal man for her. He’s a notorious bad boy whose previous relationships with Robin Wright and Madonna were known for being as torrid as they were tumultuous.
Theron and Penn’s romance first heated up when they vacationed together in Hawaii over a year ago over New Year’s – since then they’ve been virtually inseparable, attending various awards functions and other events as a couple.
In her most serious comment regarding their relationship, Theron gushed: “It just kind of naturally happened, and before I knew it, I was in something that was making my life better – the people who really love me can see the effect it has had on me.”
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On Mad Max: Fury Road
One of the key early moments in Mad Max: Fury Road comes when Max (Hardy) and Furiosa (Theron) battle it out in the dirt before she is willing to join forces with him.
“This is not just two people standing there punching each other,” explained writer-director George Miller.
“This is a question of which one of them is going to survive&#8230;.I remember thinking [when Theron was driving the war rig back to base camp during the production and he was sitting behind her]: ‘She IS the Imperator, and if this was a real wasteland and we were at war, I’d be really happy she’s on our side.”
Added Miller: “I can’t really think of another character in cinema quite like her. I’m sure that other people might find connections, but just the way the character was conceived, and how Charlize took it on and transformed herself and played it, she did it with such authority. There have been great female action characters, but there’s just been nothing quite like this.”
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On female empowerment
Theron has long been known for her determined advocacy for women’s rights and specifically for greater opportunities for women in Hollywood. Never married, she has openly dismissed the idea of “the white dress” and is a committed spokesperson on gender and age equality. She also disdains the prevailing climate of discrimination against older women.
Declared Theron: “Women find their strength and power in their sexuality, in their sensuality within, [through] getting older and being secure within that. It’s ironic that we’ve built the beauty world around 20-year-olds, when they have no f*****g concept about wisdom, what life is about, having a few relationships below [their] belt and feeling hardships, to grow into [their] skin and feel confident within [themselves] and to feel the value of who [they] are, not because of a man or because of something like that. And I think that’s such a beautiful thing.
“That’s why I think people say women come into their prime in their 40s. And then for some reason our society just wants to go…it’s like a dead flower. It’s like we wilt for some reason. And men are like fine wines — the older they get, the better they get. It’s such a misconception, and it’s such a lost opportunity because that’s when I think women are really in the true moment of their sensuality.”
As proof of practicing what she preaches in terms of standing up to Hollywood’s patriarchal studio system, Theron recently negotiated a $10 million paycheck for her work in the upcoming film The Huntsman after last November’s Sony hack revealed that top Hollywood actresses were receiving less pay than their male co-stars.
Even veteran industry observers were shocked to learn that Jennifer Lawrence was paid less than her male costars in the Oscar-nominated American Hustle despite being arguably the hottest and highest-profile cast member.
Theron will now earn the same salary as co-star Chris Hemsworth in The Huntsman, a prequel to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman.
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On motherhood
Theron’s personal life underwent an upheaval five years ago when she split with actor Stuart Townshend after a nine year relationship. She didn’t work for nearly three years around the time of her breakup before resuming her career with films like The Burning Plain and Young Adult. It was during that time that she adopted a four-month-old baby boy in 2012 from Kenya whom she subsequently named Jackson. Sean Penn recently filed papers to become the three-year-old boy’s adoptive father.
Stated Theron: “I’m so happy to be a mother&#8230;It’s so amazing to finally reach this point in my life and be able to enjoy this incredible experience. I’m overjoyed!”
She added: “But the thing that caught me totally unprepared was the impact and intensity of this change in my life. Being a mother has struck me at a very deep level. I mean, to hold a young child that grows slowly and then starts talking and looking at the world around him is something absolutely incredible.”
“I want to be that example for my son. I want him to grow up with a mom that he could see and look at her life with all the mistakes and with all the failures and all the flaws and say, ‘My mom lived an authentic life. That was the life she wanted to live’.”
Theron is also adamant that being a mother does not affect her screen choices:
“I don’t look at material and go, ‘This is too dark, I have a kid now’, because my interests still are my interests. That doesn’t make me a bad mother. I think that makes me a really good mother, because when I go and creatively satisfy myself and those interests, I come home satisfied. And I can be a really good mother to him because I’m happy.”
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On her powerful bond with her mother Gerda
Theron, an only child, grew up on a farm in South Africa with a father she has characterized as an abusive alcoholic. In 1991, Gerda, her mother, fatally shot him after he came home in a drunken rage and threatened to kill her and the then-15-year-old Theron. Authorities ruled the slaying was self-defense, and Gerda was never prosecuted. Theron has remained close to her mother during her time in Hollywood and has never lost sight of her mother’s courage and profound influence on her:
“She has taught me to stand up for myself and be courageous. I’m not someone who indulges in self-pity and I hate it if I ever start feeling sorry for myself. I was raised in a way that I should never allow myself to be the victim, but to take responsibility for my decisions and my actions and live as boldly as possible.”
“My mother has given me a lot of guidance on that level. She’s someone who believes in not dwelling on the past and getting on with your life. I’m trying to live on those terms. I want to live the way I want to and not think back 50 years from now why I didn’t live my life when I had the chance. You have to be willing to go through the highs and lows and keep moving forward.”
When Theron was struggling to find good acting parts in her 20s she often dealt with the perception that she was a former model (though never a particularly successful one) and too pretty and striking for most roles.
But when 2 Days in the Valley (1996) earned her immediate recognition, leading to subsequent roles in Devils’ Advocate (opposite Keanu Reeves) in 1997 and Woody Allen’s Celebrity the year after, Theron was on her way.  She credits her mother with giving her both moral and financial support to help her hang in there before her career took off.
“I may have been insecure in finding myself as a teenager, or early-20s person, but I always had a very strong sense of what I felt was inside me,” she says. “My mom always used to tell me, ‘You have a foundation, and the foundation is there because of who you are, not because of what people think you are’. And it’s the kernel of that truth, of your truth — of knowing who you are, deep down — that lets you not pay that much attention to what people perceive in you.”
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On her sense of independence
“Sean [Penn] is very close to his children. But I was not looking for a baby-sitter, I was looking for a partner. I can pay for a babysitter! [Laughs]
“I have lots of friends who wanted to get married, for whom marriage was a major milestone. It never meant anything to me, I’ve tried a different way.”
“I don’t like [sympathy] for myself. Sometimes sympathy can feel like you’re trying to kind of victimize someone. I don’t know, maybe it’s just my own [stuff] that I have to deal with, but I think that, more than anything, people just want to be understood, you know?
“I grew up in a house with an alcoholic (father). And I experienced a lot of people being overly sympathetic, and for me, sympathy and pity — there’s a very, very fine line between the two. Maybe I was being ultra-sensitive, but the way I was treated then, the way people looked at me, it made me feel weak. And I was not a fan of that feeling at all. I’m still not.
“[There’s this misconception that] I’m a dark and bitchy kind of woman. [Laughs] I’ve played dark people in the past&#8230;and I’m nothing like that although I can be a bitch if I need to be. [Laughs]
“Most directors are constantly surprised when they meet me and get a chance to hang out with me for a while. I have a reputation for having a very raw sense of humor and I kind of use that to my advantage. I’ve always used humor as a refuge and as a way of overcoming or getting past a lot of the darker, sadder things that life can throw at you.”
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On fame and happiness
“For me, fame has no value. I never read anything into it than what it is. I don’t even know what it really means&#8230;In my position, you can’t manage it all, much less being able to control the media and that sort of thing. Life is never as rational as you would like it.
“I’m well aware of those less privileged than me [Theron works for numerous African charities] and how ambitions and expectations are dashed every day in life. In my case the pressure of media attention is a small downside that I simply need to ignore. It cannot and should not in any way affect my choices. The only priority that I have is my happiness and my son.
“I don’t think that life is that happy in general. It’s always going to be a struggle and you have to hang on to those moments where the world seems wonderful rather than grim. And even when things look bad, you shouldn’t let yourself get caught up in that because it won’t help you deal with things. You need to be able to pick yourself up off the floor and get on with things. That’s the attitude and life philosophy I’ve picked up from my mother.
“I’m not sure that happiness is [the] goal. It’s not the kind of state of being that you can necessarily control. You try to do the things in life which please you and the best you can hope for is that you’re going to be happy on some general level. Life takes you in many different directions and not all of them are going to be good. You’re going to have to deal with very tough times and sad moments because that’s just inevitable and life is like that.  You have to find the strength and determination to move past the difficult times and stay positive so that you can enjoy all the good moments. I’m feeling good about things now and I’m open and looking forward to the future.”

