A MAN WHO ISN’T ‘TYRED’ OF LIFE |
Ex-con has turned his life around with his dream of success
MARTIN Polite Sibanda, 39, is an ex-con full of dreams who is refusing to let his past determine his future.
His story is one of a young man making bad decisions at a very young age who now wants to become the first black man to own a South African tyre and rubber manufacturing company.
Through this venture, he also wants to create employment for the youth with skills and to challenge the monopolistic industry.
He has already begun talks with overseas partners who want to help him realise his dream.
His Vaal-based company started last year and currently employs five workers.
Sibanda grew up in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, with his mother and father, who is a pastor.
He dropped out of school at a young age and his father disowned him when he chose a different path and left him to fend for himself on the streets.
“I lived in Tembisa and many other places and at some point l was even homeless. My friends and I would hop from nightclub to nightclub and eat what people left behind because we did not have a place to sleep or money to buy food,” he recalled.
Sibanda confessed that he started committing minor crimes at a young age to survive. As he got older the crimes became more serious, which eventually led to his arrest in 2005 and jail sentence of 30 years in 2007.
“I found myself excelling in the crime business. I thought I had made it until we got arrested in the Free State and I found myself at a maximum security prison.
“I was alone with my thoughts and no one to influence my actions. That was when I realised that I have so much potential but no education. I enrolled at the prison school and passed my matric in 2010,” he said.
There’s always one person that believes in you when nobody else does, and that person for Sibanda was Pastor David Mtshotwane, who visited prisons from time to time to pray for the inmates and give them guidance.
He took a liking to Sibanda and signed for his parole in 2015, which meant he had to move to Vanderbijlpark Park to live with him.
“l was glad that I was moving to a place far from Tembisa and Joburg, where it all started, but life outside was not quite what I thought it was,” he said.
To better his future, he is studying public relations at the Vaal University of Technology, and has their full support in his business ventures.
In 2015, he created a company called Polite Communications, which offers manual labour services such as catering, printing and the installation of air conditioners.
He saved enough capital to open a new company last year, Uhuru Tyres, and has big plans for his company and his future.
“I am excited for the future. My family now supports me and l have a great team working with me,” he said.
He said the idea to make tyres came while he was behind bars and what inspired him further was that many young people would normally aspire to buy vehicles before buying property.
He hopes to launch his own tyres next year. |