The South African business legend who fought for 28 years to build one of the country’s most iconic shopping malls
Dr Richard Maponya overcame apartheid-era obstacles to build a business empire, including the renowned Maponya Mall.
Known as “the grandfather of black business”, Richard John Pelwana Maponya was born in northern Limpopo in December 1920.
He lived in the Lenyenye township, attended primary school in Spitzkop and went to complete his Matric in Ga-Mamabolo.
Following his completion of high school, he moved to Polokwane, where missionaries trained him as a teacher.
With a qualification under his belt, he moved to Johannesburg in 1948 (the year the National Party assumed power and institutionalised apartheid) in search of a teaching post.
Upon moving to Johannesburg, he bumped into a relative who told him that a department store in the CBD was looking to hire personnel, so he took a job as a merchandiser.
Working alongside his white manager, they targeted clothing selections for black consumers, leading to rapid sales and the manager’s eventual promotion to CEO.
Despite their success, discriminatory racial laws prevented the manager from promoting Maponya further.
“When he got promoted, he called me to his office and thanked me for helping him reach that point. He said ‘unfortunately I can’t promote you because you have a ceiling over your head, you cannot oversee white people,’” Maponya recalled in an interview with Forbes.
With Maponya keen on making a name for himself in the business world and the manager cognisant of Maponya’s role in getting him to where he was, he sold him soiled cloth and offcuts in the early 1950s, which he successfully resold after hours in Soweto, Johannesburg.
With the capital acquired, Maponya wanted to then open a clothing store in Soweto.
However, apartheid laws restricted business licences for black business owners. The application was blocked by the government, despite intervention by the law firm created by Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.
He was ultimately granted authorisation to sell “daily necessities.”
He and his wife Marina started a milk delivery business that employed ten people on bicycles who sold milk around the township. From these humble beginnings, his empire grew.
This self-funded venture rapidly expanded to later employ over 100 people on bicycles supplying milk to households who did not own fridges.
Then, big business woke up. “Clover saw the potential of selling milk in the townships, and they started coming with big trucks to sell. They took the bulk of my clients, and I realised I couldn’t compete with them,” said Maponya.
Knowing when to let go, Maponya gave up the milk-selling business for Maponya’s Supply Stores, a backstreet store that grew into a retail empire.
“I started with a butchery, then a fruit and vegetable store, and then a grocery store with two tables inside where we sold cooked food,” he said.
Maponya’s Supply Stores expanded rapidly across Soweto, cementing himself as a household name.
However, Maponya struggled with getting the right people to manage the stores.
“The only stores where people were making a profit were the ones where my wife and I were operating. The other stores would break even or run at a loss,” he said.
This encouraged him to look for other opportunities. So, he built Mountain Motors, the second black-owned garage in Soweto.
“It surprised everybody. Some say it was the biggest in the southern hemisphere. We were selling petrol in an unbelievable manner. We were getting support from every black person in Soweto, selling over a million litres per month,” he recalled.
Mountain Motors became the first black-owned garage to have a motor vehicle dealership. Like his other businesses, it took off.
Later on, BMW invited him to take over a dealership in Soweto.
“That made history…. it was history that a black man would sell cars those days… I would get an allocation of about 30 cars per month, and I would sell all of them in a week… I would borrow cars from other dealers and sell three times my allocation per month,” he said.
He tried and failed to increase his allocation of cars. Paying staff was hard when there were no cars to sell. He closed down the motor business and went on the hunt for a new venture.
“As an entrepreneur, you should always know when you have made money, and the business won’t be worth your energy anymore. It doesn’t mean it has failed, it means you have dug everything you can from it and it is time for something new that may make you more money,” said Maponya.
He decided to go after his lifelong dream – establishing a world-class shopping mall in the heart of Soweto.
In 1979, Maponya acquired land for the mall on a 100-year lease. In 1994, South Africa became a democracy. After several attempts, he was able to acquire it outright.
But the battle was only just beginning.
“You won’t believe it if I tell you I started building it on the 28th year. They said the people of Soweto would never support a mall in Soweto because they want to shop in the city where there are brighter lights, and I told them it’s not true,” said Maponyane.
“I had been fighting and fighting, but I said as long as they don’t put a bullet on my forehead, I won’t stop,” he said
On September 27, 2007, Nelson Mandela, the man who had been in prison for as long as it took Maponya to build the mall, cut the red ribbon to open the long-awaited Maponya Mall.
“It was the highlight of my entire life. To see this come to life made all the pain I have ever gone through in business worth it,” he said.
Today, the 65,000 square-metre R650-million mall has more than 200 stores and a cinema; it is also one of the largest shopping centres in South Africa and one of the growing Johannesburg attractions.
“I am very proud of the mall. It can stand anywhere in the world and compete. I am proud I have built something for the people of Soweto because I have always wanted it to be an economic hub.”
A number of firsts were achieved by the trailblazer which include him being the first black member of the SA Jockey Club (sporting ANC colours at the height of apartheid), and the head of the first black JSE-listed company.
His efforts to fight for black business would see Maponya become the founding president of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce & Industry (Nafcoc) in 1964 and was chairman of the African Chamber of Commerce.
He would continue to advocate the needs of black businesses, particularly small and medium-sized ones, throughout his life.
“I wasn’t born to be an entrepreneur, I learned to be one. I don’t think anyone is born to be an entrepreneur, you learn,” said Maponya.
“The reason I succeeded during the apartheid era was because I never took no for an answer; because if you say no to me, there must be a very good reason. If there wasn’t [a] reason I would keep on knocking at your door demanding to know the reason why,” he added.
His impact was best summed up in his own words to Time magazine: ‘I wasn’t locked up. But I was undermining the regime. I was exposing them. I was making the statement that, given a chance, a black man could become as successful as a white man.’
In January 2020, Maponya passed away shortly after his 99th birthday.
“Dr Maponya’s life is a testament to resilience, determination and the power of vision: namely to see black business grow to assume its full role as the key participant and driver of our economy,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said after his passing.
“He was of that rare breed of entrepreneurs who would not be held back or become disheartened by difficult operating conditions – in fact, having obstacles put in his path drove him even further to succeed,” added Ramaphosa.
Read: The South African family who built a 55-year-old property empire
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