Family business cutting it under Jozi@Work

01 February 2016

 

In South Africa, it is rare for mothers to go into business with their sons.

 

Most enterprises are patriarchal in nature. That is why one finds family businesses registered under names such as Edward Dube & Son or Hannes Vermeulen & Seun. It’s never Elvis Khuzwayo & Daughters or Millicent Magwaza & Son.

However, things are a-changing. An enterprising family in Braamfischerville in the City of Johannesburg's Region C has shown it can be done. Thembi Matutu and her son, Nzima, have gone into business together and have registered their enterprise as Nzima & Thembi Trading.

The company is one of hundreds of small township businesses benefiting from Jozi@Work, a R3-billion mass empowerment and job creation programme championed by Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau to tackle unemployment, poverty and inequality confronting the city. The initiative is changing the way the City conducts its business by awarding work packages running into several thousands of rands to small and micro businesses and co-operatives. Ordinarily, such work would have been awarded to established companies.

Since December last year mother and son, clad in their trademark canary yellow Jozi@Work overalls, have been hard at work, cutting grass in public spaces in and around Ward 114 in Roodepoort and Florida after their company was awarded a R48 000 work package by Johannesburg City Parks & Zoo.

Their remarkable work is there for every one to see, especially along President Fouche, General Pienaar, Albertinah Sisulu and Jim Fouche roads. All in all the company has 10 employees, with six of them working as brush cutters. The entrepreneurial bug in the Matutu family first gnawed at mom Thembi when the shoe boutique she worked for as a salesperson went under in 1989. With four young children to feed, educate and clothe, MaThembi - as she is fondly known - decided to take the bull by the horns by venturing into the taxi business.

With dwindling daily takings, industry violence and unreliable drivers, her taxi was almost repossessed a few months after going into the business.
As fate would have it, it did not get any better. The taxi was hijacked, killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

As a result of their worsening financial situation, Nzima and his mother decided to move from Dobsonville to low-cost Braamfischer nearby. It took the family years to recover financially.

In 2012 they registered their own company, which specialises in garden services, tree pruning, grass cutting, passenger services, office and domestic cleaning, and courier services. Mother and son enthuse about the empowerment opportunity Jozi@Work has given them.

"As small businesspeople the experience we will gain is invaluable. But more than anything, having done work for the City raises our company profile and we hope to get good references from it going forward," said Nzima.

He described the work package as a platform to greater things, saying it had made a big difference to the family.