While there are close to a million cars in Soweto and a strong car culture, there are no dealerships within Soweto, making it impossible to even service a car. According to Maponya, Soweto contributes close to R15 billion a year to South Africa's economy, but is frequently overlooked as a source of economic growth.
Maponya Mall represents the culmination of a long-held dream for Maponya, who spent 28 years persuading banks and developers to back him. "Nobody could believe there could be a mall of that size in Soweto that could be supported by the people of Soweto," he recalled. Finally, in 1996, Zenprop and Investec agreed to back the project.
"I always believed the people of Soweto deserved a better deal. I wanted to turn Soweto into a city within a city," adding that the mall has raised property values in the area and helped to normalise a long underserved market.
Demand has been such that an extension to the mall, from 75000 square metres to 120 000 square metres, is already being planned.
Having trained as a teacher, the former Limpopo resident worked for a clothing company. His flair for the business allowed him to buy factory-soiled garments and sold them after hours to build up capital, but a change of management in the 1960s resulted in him parting ways with the company.
"I wanted to put up first retail clothing store in Soweto," he recalls, but the apartheid laws of the day made this impossible. He did manage to get a licence to sell what was termed daily necessities, and he found his opportunity selling milk. With fridges unaffordable, people bought just enough milk to use at a time. Maponya employed ten men to deliver milk by bicycle; the following year he had nearly 100 bicycle deliverymen.
A grocery store, filling station, car dealership, and supermarket followed. His businesses had always been founded on serving people well and, as an entrepreneur himself, he is passionate about encouraging younger people to open business.
"Aspirant young people are struggling to get funding to start up a business. I would really urge our young guys to work hard to get educated. I would like to see the bankers coming up with funding that can assist such aspirant entrepreneurs. If that can happen, we would encourage people to open up businesses, create more job opportunities, and attend to the poverty structures that we see in our country," he said.
In time, he hopes that Soweto will continue to develop, eventually becoming a complete city within a city. "I would like to see even small factories established in Soweto, to create more job opportunities and take kids off street," he concludes.