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The Oscar Winner  For Whom  Fame Is Worth Nothing

Five minutes, we are told, is all we will get with Dr Deepak Chopra, and there is a gaggle of journalists waiting to meet him, one by one, at the Michelangelo in Sandton, Johannesburg. The ballroom where he is seated, on a lone high-backed, jacquard-print chair at the far end, is somehow, unwittingly, reminiscent of the private durbar of an Indian guru. But the Los Angeles-based Chopra says he is no Indian mystic – “I do not buy into labels”. He is unassuming in a black shirt, jeans and red trainers, and has a calm, gentle voice:
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<h4>The New York Times has called you ‘a controversial new age guru’. Why controversial?</h4>
I wouldn’t have a career without controversy. If nobody criticizes you, you go unnoticed. I owe my career to my critics, I think of them as my best friends.
<h4>People have accused you of selling false hopes and that your methods are unscientific. How do you react?</h4>
I used to react [at one time], but not anymore. Over the last 35 years, I have been in a way vindicated. There are newer sciences like neuroplasticity and epigenetics, and the mind-body connection is well-established. My courses are recognized by the American Medical Association. I have a faculty position at the Medical School in the University of California. I lecture once a year at Harvard, we have medical students coming for training, the Chopra Center University California is recognized…
You use quantum mechanics for healing. How has that been accepted?
It’s very controversial [and] very highly criticized, but I am rewriting and updating quantum healing now after 30 years because of the new science. Everything I said before is true but there is more science.
<h4>The brain seems to now be a focus in management discussions. Why?</h4>
Because of the findings that you can wire your brain for optimum wellbeing and leadership. You can learn through various techniques mindfulness, self-awareness, contemplation, meditation…you can rewire your brain in a way you feel more connected, but you can also harness intuition, insight, creativity, imagination and leadership skills.
<h4>What about prayer and spirituality in wellbeing?</h4>
When your mind is quiet, and with focused awareness, you can harness the power of intention. What people call prayer I would call focused awareness. There is a chapter in the Yoga Sutras (sacred Indian text) of Patanjali that deals with that. It’s called Dhyan, Dharna, Samadhi – dhyan is meditation, dharna is focused awareness and samadhi is transcendence.
When is emotional and financial wellbeing truly achieved?
Ten percent of your daily happiness experience comes from your bank account, 50% comes from your attitude to life and the remaining comes from the daily choices you make…People in Cuba are more happy than the people in the United States. Because when people focus on relationships, they are much happier.
<h4>Do you see more of that now?</h4>
No [shaking head]…less and less. On their dying day, they would say I wish I had worked one extra day and made more money.
<h4>What is your own net worth?</h4>
If you know your net worth, then you are not wealthy enough. Honestly, I don’t look at my bank statements, I have never seen one. My wife and accountant take care of everything, and they make sure all my taxes are paid. I only carry $300 in my pocket, one credit card and have $30,000 in my bank account. I don’t need more than that for my needs.
<h4>What do you have planned for the year ahead?</h4>
I have written 81 books, and the next is a book of fiction [released in March], called The 13th Disciple. I have done 12 fiction books, out of which four were New York Times bestsellers. I have a book [coming up] at the end of the year called Super Genes; it’s a book about how you activate your genes for optimum wellbeing.

5 Minutes With Deepak Chopra

Time stands still for no woman; this truth is the thread running through Helen Zille’s life and career. Zille is currently the Premier of South Africa’s second largest province, by GDP, the Western Cape. For the last seven years, she has also been the leader of South Africa’s official opposition party – the Democratic Alliance (DA) – suffering all the slings and arrows that go with the job. At 63 years old, she is a wife and mother; an anti-apartheid activist and a former journalist.
“I try to use each minute that I have. I also enjoy being busy. I always say that for relaxation, I enjoy working slowly, without being under too much pressure,” she says.
It has been a tough year. The South African general elections, in May last year, saw the DA garner nearly 22% of the votes, an increase of 3.25%; a slow and painful eating away of the vast majority held for 20 years by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
“We win three per cent at every election and then go away and cry for five years until we can try again,” said one DA activist on election night in Pretoria.
Even for the indefatigable Zille, the campaign trail proved a sapping marathon. It was born under a bad sign; before a vote was cast there was an embarrassing bungled coalition with a smaller political party run by Mamphela Ramphele – Agang. The two leaders sealed the deal with a kiss, but ended up spitting as the coalition fell apart.
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“I offered her the world, she wanted the universe, she has ended up with a shack in Pofadder,” said Zille on election night of the still-born coalition. For the uninitiated, Pofadder is a small town in South Africa’s very quiet Northern Cape province.
The press had a field day, but the best was yet to come. There was talk of discord in the DA ranks right up to the casting of the last vote. To make matters worse, Zille’s right hand woman, Lindiwe Mazibuko, walked away after the elections. Many saw Mazibuko as the heir apparent.
Zille will battle through. In less than 18 months, she faces South Africa’s Municipal Election, where the DA is pushing to take the key provinces of Johannesburg and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipalities from the ANC.
This political street fight is not too far from her thoughts as Zille arrives at the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA photo shoot in a whirl. In the space of 30 minutes, she has parallel-parked and unloaded her car; pulled a collection of suitcases and bags up the staircase to the studio; greeted all in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa; investigated the wardrobe; made a call to her economics advisor; tweeted her whereabouts and thoughts to 546, 000 followers and has settled in for make-up and hair-styling.
“Even as a young girl, I never slept much. I was determined and very active. I was always organizing things – clubs, events and galas – anything!” says Zille.
Zille went to school in Johannesburg. She started out in 1974 as a political journalist writing for the liberal Rand Daily Mail. A 26-year-old Zille made headlines – along with then editor Allister Sparks – with an expose of the death in prison of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. The story of the attempt to cover up police brutality made headlines around the world and helped make Zille’s name.
“I enjoyed the pressure of the job. I enjoyed the investigative component of journalism, working against deadlines, being challenged. Those things float my boat, and that was the reason I really enjoyed my job at the Rand Daily Mail. I had grown up in a liberal home, so I was used to seeing my parents oppose apartheid. It was hard-wired in me and I did not think it was unusual.”
The newspaper shut in 1985 in a clampdown on freedom. Zille’s career veered into public policy and education when the University of Cape Town appointed her director of development in 1993.
At this stage, she was married with two small children and never dreamed a career in politics was just around the corner.
“I never intended to become a politician. It happened accidentally. When I was chair of the governing body of the Grove Primary School, where my children went to school, the government undertook such damaging actions, that I went to court to stop them – and when this did not help, I realized I had to be in the political arena to fight for what I believed in, where it really mattered – where policies and laws are made,” she says.
In fact, Zille was appointed provincial head of education after becoming progressively closer to the Democratic Party – an early incarnation of the DA – in 1999.
The next 15 years saw Zille rise through the leadership of the party, becoming a member of parliament in 2004, leader in 2007 and Mayor of Cape Town. The latter saw an election win by a wafer-thin majority.
“We had to put together a seven-party coalition and then we only made it by a single vote, if the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) abstained. The likelihood of that happening was really remote. But we managed to pull it off, and that vote defined the next five years,” she says.
Zille’s victories as Cape Town mayor included cutting crime and boosting the economy. Critics counter that South Africa was growing quickly anyway.
Despite this, Zille has weathered the squall through three national elections by never backing down.
As Western Cape premier, Zille sees her mission as the promotion of the province as a pocket of excellence that could bode well for ambitions to take over two more municipalities in the 2016 elections. The Western Cape’s green economy is one area which Zille has taken to with a passion.
The province is enticing foreign investors into the burgeoning wind and solar industries. The investment drive has brought in R8 billion ($645 million).
“Our government is committed to doing everything it can to ensure that wind farms are developed without unnecessary logistical and regulatory hitches. We are therefore appealing to developers to engage with us on any problems they encounter so that we can ensure the efficient roll-out of these farms across the province.”
Another area of focus for Zille is the promotion of the Western Cape as a breeding ground for young, creative tech types – an idea dreamed up in 2008 by tech entrepreneurs Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford to help drum up venture capital. Since then, the ‘Silicon Cape’ has taken on a life of its own.
Zille may not be savaged in the same way as her predecessor at the DA, Tony Leon – who was once derided as a yapping Chihuahua – but the arrows of outrageous fortune have swished past her head.
Just ask one of Africa’s best-known scourges of the pompous and the political. Commentators and angry politicians have often accused political cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, or Zapiro, of being tough on the ANC and gentler with the opposition.
Try telling Zapiro that as he took aim over the last year. His pen first drew Zille as Godzille – a monster-politician, in 2006, with tongue firmly in cheek.
This year, Zapiro reprinted the cartoon and inferred that Zille had become the caricature. He referred to Zille’s backlash against Mazibuko’s departure from the DA.
Zille confirmed that her professional relationship with Mazibuko had suffered and criticized Mazibuko’s track-record.
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“I like and respect Helen,” says Zapiro. “But she has many human failings. She takes charge of too many things and hasn’t loosened her hold on the party’s leadership. There is some evidence in the public space which suggests that the young bloods inside the DA are frustrated by her strong grip. For example, there was the incident where she tried to parachute Mamphela Ramphele into the organization.”
Zille has also been criticized for not using self-control on social media platforms, Twitter in particular where Zille takes on both supporters and critics. When she speaks about her public image, she is phlegmatic.
“The electorate is not static or homogenous. People see me in different ways which is why I have nicknames ranging from Godzille to Nontsapho (which means the mother of the family). I suppose some people see me as tough and ruthless, other people see me as kind and motherly – and everything in between.”
Mother or monster, love her or hate her; you can’t ignore Zille.

