Johannesburg - A group of African tribal chiefs in rural Mpumalanga and Limpopo have broken with the tradition of subsistence agricultural activities to become the first members of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of SA to lead their communities into a modernised multimillion-rand investment venture.
Chief Mathe of the Bagaga tribe in Limpopo and chiefs Dlamini of Embhuleni in Mpumalanga, Mathebe of the Bantoane in Loskop, Nkosi Kenneth of Emjindini in Barberton, Nkosi of Eludlambedlwini in Mpumalanga, and Manenzhe of Manenzhe, Mogane of Mogane, Chiloane of Moletele and Setlhare, all from Limpopo, have come together in a company called the Traditional Authorities Investment Company (Taic) to acquire a stake in the R570 million Komatiland forestry deal.
Taic has a 70 percent stake in Imbokodvo Lemabalabala, the empowerment partner that holds 30 percent in Bonheur, which the government last week appointed as the preferred bidder in the deal in the Komatiland deal.
A company called Koti Investments holds the remaining 30 percent in Imbokodvo Lemabalabala.
The different tribes in turn double or function as community investment companies.
Moses Molefi, the chairman of Taic, said that in each instance, the chief held 10 percent in his or her community investment company while individuals in the community, a community development trust and the tribal council each held 30 percent stakes.
Molefi said Taic was also in talks with three traditional authorities in northern KwaZulu-Natal with a view to bringing them into Imbokodvo Lemabalabala because certain parts of the Komatiland forests were in that province.
The three Zululand traditional authorities that have entered talks are Nseleni Mbonambi, Ongoye Mkhwanazi and Hlabisa Mpukunyoni.
Taic is the the country's first broad-based empowerment company to clinch a stake in such a high-profile deal, underlining the government's new approach to encouraging previously disadvantaged South Africans to participate in the mainstream economy of the country.
This follows the gazetting of the national empowerment strategy earlier this year by Alec Erwin, the minister of trade and industry, which was predicated on a widespread criticism of a black economic empowerment model that seemed to benefit only a few high-profile black individuals at the expense of the majority.