Breaking the stereotype
PIETERMARITZBURG business owner Thokozane Masikane grew up in abject poverty as one of seven siblings when her parents remained unemployed after migrating from rural KwaZulu-Natal in search of jobs in the city.
But her difficult beginnings taught Masikane, 39, to overcome adversity and after she started her first job as a cashier at Checkers in Cascades Mall she realised she needed a more challenging line of work. She had originally wanted to become a social worker, but quit her job and joined the SAPS as a police reservist.
Masikane, who is married to Dolo Zondi and has two children, worked initially as a volunteer at Plessislaer Police Station in Edendale and she later worked with the Child Protection Unit in the CBD.
When her application to join the police service as a paid employee was rejected, she looked around for business ideas and decided to enter another male-dominated field, the building industry.
Masikane set up her business, Tiba T Trading, and early projects included supplying fencing to the Msunduzi Municipality and other smaller fencing jobs in 2006.
She noticed there was a demand for cement blocks for a sanitation project for the Mvula Trust and approached the trust, which trained her and her six staff to produce the blocks.
“I decided to buy an ‘egg-layer’ machine to make blocks for housing projects and I supplied the trust and sold my blocks to the community,” she said.
She went on to purchase additional machinery that could produce SABS quality blocks for government housing and a loan obtained from Ithala Development Finance Corporation for this purpose.
Masikane landed a plum fiveyear contract, recently renewed, to supply blocks to the Vulindlela Development Association for use in government housing projects.
Masikane made sure she received training on all her equipment because she wanted to ensure she knew as much as the machine operator she had employed. Today Masikane’s block manufacturing firm employs 18 people and recently won the Ithala micro-business of the year 2017 award.
“I started this business as a very small thing and now I have got 18 people and that really means something to me because my staff are all bread winners, so I am giving someone something to eat,” Masikane said.
But as the only woman in the business she said it is sometimes tough to get people to take her seriously and she has to work twice as hard to prove herself in the industry.
“The big challenge is when people see a woman they start to not trust that you know what you are talking about because there is a mindset among people that this is not a place for ladies. Everywhere you go, you have to convince them you know what you are talking about,” she said.
But that’s exactly why she decided to go into the building industry.
“I like the challenges and it is male dominated – if a man can do this why not me?
I thought let me go in and see if I can do this because to be a woman doesn’t mean you can’t think as a man,” she said.
Her plans include acquiring a truck and trailer so she can improve competitiveness by providing customers with transportation of over 1 000 blocks per load.
“There is big competition in block making and transport is the main thing that affects price competitiveness for our customers,” she said.