Godzille  – Why Cartoonists  And Voters Wait  For No Woman

It was the moment a golden-haired young fan fought his way through the crowd to touch a genius. One of the few moments, frozen in time, that captures the short and ill-fated career in African football of George Best.
The career of the 1968 European Footballer of the Year was on the slide when Johannesburg team Jewish Guild was looking for stars. In 1974, Jewish Guild, now defunct, had been promoted to the top flight of the then segregated South African game and approached Best with a handful of pounds hoping to secure at least a handful of games.
<div id="attachment_4820" style="width: 273px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4820" class="size-medium wp-image-4820" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-79020026-263x300.jpg" alt="" width="263" height="300" />Football, 1970+s, Manchester United+s George Best jumps up for the ball (Photo by Bob Thomas/Getty Images)</div>
“In the seventies, British players were not making a lot of money, so some came to South Africa in their club’s off seasons to play a few games for the local clubs. This had its advantages for the National Football League, the stadiums were filled up and the game improved,” says Mark Gleeson, a prolific South African football writer and television commentator.
On the day Best was to make his debut in Johannesburg, 14-year-old Herby Opland, a Manchester United fan, woke early determined to meet the star he had merely read of in the newspapers. As young as he was, Opland hitchhiked from Hillbrow, a suburb in Johannesburg, to the Johannesburger Hotel, in Joubert Park, where Best was staying.
“It was late morning, I remember walking into the lobby of the hotel, people being rebuffed because they were keeping George Best away from the press. I remember being very excited when the doorman showed sympathy to me; he offered me a place next to him on the bench,” says Opland.
Apparently, Best had invited the doorman to the Jewish Guild bench. The doorman told Opland he should come to the Rand Stadium, in western Johannesburg, for the game in the afternoon.
“I loved every minute. Best was not highly active that day but every time he touched the ball it was like magic. I remember one moment he made an incredible move on the touchline, he chipped the ball straight over a guy and he went around him and headed towards the goals,” remembers Opland.
“I pretty much watched the game from the stand but, minutes before it ended, I jumped over the fence and went up to him, I patted him on the shoulder and walked away. He was not really interested in the fans and media, I think at the time he was doing it for money, his career was in a bit of a dead end.”
A few days after a chance encounter, Opland was surprised to find his picture with Best on the sports pages of The Star newspaper in Johannesburg.
“The photo was my Facebook profile for a long time. I first saw it in the newspaper and because I was such a fan of his, I phoned the newspaper office to say and I would love to have it and the photographer gave me the Kodak photograph,” says Opland, a sub-editor at a Johannesburg television station.
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While Best brought excitement to South African football, the Jewish Guild officials were not impressed by missed training sessions. He drank his way out of the club after a mere five games and one goal.
Gleeson asserts Best was at the zenith of his game and refutes allegations Jewish Guild was unhappy with Best’s conduct. It was normal for the export starts to last a few weeks before returning home. Most British footballers did play only a handful games before flying back home.
Best died in November 2005 in London after a lifetime of alcoholism. He was mourned by many fans around the world, including Opland.
“George Best was always a hero, to this day he is still probably my favorite footballer. When it comes to skill, there was no greater genius or

The Best  Of Times  In Africa

Patricia de Lille has spent the vast majority of her almost four decade career in South African politics. The guiding principle of her working life has been to never use her position as a female leader to ask for special treatment.
De Lille famously exposed corruption related to the multibillion-rand arms deal in government in the year 2000, took part in the drafting of South Africa’s progressive constitution in the early 1990s and currently serves as mayor of the country’s second largest city – Cape Town.
“Women are their own worst enemies. I don’t believe in this quota stuff and asking for special dispensations just because of your gender. In politics you have to learn to play by the rules, then you assume power and once you are in, you start changing the rules,” she says. De Lille was born in Beaufort West, a small town located approximately an hour’s drive from Cape Town. Dreams of studying law were shelved after a teenage De Lille fell pregnant and she entered the workforce at a paint factory located outside her hometown. The trade union movement underway on the factory floor became an outlet of political expression and de Lille worked her way up from being a shop steward to becoming the regional secretary of the South African Chemical Workers Union.
“During this time, I embarked on a program to get more women leaders within our trade union, starting out from the shop steward position. I wanted to find out why women don’t put themselves up for elections. Everyone knows men vote for men but what I realized is that the women vote for the men as well…The first thing I had to make women realize is that we don’t need to ask for permission to take on leadership positions.”
De Lille moved on from the trade unions to join the Pan Africanist Movement in 1989 before heading up the group responsible for the constitutional negotiations ahead of South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. She went on to join Parliament in various portfolios before founding the Independent Democratic Party in 2003 (which later merged with the Democratic Alliance in 2010).
“I set myself the target of becoming the first woman to establish a political party, contest the elections and win seats in Parliament. I did that and I hope I have opened the road for other women in the future,” she says.
De Lille’s current role of leading development in the City of Cape Town comes with challenges largely as a result of the apartheid era’s spatial planning where suburbs populated by black people were built far from the business hubs of the city – resulting in a long and expensive commute for their residents.
Cape Town’s population has expanded by 30% in the past 10 years and current data estimates residents will grow by 100,000 each year for the foreseeable future.
The swell of populace coupled with divisive city planning is placing considerable strain on existing infrastructure and this will be one of De Lille’s major tasks as she moves into her fifth year of mayoral office.
Further challenges include breaking down the common misconception that Cape Town is all about style and little substance.
“We are not just a tourist destination. We are open for business and we want the world to invest here with us,” she says.
On her leadership style, De Lille says that a career in politics is dependent on the ability to empathize, and humility – admittedly both female-biased characteristics although De Lille refuses to play the gender game when it comes to her value system.
“I have always looked up to principles and values which resonate with me. They are completely gender neutral.”
De Lille is fiercely nationalistic but also admits that the South Africa has lost its way through the 20-year transition period from the post-apartheid regime to the democratic state.
“I hope we get the leadership we deserve,” she says.
De Lille lives with her husband and children, who she credits for giving her the support she needed to pursue her political career.
“I remember someone asking my little boy many years ago whether he minded the fact that his mommy is away from home so much. He said he didn’t mind sharing his mom with the country.”
Her spare time is minimal but any weekends she has off are spent on the golf course with family and friends, as well as listening to jazz and R&amp;B music.

