The National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry has embarked on a study to gauge the possibilities of acquiring a sizeable stake in grocery chain store Pick n Pay.
Nafcoc unveiled the plan after Pick n Pay earlier this year announced that it had closed 24 company-owned stores and eight franchise stores and converted five company-owned stores into franchise outlets as part of its turnaround strategy.
Nafcoc secretary general Richard Zulu said this during an interview with Sunday World on Friday: “We’re looking seriously at saving Pick n Pay by trying to get involved in that chain store. We have put a team together [so that it can] advise us better. Pick n Pay has been closing some of its stores and we’re seriously looking at that opportunity because part of our plan is to create community-owned stores, including community owned wholesalers. So, we see Pick n Pay as a big opportunity to achieve some of our objectives.
“Through that we can develop an ecosystem… without trying to replace products that are there in the market currently, but we see an opportunity to come up with our own home-brewed products. For instance, they want to produce their tomato sauce and cooking oil. In that way, at least we will use retail to re-industrialise at the low level.”
Turning his focus on Freedom Day, Zulu said Nafcoc, which in March celebrated six decades of existence, believes the holiday should be spent reflecting on the country’s economic failures and coming up with solutions to do better.
He pointed out how the founding fathers of the black business federation whiled away their time reflecting and planning on how to emancipate blacks from economic disparities. They include Nafcoc’s late first president, retail merchant Richard Maponya, commercial farmer Dr Sam Motsuenyane and other respected black entrepreneurs.
“Since the dawn of democracy, we have seen a number of black people becoming millionaires but we ask ourselves if that is sustainable. We see a lot of black people being pushed back to poverty levels, the gap between the rich and poor, as well as unemployment growing every day. It is not a pleasing situation,” said Zulu.
He stated the organisation resolved at its 60th birthday to embark on “Buy Black” and “Support Black” campaigns.
“We realise that part of the problem is that we believe too much in other nationalities rather than ourselves. We want to change the attitude of our people to invest together, buy together and support black business,” he said, adding that they have partnered with a number of institutions to reach its goals.
Nafcoc was conceptualised in the early 1950s by struggle icons, including past ANC president Oliver Tambo, after realising there was a need for a business arm that would deal with the economic emancipation of black people. “However, it was only after a visit during the
early 1960s to Zimbabwe, which already had a black chamber of commerce, that Motsuenyane and Maponya were inspired to launch Nafcoc.
“Coming back in 1964, they decided to launch the South African Traders Chamber of Commerce, which was spearheaded by traders. The Nafcoc leadership then resolved to create a financial institution that would be owned by blacks.”
Maponya came up with an idea to raise funds to purchase a banking licence by inviting 18-million economically active black South Africans to invest R1 in the scheme, said Zulu.
The initiative was a success, albeit 11 years later, when Nafcoc managed to form African Bank in 1975, with Motsuenyane as its founding chairman. Unfortunately, in the mid-1990s, the bank ran into financial difficulties.
Motsuenyane went on to become Nafcoc’s longest serving president – from 1968 to 1992. He died in 2023.
Zulu said Nafcoc is still going strong, owning the Pan-African Parliament building in Midrand through its investment arm Silver Vanity.
Five years ago. Nafcoc also bought what Zulu describes as Africa’s biggest textile manufacturing factory for R105-million.
