Oupa Magashula discovers there is life after SARS

What do you do if you've been booted out of the top seat at the SA Revenue Service by none other than finance minister Pravin Gordhan?

Oupa Magashula, who was given his marching orders by Gordhan 18 months ago over a jobs-for-pals controversy, bought into a company selling locally made smartphones and tablets.

Magashula's company, Mint, then bought 75% of CZ Electronics last year and now plans to target the middle-income market.

Magashula is chairman of the Boksburg-based CZ.

The locally made Mint phones and tablets will be hitting the shelves next month, he says.

A basic 2G cellphone will go for R114, while the most advanced smartphones with various applications, 8GB storage and the latest Google operating system are priced between R1200 and R1500.

A tablet with built-in education features is priced at just over R2000.

Magashula says discussions are under way with a "South African billionaire" who is keen to buy shares in the company - but he wouldn't say who it was, as the deal had not been nailed down.

The company showed a profit of R85-million last year, on R185-million in revenue.

"If the brand captures 5% of the market in two years it will triple our gross profit," Magashula said.

But Magashula's company has had its fair share of hassles.

First, it was meant to launch the phones last year, but CZ Electronics ran into cash-flow problems. Then a former CZ Electronics shareholder, Seemahale Telecoms, challenged the sale of the shares to Magashula's Mint.

Seemahale believed it had been the frontrunner to buy control of CZ ahead of Magashula's company.

It was apparently dropped because it couldn't pay for the shares.

While Magashula's plan seems ambitious, Mint won't be the first to market homegrown low-cost cellphones and tablets.

In June last year, Zest Mobile launched the Zest T1 (sold for R1999 through internet service provider Afrihost), which also runs Google's latest operating system, the Android 4.4 KitKat, and boasts an 8megapixel camera, 8 Gigabytes of storage, a 4.5-inch multitouch screen and Bluetooth.

It is a competitive market. Vodacom launched its own SmartKicka-branded cellphone for R549 last year, and before that MTN launched the budget Steppa for R499.

Either way, Magashula says his company is not scared of competition.

"The dual-sim [featured in the devices] gives us the competitive edge because every South African goes around with two phones," he says.

Operating from a 3000m² factory, CZ is also building smart electricity meters, petrol pump counters, tracking devices and circuit boards for television companies.

It is even building its own LED smart TV sets, and two-way phones that will ultimately be sold to Nigerian police.

Magashula's firm has also applied to become a set-top box manufacturer for the government's multi-billion-rand project to migrate from analogue to digital TV.