Nelson Mandela Commemorative Concert

‘Women Are Their Own Worst Enemies’

This calm encounter on a spring morning in Sandton, Johannesburg, belies a man who forged his career amid fury. He cheated death at the hands of police to capture the Soweto school uprising, surely, one of the saddest stories ever told in Africa.
On June 16, 1976, Sam Nzima, a photojournalist at The World newspaper, in Johannesburg, took a picture of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying a 13-year-old dying Hector Pieterson from the Soweto massacre. He smuggled the film out in his sock and the picture hit the front pages of the world. The police wanted to destroy it – the image destroyed Nzima’s career.
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The picture changed the political landscape of South Africa; it made a fortune for the news agencies of the world, but he got nothing from it for 22 years.  The iconic image has been on everything from billboards to T-shirts.
“The picture of Hector Pieterson destroyed my future in journalism. I couldn’t continue as a journalist because of that picture and I would never put my life in danger, I was forced to leave everything behind,” says Nzima.
Harassment from police forced Nzima to become a small bottle store owner in the small village Lilydale, in Bushbuckridge, in Mpumalanga. It took him 22 years of struggle to get his copyright back.
“The copyright of the Hector Pieterson Photo was given to me on the November 16, 1998 by Independent Newspapers Holdings Limited and was registered with Webber Wentzel Bowens Attorneys Notaries &amp; Conveyancers intellectual property lawyers in Johannesburg on July 20, 2000,” he says.
The day he risked his life for the picture is as clear as yesterday.
“As early as 6AM in the morning of June 16, I was covering a student march in Naledi High in Soweto with a colleague Sophie Tema. We found the students busy writing placards opposing new Bantu education laws. This followed a circular sent to the schools that Afrikaans will be the medium of instruction,” says Nzima.
When the march reached Morris Isaacson High, a student leader Tsietsi Mashinini addressed students from the top of a tree saying the march was to be a peaceful, says Nzima. Shortly after, armed police arrived in armoured vehicles and instructed all to disperse. The children sang Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika in defiance.
Nzima says the singing agitated a police commander who instructed his officers to open fire. The students ran and Nzima hid in a house.
“I got out from the house, the police had ceased firing, and I saw a little child falling down. There comes this tall boy Mbuyisa and picked him up. As Mbuyisa picked him up, I went with my camera. I was also shooting with my camera, under the shower of police bullets. Mbuyisa was running to the nearest car, the nearest press car was our Volkswagen Beetle. I managed to shoot six sequences of him carrying Hector. My colleague Sophie Tema opened the door and they put Hector inside. Hector was certified dead upon arriving in Phefeni Clinic,” says Nzima.
“I knew the police would come back for me, I wound the film and stashed it in my sock and then loaded another film. As I anticipated, the police came back and grabbed me after they ran away for some few minutes. They took my three cameras and exposed my films. When they thought they had destroyed the evidence, our driver Thomas Khoza rushed the film to The World office. The picture was published the next day.”
Nzima’s gallant work with his camera on that violent winter day in 1976 was to wreck his life. When police came knocking on his door, Nzima left his job in Johannesburg and ended up under house arrest in the remote town of Bushbuckridge, far from his family in Soweto.
“After two days I received a call from the station commander at John Vorster Square, he wanted to have a cup of coffee with me. Percy Qoboza was my editor at The World. He advised me to stay away from the police if I don’t want to come back as corpse.”
Qoboza told the commander to invite him, the editor, for tea instead. This led to a police instruction to shoot Nzima if they found him photographing, a police insider told him at the time.
In April 2011, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma awarded Nzima with the Order of Ikhamanga for excellence in liberal art.
“If popularity was cash, I was going to tell you I am a millionaire or billionaire. Many people know this picture but some don’t know the man behind it. I was shocked in 2010 when I was invited in Berlin at a school called Hector Pieterson Schule. The school was renamed in celebration of the fall of The Berlin Wall. Germans compared their freedom to the South African independence.”
“Money was not that much, no rewards in cash but I had recognition from the state president. At the beginning I regretted [taking] this picture because this picture destroyed my journalistic career, I lost my job and my friends in Johannesburg. But now I am rejoicing because I am getting high publicity, I have become an icon in South Africa. Maybe one day I will reap a jackpot from some quarters.”
A Sam Nzima Foundation will be opened, including a school for photojournalists, in his hometown near Bushbuckridge. This is where Nzima has a makeshift darkroom that he uses to train school children in his village of Lilydale.
“After the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, I was brave enough to pick up my camera and continue where I left, but all these years I was afraid to do that. The original camera that captured Hector Pieterson is still intact; I have kept it safe in those years.”
When Hillary Clinton visited South Africa for the first time, in the 1990s, she wanted to see Nzima at the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto. She offered to buy the camera, but Winnie Mandela advised Nzima against selling. She said it was the property of the state. Nzima also refused to donate his Pantex camera, with 50mm lens, to the ANC Women’s League.
“I was happy not to sell it, but if it was good money she was offering, I would have been happier to sell. It’s because it’s better enjoying my life when I can than keeping the camera. One day, I will show people of South Africa that this is a camera that brought their freedom. But the person who struggled for freedom gets nothing.”
“South Africans do not value me but I do get recognition from other countries. I remember in 2011 I was invited to exhibit my work in Belgium and address the parliament in Brussels. Parliamentarians showed interest in our history and the role I played in those days.”
Despite Nzima receiving lucrative offers from overseas for the camera, he says his conscience disapproves. It lives in his museum in Bushbuckridge.
“Now I cannot sell the camera, it has become the property of the state, it is our heritage. I have to consult with the politicians for a go-ahead; otherwise I will be frustrated again. If the government officials could learn that I had sold the camera overseas, they will ask me why I did it.”
Hector Pieterson was buried at Avalon Cemetery, in Soweto, and a museum in his memory was built near where he was shot, in 2002. His sister, Antoinette Sithole, the girl running alongside, is a curator at the museum and Makhubo was last traced in Nigeria. He went to exile after the photograph was published.
Every year on June 16, Nzima kneels and prays for the fallen schoolchildren of Soweto. He escaped with his life from the terrible day but his career didn’t.

