President Cyril Ramaphosa paid glowing tribute to business icon Richard Maponya while delivering the eulogy at the funeral of the entrepreneur in Johannesburg Tuesday.
“He loved his country and he loved his people. He was a soldier, not of the battlefield, but at the frontline of the struggle for the economic emancipation of his people – a struggle that endures to this day,” said Ramaphosa at the UJ’s Soweto Campus.
He was a “true patriot.”
Maponya died last Monday after a short illness. He celebrated his 99th birthday on Christmas eve.
Former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe were also in attendance, along with host of other dignitaries which included Nelson Mandela’s widow Graca Machel and former deputy foreign affairs minister Aziz Pahad.
Ramaphosa described Maponya as a man of “extraordinary resilience” who “persevered until he reached the pinnacle of success.”
“And yet he remained humble, magnanimous and generous. South Africa indeed has lost one of her finest sons.”
Ramaphosa said Maponya had stood for self upliftment and inspired a new generation of business people.
“Despite his stature as the doyen of black business, he was always there with a hand to pull up those who stood below. Having scaled the heights, he wanted to see others alongside him on the rostrum of success.”
Maponya did not see corporate social investment as a box ticking instead, but as an imperative to transform a racialised economy, he said, adding that during apartheid, Maponya viewed black business as part of the broad liberation movement to advance economic freedom.
“He did not hoard the gains he made over his decades in business, but ploughed much of it back into the communities in which he operated,” said the president.
Maponya was a straight-talker, said the president, who did not hesitate to chide government when it was going off course.
“I personally received many a late night call from him, sharing his viewpoint on one or another pressing issue of the day.
“In my very last engagements with him he urged me to do everything I can to see his greatest dream realised, to set up a youth entrepreneurship academy.
“It is a wish I will endeavour to see fulfilled on his behalf,” Ramaphosa said.
