Motsuenyane a trailblazer for achieving the hard way

The new South African society is being shaped in large part by role models - good ones sometimes and, at others, unfortunate examples of what we can and should want to be.

Nelson Mandela was the man most of us hoped to emulate in the giddy opening decade of South African democracy.

He was wise, gracious, funny, attractive - and powerful.

He pricked through the pomposity of political elitism, invented a fashion of sorts with his open-necked shirts and silky trousers, and embodied the highest ideals of African culture.

But Madiba's example was mainly one of deep humanity.

He taught us how to be better people, not richer people.

According to the presidency's 2010 development indicators, 65% of the population still live below the R552-a-month threshold of what is called "expenditure poverty".

Other measures define between 27% and 46% of South Africans as poor. In that context, it is not surprising that, after mere survival, accumulating wealth is the primary focus of our society.

And for those of us who are not natural entrepreneurs, education and example are always going to be essential ingredients of self-improvement.

Just about everyone with access to newsprint has had a go at the tragic disconnect between policy and product in our education system, but little is written or said about the significance of role models, who sometimes show a way around life's major obstacles.

Take Sam Motsuenyane, who some call the father of black business. When he was trying to build a business in the emerging Soweto township some 50 years ago, he was consistently thwarted by restrictive apartheid laws he could not change, but when the banks hobbled him by refusing to lend him the capital he needed, he and a few friends launched their own - the African Bank.

He said it took 10 years to raise the first R1-million towards the project and admitted that, in the end, he lost control of his creation. But for an example of the determination and grit that could help us make a new South Africa better than the interim model we have created so far, that is a story hard to beat.

"People must, at the beginning, empower themselves. You can't be empowered by others. We must not expect that the government will do everything for us," he said.

But as Dumisani Mpafa, a black empowerment specialist and local Black Management Forum leader, said on the same recent panel discussion, Motsuenyane is not an average man and not everyone could do what he did. Motsuenyane, Mpafa and the third panelist, Nopinkie Gqalo from the Department of Trade and Industry, concurred that while economic liberation should be seized just as political liberation was, the state and its institutions do owe the poor a helping hand.

I was surprised to learn the full extent of the help available from the Department of Trade and Industry for anyone with an ounce of initiative and the right to call himself historically disadvantaged.

In the lively debate that followed, one young man complained it was unfair that he should be expected to raise a fifth of the finance needed to execute a government tender steered his way by the BBBEE infrastructure created to break the apartheid business mould.

He found little sympathy from the panel. I could not help wondering what a young Motsuenyane would have done with the range of programmes open to aspiring entrepreneurs today.

He does not begrudge the young this help. In fact, he insists the government should offer subsidies and even some protection against competition.

In the end, it is people, not policies or well-funded programmes that will get the South African economy running like a Chinese computer factory.

"We need to start looking at value-adding businesses. We need to create industries. We need to find the people who will create and own businesses," said Mpafa.

Motsuenyane added: "We must encourage our black people to become job creators and not just job-seekers. It cannot only be white people who are job-creators - they are too few."

Comparing Motsuenyane's example of hard work and steady accumulation to the example of the make-me-rich Malema generation, I'm with the old guy.

• Brendan Boyle is editor of the Daily Dispatch