The Sad Story Behind  The Picture That  Moved The World To Tears

Never judge a colonel by his cover. You wouldn’t blink when you see Mike Dent walking his dog in the shafts of early summer light in the green and sleepy village of Hartlebury, Worcestershire, deep in the English countryside. The village that last saw warriors on the march in 1646 when Oliver Cromwell’s roundheads laid siege to Hartlebury Castle, a few hundred meters from Dent’s back lawn, which  surrendered without a shot being fired by the 160 defenders. More than 368 years later, only heavy trucks driving down country lanes cause a stir and threaten the peace.
Dent fits the scene like a glove. He looks more like a retired country gentleman than a former military advisor to the president of Sierra Leone who travels the trouble spots of Africa.
Sixty-six-year-old Dent was a career soldier in the British Army. He joined the colors in 1979 and rose to the rank of colonel and a seat on the general staff commanding the army. It was this powerful job that took him to the violent chaos of Sierra Leone as the British government attempted to unravel the country’s tight knot of civil war.
“The streets were full of people, no water, nor fuel. The hospitals couldn’t cope. I have never seen so much poverty, anywhere. Then there was the horror of the amputations. It was an eye opener,” says Dent in his sitting room as birds twitter in the green hedgerows overlooking the castle.
In 2000, Dent went to Freetown as the military advisor to the then president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the avuncular former United Nations (UN) civil servant and district commissioner who was the first Muslim to be head of state. President Kabbah was elected in 1996; deposed by a coup in 1997 and restored by ECOMOG troops from West Africa in 1998.
When the British arrived in Freetown, two years later, one of Dent’s unenviable tasks was the rebuilding the shambolic remnants of the army of Sierra Leone.
“We were told there were 16,000 soldiers on the payroll. We went round and verified only 12,200 people. The rest were ghost soldiers that the army was paying money for that other people were collecting. It was total chaos; the army didn’t know where their soldiers were nor who they were. We had to take pictures as proof of who they were. The whole place was riven by a civil war for 10 years, there was no payment system, no pension system nothing. It was the only failed state I had ever seen, everything had collapsed,” he says.
Dent and his brother officers also had to advise the UN on the tricky process of what it calls DDR – disarmament, demobilization and reintegration. Muddy waters, clouded further by the fact that two senior officers on the project, an Indian three-star general and a Nigerian two-star general, detested each other and didn’t talk.
This complicated matters amid the uneasy patchwork of armed groups. There was: the Sierra Leone Army (SLA); the Civil Defence Forces – a bundle of seven secret societies and tribes – the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), led by the charismatic orator Johnny Paul Koroma, the man who staged the coup in 1997; deserters from the SLA and the Revolutionary United Front, led by Foday Sankoh.
Dent set up a bush camp in Freetown where 5,500 male and female fighters underwent selection and military training.
“It worked quite well, the majority wanted a job and did what they were asked. It was very sad that the people fighting in the war were only doing so for someone who had fed them or gave them money. People from the same family were fighting on different sides.”
In the midst of this difficult time in 2000, civil war reared its ugly head over Freetown.
“This guy threw the door open, came rushing in and said: ‘you have got to get the gunship up, there are thousands marching on Freetown’. The UN told me this. The UN troops had panicked, 14,000 packed up and moved towards Freetown. They were people equipped with armored cars and helicopters and weapons systems, the lot. They just put their hands up. One of the battalions allowed groups of rebels to bypass them, they took a whole battalion hostage, near Makeni, north of Freetown, that is when the British came in.”
“We tried to calm everything down. They flew the parachute regiment in and the joint task force deployed gradually over the next three weeks. There was a firefight at Lungi Airport. The parachute regiment stabilized the situation with foot patrols. We flew aircraft over Freetown to show we were there and that really was the beginning of the end for the rebel forces. They realized there was no way. It was done very cleverly with the media campaign. General Richards (the head of the general staff) explained we weren’t going to pull out.”
A decade later, Dent believes it was a sledgehammer to crack a nut – the kernel, a ragtag group of around 120 RUF and AFRC fighters.
President Kabbah, who died in March at the age of 82, declared an end to the civil war in 2002 and won a landslide election victory in the same year. In 2003, Dent left Sierra Leone with around 13,000 trained troops and the British Army. That year, the Queen awarded him with a CBE for his work in Freetown. He went into private business with his company, Security &amp; Risk Consultancy Services, and spent time in Tanzania looking after offshore drilling operations and the port of Mtwara.
“From a business perspective, East Africa is the place,” says Dent.
This year, Dent has been working as a risk and security consultant to the developers of the project at Jabi Lake in Abuja, Nigeria. He was in Abuja as the city recovered from a bomb that rocked a bus station on the cusp of the World Economic Forum in the Nigerian capital.
“I was there the week after the bombing. I was impressed by Abuja in that it had good security with lots of police and military. But any attack will be focused on a weak area that is difficult to secure.
“I think potentially the worst case scenario is a split. There is this religious issue and I think federalization has exacerbated it. The rich states in the south are where all the oil is. The perception in the north is why aren’t we getting our share?&#8230; I don’t think Boko Haram is going to go away. It is not just one group, this is disparate groups operating across Nigeria and if they get into the south there is real potential for a response. If the civilians in the areas start attacking Muslims you almost have a religious war. The people in the south who are Muslims are in the minority and are going to come off worst.”
Dent believes it’s easier doing business in Ghana, than in Nigeria. Further south, he sees more openings.
In his quiet English village, Dent is far from weak after a lifetime of soldiering and risk in Africa and relishes his next walk on the wild side.

Hostages, Rebels And  Ghost Soldiers

Being a stand-up comedian in Africa is not an everyday job. There are odd hours, infrequent deadlines and no defined career path. One day a rookie; the next a comedic sensation. For Riaad Moosa it took five years.
“The big moment that I felt I had arrived was when I finished my first one-man show Strictly Halal. I had finished the show and we had captured it on film. It was like waiting to exhale. Then we found out there was some issue with the recording, it was a problem with the live feed. That DVD ended up being a complete flop.”
For any comic, the first five minutes on stage tells them whether they have what it takes. Nerves can easily get the best of you but a tough crowd could render you hopeless.
“When we started comedy we never knew that you could have a career in it, we just loved it. I was part of the first group of comics who are now generally better known: Kagiso Lediga, David Kau, Loyiso Gola,
John Vlismas and Joey Rasdien. We all started out together,” says Moosa.
Although he is well-known on the comedy circuit, his most embarrassing moment onstage came in high school. Moosa was performing a magic trick that he had practiced and planned to perfection. The idea was to make a ball float across the stage.
“They didn’t tell me the night of the show that there would be a guy doing flash photography. So I was there in my dramatic David Copperfield hairstyle and my dramatic music while I made this ball float across the stage. Whenever the guy would take a picture you would see this washing line with a ball hanging onto it. And the kids in the audience would yell, ‘Mom, dad look it’s a wire’. It was so embarrassing. Even when I tried to be dramatic I ended up being a comedian,” he says.
Moosa was never a struggling artist. For him it was a smooth transition from doctor to comic.
“I started out in medical school then I took a year off and went to upper campus [at the University of Cape Town] to study other things that I was interested in. I did economics, I did Xhosa and then during that year I found stand-up comedy and I loved it.”
After the year off, Moosa went back to medical school and continued doing stand-up comedy on an amateur basis. He then graduated, completed his internship and community service, and when the opportunity came to appear on The Pure Monate Show he traded in the operating room for the stage.
“I never did anything dramatic in terms of the suffering and the starving for a while before I could pay the bills. I basically worked hard at both things and more opportunities opened with the comedy,” says Moosa.
In 2012, he made a breakthrough in film with Material, which received international acclaim. This led to Moosa’s latest role as South African political prisoner and freedom fighter, Ahmed Kathrada, in the Golden Globe nominated film, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Moosa is currently in the final stage of his stand-up tour, Doctors Orders, with Simmi Areff.
“He [Areff] opens for me and he does a good job, he does a few minutes before I go on stage. He warms up the audience for me.”
The famous comic with a booming acting career has always kept medicine close. He assists at his family’s medical clinic as well as hosts a medical show on TV.
At the end of the day, when the lights have dimmed and the last person has laughed, Moosa says there is only one place for a comic to go.
“Everybody goes back to the comedy club. It’s one of those things in your industry where no matter how big you are, you’ll always go back. You’ll find Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld going back to the little dingy comedy clubs to perform… It’s the true nature of stand-up comedy,” says Moosa.
After all, he’s just a guy, standing on a stage, hoping the crowd will laugh.   FL

DSC017541

Just A Guy With A Mic

It was déjà vu for South Africa’s African Bank Limited (ABIL) when it was put under curatorship on August 10. It was for the very same reason too, liquidity. The Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Leon Kirkinis, resigned with immediate effect in August. This marks the third time the bank finds itself in trouble.
ABIL was founded by the National African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NAFCOC) as a black-owned bank that could fund black-owned businesses during apartheid. The first branch opened in 1965 in Ga-Rankuwa, a small township outside of Pretoria.
A man that knows ABIL better than most is Gaby Magomola, currently the Executive Chairman of Thamaga Investment Holdings. A veteran of the ruling party, the ANC, and former Robben Island prisoner, Magomola was recruited in 1979 by Citibank, in New York, where he was trained to become an international banker and eventually grew to become its second black manager.
When he returned to South Africa, Magomola was driven by the desire to promote commerce as a career for people of color, as well as create a platform to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs.
From 1986 to 1989, ABIL was placed in curatorship for the first time. In 1987, Magomola joined ABIL after three offers from the bank. He says the bank had a relatively good business model at the time.
The reserve bank persuaded the four big banks, at the time, to purchase preference shares to rescue ABIL.
After proving its worth and getting out of curatorship, Magomola was thrown out of the African Bank by the board because of a business model he’d been working on for the bank. This model is now commonly used nearly 30 years later.
The downfall of ABIL played itself out in public when the bank announced an $800-million financial gap. Trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was suspended after investors began dumping shares and its credit rating was downgraded.
The troubles at ABIL have affected South Africa’s banking industry. Soon after the news broke on ABIL, Capitec Bank was downgraded two levels and placed on review. The top four banks, Standard Bank, Absa, First National Bank and Nedbank, were prematurely later downgraded a level. The downgrading of these top lenders could very well lead to the downgrading of the country’s sovereign rating.
“Effective policy includes the resolution of financial firms in trouble in a way that imposes losses on those investors who profited from that firm’s activities and who were in a position to exercise influence over that firm’s management,” said South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, at the Southern African Internal Audit Conference.
The Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Gill Marcus, said that a substantial portion of the non- and under-performing assets and high-risk loans will be bought from ABIL, separating them from the good book, which has a book value of $2.4 billion after impairments.
A $938-million recapitalization is also on the cards.
ABIL’s curatorship does not interfere with the bank’s day-to-day running. Customers’ deposits are guaranteed and loans remain legally binding.
The bank says its vision is to improve its customers’ quality of life through affordable, convenient and responsible credit. It also says customers will always receive the necessary information to understand what they are committing to.
“The unfortunate thing [about ABIL] is that it threw people into a perpetual debt trap… it was an accident waiting to happen,” says Magomola.
In 2013, branches in KwaZulu-Natal were fined $1.8 million for breaching the National Credit Act. ABIL wrote-off loans, removed blacklistings and rescinded court judgements against borrowers.
Although insecure lending leads to an increase in retail sales, it also leads to an increase in household debt. It’s a bad way to finance the economy. Increased limitations on lending will result in a decline in retail sales and manufacturing. South Africa’s inflation was sitting at 6.3% in August.
Magomola believes the bank needs to revert to being a deposit-taking institution that encourages saving and use those savings to make loans where they are merited.
One long standing and loyal customer is Malesela Maraba, a resident of Seshego, a town in the province of Limpopo. Maraba was a member of the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo), one of the radical political parties during apartheid. He and his wife were asleep in their four-bedroom house when it was petrol bombed by the police in the early hours of 27 March, 1986.
“It was around 4AM and I was with my wife. When we came out, the police wanted to throw me into the burning house. The idea was to get me killed,” says Maraba.
It is a heavy price to pay for protesting for freedom. However, he survived to see another day.
The fire gutted the house. Maraba took the case to court but without success. He was never paid a cent for the damages. A few years later, he decided to rebuild the house at the very same location.
Maraba says he approached other banks which wouldn’t give him a
good deal.
“Then I heard about African Bank. A friend of mine told me about his friend, Jack Monyepao, who worked there. He told me I must discuss with Jack and he won’t give me a problem,” says Maraba.
At African Bank, Maraba delivered the building plans. The bank also requested that he get quotes for all the materials needed for the house. Everything added up to about $4,200 and the loan was approved in just three weeks. The house got rebuilt with 11 rooms. Much bigger than the home that was petrol bombed.
Maraba says the bank gave customers cash in the past and people paid back their loans. He says he took seven years to pay back the loan and he took other loans after that.
“That’s the African Bank I knew. We paid back the money on a monthly basis. Now I don’t know how this problem came about,” says the 58-year-old Maraba.
“Banking is about assessing risks and managing those risks,” says Magomola.
Some of the outcry from the public comes from customers becoming over-indebted, with multiple loans in play at ABIL. Greater limitations should have been placed on the level of debt these clients were allowed, but one has to question the reasoning behind racking up numerous loans before paying any off. Are South Africans living beyond their means?
Magomola calls for an investigation into why the regulators allowed the bank to provide unsecured loans.
But what should happen to ABIL? Does it deserve to be saved yet again?
“There is a need in South Africa today for a banking institution held predominantly, and owned predominantly, by black South Africans. I’m not saying that African Bank is necessarily that entity, but there is a huge gap and you cannot have a free nation that governs an economy as sophisticated and as large as South Africa that does not have a bank owned by its own people, the indigenous people,” says Magomola.
It remains to be seen if the people will continue to rally behind this bank.

‘An Accident  Waiting To Happen’

The biggest year of Queen B’s career comes courtesy of a massive tour. The superstar singer played 95 shows, bringing in an average $2.4 million per city, according to Pollstar. She also dropped her most innovative album. Titled simply Beyoncé, the record hit iTunes in December with barely any publicity; the single Drunk in Love has already sold more than one million copies.
But Beyoncé doesn’t stop with music – she’s built a small business empire. She earns millions endorsing companies like H&amp;M and Pepsi. She has a line of fragrances with names like Heat, Rise and Pulse, and then there’s her clothing company House of Dereon, which features jeans, shoes and accessories. All together, we estimate that Beyoncé earned $115 million between June 1, 2013 and June 1, 2014.
The singer is embarking on another big year highlighted by her first world tour with her husband, Jay Z. Their On The Run tour, which kicked off June 25 in Miami, will be short (only 20 dates are set) but lucrative for the pair, who can claim the crown as the most powerful celebrity couple in the world.
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Jay Z also places high on the Celebrity 100 this year, in sixth place with an estimated $60 million in earnings. That comes from a variety of sources, including his latest album, Magna Carta … Holy Grail; dozens of live shows; his growing Roc Nation empire and business ventures ranging from his 40/40 nightclub chain to his D’Ussé cognac.
FORBES’ annual Celebrity 100 list ranks the top stars from the worlds of movies, TV, music, sports, books and modeling based on money and fame.
We estimate earnings by talking to lawyers, producers, agents and other in-the-know folks to figure out how much over 200 celebrities earned from entertainment-related business in the past year. That includes things like music sales, upfront pay on movies and endorsement work. Our time frame for earnings this year is June 1, 2013 to June 1 2014. We don’t deduct for things like taxes, agent fees or the other expenses associated with being a celebrity.
We measure fame in a variety of ways. We count how many times each celebrity was mentioned in print, on TV and radio. We factor in a score from StarCount for social media power over 12 platforms including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This year we’ve also added an impact score, similar to the one we use for our Power Women list. Based on reporting by our editorial staff, the number measures the impact each celebrity has on the entertainment industry and our culture overall. We put all of those numbers into an algorithm to come up with our final list. Justin Bieber had the highest ranking for social networking power but because of his low impact this year, he only ranked 33rd on our list, down from ninth last year.
In second place, is LeBron James. We estimate that the basketball player earned $72 million last year. James recently announced that he’s opting out of his contract with the Miami Heat to become a free agent. That could mean an even richer payday for James, who earns big endorsing companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s — or not if he decides to sacrifice salary to build a stronger roster around him.
In third place is Dr. Dre, who earned more in the past 12 months than anyone in the history of the Celebrity 100. We peg Dre’s earnings at $620 million thanks to Apple’s purchase of his Beats by Dre for $3 billion. Last year’s No. 1, Oprah Winfrey, falls to fourth place this year with an estimated $82 million in earnings. The talk show host’s eponymous cable network, OWN, is finally turning around (it became cash-flow positive in 2013) and Winfrey helped make Lee Daniel’s The Butler a hit. But the three celebrities ranked above her just have more influence and power at this moment.
Rounding out the top five is another talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres, who we estimate earned $70 million in the last 12 months. The new queen of daytime TV broke the Internet this year when she posted what has become the most famous ‘selfie’ of all time. Aside from the ratings success of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the 56-year-old is beefing up her producing roster. Her production company is working on pilots for the CW and NBC, and cable network HGTV will air a DeGeneres-produced design competition series next year.

arvzdix-Shutterstock.com_

Beyoncé Tops Celebrity 100 List

The names Nhlanhla Nciza and Mafikizolo are like bread and butter. Nciza embodies style and elegance, but behind this creative, is a businesswoman trying to make her mark parallel to her music career.
When she grabs the microphone, the world dances at her feet. Nciza fills the stage with joie de vivre and ebullience. She has the voice most people only dream of, that contemporary, yet retro throwback to Miriam Makeba, which appeals to both young and old. She dances on stage with panache, like a shy child being encouraged, but with elegance and class.
Nciza, 36, is not just the ‘first lady’ of Mafikizolo, but a woman harnessing another passion into a business. Having taken interest in the imaging of her career, it naturally followed that this stylish songbird would make a successful foray into fashion design, through NN Vintage.
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Mafikizolo, which means ‘new arrivals’ in isiZulu, has long outgrown its name. Nciza and fellow band member, Theo Kgosinkwe, have stuck it out for more than a decade, through thick and thin.
The duo has enjoyed a longevity uncharacteristic of many music bands. They started out competing at talent competitions, and now they’ve ended up winning numerous accolades.
“The awards mean a lot. We’re getting more love than we did before,” she says.
At the fourth MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs) in June, in Durban, Nciza thought she had no chance. A Nigerian was certain to win with their country’s 125 million subscribers ready to cast their mobile votes. A safe bet, since the Nigerian mobile market is the largest on the continent. Instead it was Nciza and Kgosinkwe who ended up walking to the podium for Song of the Year, for their hit anthem Khona. They also won for ‘Best Group’.
“Winning Song of the Year means a lot especially that Nigeria has a bigger population than South Africa, and we still won the award. It shows that people still love our music all over the continent,” says Nciza.
Mafikizolo returned from the United States (US) in June following their debut at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards in Los Angeles. The judges nominated Mafikizolo for Best African International Act, pitted against other exceptional African musicians including Nigeria’s Davido. Together, they had collaborated on a song called Tchelete, meaning money in seTswana, that’s currently ruling the airwaves in South Africa. Davido won on the night but for Mafikizolo, just being there – and performing for the first time in the US – was remarkable.
Fifteen months after releasing their double-platinum eighth album, Reunited, following their hiatus, the group sealed their comeback with eight wins at the South African Music Awards (SAMA) in April, along with Channel O and Metro FM Awards, also in South Africa.
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Trials And Tragedy
Mafikizolo’s story is also one of struggle. The band formed in 1997, and signed with one of South Africa’s biggest recording companies, Kalawa Jazzmee Records. Their first four albums barely made a ripple.
Worse was to come&#8230;
In December 2001, the group, then a three-member band, nearly died in a car accident. The trio had decided to drive to Katlehong, following a performance in Durban. Once home, they decided to drive in the dead of night to Mafikeng for a performance the next day.
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“Theo wanted to drive, I guess he wanted to impress his new girlfriend, now his wife. So the rest of us fell asleep and we were woken up by a big bang. And the next thing I remember was lying on the gravel on the side of the road,” says Nciza.
Their car had been hit by a train. Fortunately that night, all of them survived. The rest of the band was discharged the next day from hospital, but Nciza had to stay on for over three months.
Lucky to be alive, the group released an album the following year, Sibongile, meaning ‘we thank you’ in isiZulu. It was their breakthrough.
All was well. The group had picked up the pieces and were getting back on their feet when tragedy struck again on Valentine ’s Day in 2004. Vocalist Tebogo Madingoane was shot and killed in a road rage incident in South Africa.
Madigoane had brought the Kwaito sound to the group and his loss was another blow. Nciza and Kgosinkwe never thought they would end up as a duo, but in sadness, they did. After mourning Madingoane, the two picked themselves up with the sound of Mafikizolo.
Then came a purple patch. They released three more albums, Khwela, Van Toeka Af and Six Mabone.
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Mafikizolo 2.0
Their popularity grew but in 2008 they took a break to reinvent themselves as solo artists.
“It was scary for me and a completely different experience as I was so used to depending on Theo for so many things… I had to gain confidence and believe in myself, so I used my other talent to grab people’s attention and that was my [passion for] fashion,” she says.
During this time, Nciza released two albums, Inguquko (Change) and Lingcinga Zam (My Thoughts), and also started to put more hours into her clothing business, which she had started a year before.
However tragedy followed her. Nciza and her record company executive husband, Thembinkosi Nciza, lost their five-year-old daughter Zinathi in a car accident in December 2009. She was with her grandmother on their way to a pre-school to pick up a cousin when their car crashed into a tree. The grandmother blacked out behind the wheel and suffered minor leg and chest injuries.
“My work was greatly affected. I was in the middle of promoting my second album when Zinathi passed, so everything was on hold. A part of me is gone and it is the kind of emptiness that I may have to accept that may never be filled… I really did not know where to begin, where to start picking up the pieces and for a very long time I just remained in one place not knowing how to move on, it felt wrong to move on,” says Nciza.
“Were it not for my husband, I really don’t know how I could have started living again. In 2012, I was blessed with a son, Luvuyo and I am just grateful to God that he gave me a chance to be a mom again.”
<div id="attachment_6345" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6345" class="size-medium wp-image-6345" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/451413792-300x210.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="210" />LOS ANGELES, CA &#8211; JUNE 28: Singers Theo Kgosinkwe (L) and Nhlanhla Nciza of Mafikizolo perform onstage at the Music Around the Globe during the 2014 BET Experience At L.A. LIVE on June 28, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/BET/Getty Images for BET)</div>
After mourning her daughter, she pulled herself together, mustered strength and continued with her career. Her family kept her going.
“Keeping busy helped me focus on other things, so I started writing music again, performing and started designing again,” she says.
Through NN Vintage, Nciza started to hire young people looking for jobs.
“I wanted to develop young talent. It was more about the love [of clothes and music] and not making money. I didn’t look at it in the business sense,” she says.
Nciza says she acquired her compassionate nature from her father, a court interpreter, who, even when his immediate family was struggling, would invite cousins into his home. Nciza ventured into the fashion business without any prior experience.
She hired eight seamstresses, a receptionist and rented a small studio where they could work from, financing it all herself, at a cost of around R70,000 ($6,500) a month. Revenue from her music career kept the business alive. But it was doomed from the first stitch.
“I realized a year and a half into my business that I had employed too many people and [had] too much equipment. When the recession came, I was probably the first person to go down,” she says.
“I lost a lot of money, around R600,000 ($56,000) including my savings. I was new in fashion and I needed to prove myself. I was a new designer and I couldn’t sell a R10,000 ($930) dress.”
Most times, the people who bought her dresses were those who knew her and her music, yet there were times when she struggled to make sales. She was so proud she kept the business failures to herself.
“I didn’t want to tell people that NN Vintage wasn’t there anymore,” she says. Her husband could have helped financially, but Nciza wanted to go it alone. She had to let go of nearly all the employees who worked for her. By the end of 2010, to keep her brand alive, Nciza stopped dressing clients and only designed for herself.
The following year, she went back to the drawing board. She started by sketching her own designs and slowly hired seamstresses to bring her designs to life.
“Right now it makes sense. I still want to learn more and empower myself. I want to learn how to make a garment,” says Nciza.
“When I started out, I was a bit conservative. I wore below-the-knee dresses. It was me at the time. What I do is not necessarily following trends.”
And indeed, Nciza is a fashion risk-taker. She is a musician with a palette for setting trends, just like the black and white dress on the cover of this issue, which she first wore for the opening act of the MAMAs.
“For this particular performance, I wanted attire that commanded attention, so I played with a lot of color and bright accessories. My designs are always inspired by Africa. They are feminine, yet bold and fierce at the same time,” she says.
At last year’s SAMAs, she wore a long-sleeved silver umbrella shirt with a pink ribbon around her waist and skirt. Another risk she took was at this year’s Metro FM Awards where she wore a monochrome striped peplum shirt with an umbrella skirt.
Her designs are for her fans. The revived NN Vintage is aimed at making garments for young adults and older women carving a niche in their industries.
Having been in the fashion business only a few years now, Nciza admits she is not making “crazy” money just yet, but claims people trust her brand. Nciza says she now sells garments costing up to R7,500 ($700), and is slowly getting her clients back, some from as far as Tanzania and Botswana. This would allow her to employ designers and more seamstresses and also open a store when the time is right.
“I plan to create a special range to supply to bigger stores, so it can reach all parts of the country, as that is my biggest challenge right now. I have also started with a men’s range and it will be launched soon,” says Nciza.
Few musicians are able to juggle their music careers, business and family, but Nciza is doing well.
<div id="attachment_6346" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6346" class="size-medium wp-image-6346" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/451412938-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />LOS ANGELES, CA &#8211; JUNE 28: Singer Nhlanhla Nciza of Mafikizolo performs onstage at the Music Around the Globe during the 2014 BET Experience At L.A. LIVE on June 28, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/BET/Getty Images for BET)</div>
Mafikizolo’s music is inspired by their upbringing, their neighborhoods, their stories of love, and hardship.
“You don’t need to sell your soul in order to get ahead. Try and push, only talent will get you where you want,” she says.
Indeed, hard work and talent have taken Nciza and Mafikizolo to attain the success they are enjoying today. Nciza has created a new brand of South African music and a new brand of fashion. Both have her unmistakable stamp.

The First Lady  Of Afropop

Beauty queens are tall, slender 20-somethings with wavy hair and porcelain skin pledging for world peace. While that is the widely-held perception, older women will also get to do their turn on the ramp as the contestants of Mrs South Africa on August 8 at the Emperor’s Palace
in Johannesburg.
This year, the event will see 41-year-old South African Riana Mooi try her best to win the crown; she is the oldest finalist to participate in the pageant’s history. As its name implies, Mrs South Africa is aimed at married women between ages 25 and 50. For Mooi, age is no deterrent as she hopes to inspire others like her.
“Your life does not end when you get married and have kids. You don’t need to let your age define you or limit you from opportunities,” says Mooi, who is a mother of two and works for Nedbank
in Johannesburg.
For some like Joani Johnson, who won Mrs South Africa in 2009, the contest was a stepping stone for a full-time career as a businesswoman. Two years after she won the crown, she bought the pageant for R500,000 ($47,600) from its previous owner. Since then, Johnson has been working hard on the image of the contest, and is now readying for the 2014 event. Johnson is also trying to shake off her beauty queen persona as she wants to be seen as more than just a pretty face.
“Being in the pageant industry, a lot of people assume that you’re this beauty queen, this ‘poppy’ with no brain. Sometimes you can actually use that to your advantage; I’ve walked into a lot of meetings where people have underestimated me.”
Johnson would like to see the pageant gain as much recognition as its better-known counterpart, Miss South Africa, which dates back to 1956, when Norma Vorster became its first winner.
The 2014 edition of the pageant televized to a national audience in March was a glamorous night replete with celebrity judges and special performances by famed South African musicians Mi Casa, Bucie, Matthew Mole and Brendan Jury. This was the night 23-year-old Roulene Strauss was crowned Miss South Africa 2014.
While most competitions stipulate a minimum height and size requirement, Melinda Bam, a former Miss South Africa (2011) and currently Executive Director of the pageant, says the organizers don’t put any pressure on the girls to look a certain way. Bam credits much of the success of this year’s competition to its re-branding through wide television coverage of the run-up to the pageant as well as its publicity on social media.
The pageant has been a great platform to launch careers. Basetsana Makgalemele (now Basetsana Kumalo), arguably its most successful winner, was crowned Miss South Africa in 1994, the year South Africa became a free, democratic country. Later that year, she was also crowned first runner-up at the Miss World pageant in Sun City, South Africa.
Kumalo is today a successful businesswoman in the entertainment industry. Other Miss South Africa winners to have gained fame in the entertainment sector include Jo-Ann Strauss, Cindy Nell, Nicole Flint, Bokang Montjane and Peggy-Sue Khumalo.
Strauss, this year’s winner, put a hold on her medical studies to pursue her dream, and says the win is part of her bigger plan to start a medical business. Mixing medicine and business would be following in the footsteps of her role model Precious Motsepe, a medical doctor and Executive Chairperson of African Fashion International in South Africa.
“I’ve always looked up to her. You see these business couples where the man is the strong one and the woman is the one who supports the husband. But I’ve always seen Dr Precious as someone who is independent and strong in her own way as well,” says Strauss.
While there are many critics of the beauty pageant industry, winners attest such contests lead to empowering careers like any other – only that they have to look beyond the gloss and the glam.

Beyond Lipstick & Luster

When you meet her, you are immediately struck by the assertive, determined woman she is. But beneath the tough exterior is a woman with a story, a story of adversity and abuse that has led to her becoming one of Uganda’s top travel and tour operators.
Jackie Kemirembe Rubuubi, the Founder and Managing Director of Platinum Safaris, started small. She began her career in the airline industry as a security officer with Sabena Airways, now known as Brussels Airlines. She worked there until the company, which she calls “a very professional workplace”, ran into operational troubles. It was forced to temporarily close down and change names. She had to make ends meet so she found a temporary job at the Kenya Airways office in Uganda’s capital Kampala.
Soon, a new airline, Africa One, made an entry in the Ugandan airspace. And Rubuubi was headhunted for a top managerial position. The offer came with many promises including tempting bonuses. This made her give it her best, but after some time on the job, Rubuubi started noticing the cracks.
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“Suddenly, I had multiple directors to report to instead of the one that was indicated in my appointment letter. I also never got the bonuses despite signing lucrative deals,” she says. One of the male directors particularly got meddlesome in her duties, unilaterally issuing holiday breaks to members of her team. This upset operations in the section that Rubuubi headed. Frustration set in.
“It was pure harassment and lack of professionalism,” she says.
At the height of it, she decided to have a one-on-one with the female director about the state of affairs. It was going to be a conversation she would never forget – for a long time.
“The director I sought to confide in and the one I was actually supposed to be reporting to told me that as long as I remained employed with them, it wouldn’t be strange if she asked me to go and make their beds! In her view, I was to do anything they wanted me to do despite being a manager. I immediately made up my mind to resign, bringing an end to two daunting years. It turned out to be the worst job I ever had.”
That conversation gave Rubuubi enough reason to leave – and consider starting something on her own. She retreated to London where she found a job as an accountant in a retail food chain.
Within a year, she returned to Uganda on maternity leave. She never returned to London though she kept being paid her salary. She used the money to open a garment shop. The new venture wasn’t doing well but she wanted to avoid being employed again.
It was not easy.
At one point, when she traveled to Dubai to source garments for her shop, she met a Turkish couple who convinced her to open an employment agency to recruit people in Kampala and connect them to odd jobs in Dubai.
The couple turned out to be imposters when they vanished with the $27,000 Rubuubi had given them to process visas for the 230 recruits that had registered.
Her attempts to involve Interpol in tracing them were met with numerous death threats from the couple. She finally gave up and devised a new plan.
With an International Air Transport Association (IATA) qualification under her belt, Rubuubi decided to open a travel and tour company. She registered Platinum Safaris in 2002, starting operations in a small room.
Her first client was an official from the International Criminal Court who not only became a regular but also brought in other customers. The business prospered and she registered it with professional bodies. This brought more opportunities until she shifted office to a new location.
Today, Platinum Safaris is a leading tour and travel service provider in the East African region known for services such as air-ticketing, safaris across the Great Lakes region, honeymoon packages, visa advisory, conference planning and bookings for white-water rafting and gorilla-tracking.
Last year, Platinum received an accolade from Amadeus, a firm that provides travel software and technology solutions for the global travel industry, for its high adoption of solutions. The company also has a raft of honors from other industry players including airlines.
Rubuubi’s vision is to venture into luxury tourism similar to what is offered in Morocco. She is in the final stages of acquiring speedboats that will introduce a new tourism circuit connecting major islands on Lake Victoria, Africa’s greatest lake and source of the Nile.
She says that what she went through made her realize women surely deserve better at the workplace.
“No one expects women to perform better than men. But the fact is many women are stronger than men,” she says.

Tag: Career

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The First Lady Of Afropop

Beyond Lipstick & Luster

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