The influencial businessman takes the 013NEWS reporter into his heart, revealing some of the key players in Mpumalanga politics as his family members.
PRET leader Themba ‘Masofa’ Sgudla has told 013NEWS that Mpumalanga ANC treasurer Vusi Shongwe is his cousin and PEC member Sibusiso Sgudla his brother.
Not going into details, Masofa said they were raised by a very strong father who taught them “how to walk, how to live and how to give services to society, in response to what God can do for you”.
“That is a teaching that we got and today we are reaping from it,” he said.
Sgudla said his father, whose name he didn’t divulge, has always been there in the ANC.
“If I can tell you who my father is and what he was doing for the movement you can be shocked but we don’t claim that because we were told not to do that. Not in their names,” Sgudla said.
“We are children of the same cadres who kept the ANC alive all these years but we don’t boast with it as we were taught not to,” he told the 013NEWS reporter.
He said Sibusiso, the powerful politician residing in Ermelo and the PEC convener of the ANC in the Gert Sibande region, is the child of the younger brother of his father.
“He’s my brother,” Masofa said.
“And if you look at Vusi Shongwe, same blood. He is the child of the sister of my father,” Sgudla said.
Vusi Shongwe. PIC MfisoDIGITAL/ZK.
“You must look at the posture of Vusi Shongwe, posture of Sibusiso and myself is one thing,” Sgudla told the reporter.
Themba ‘Masofa’ Sgudla. PIC MfisoDIGITAL/MLM.
WATCH: Sgudla explains how PRET will work
Sibusiso Sgudla. PIC MfisoDIGITAL/ZK.
“Then if you look at Mandla Sgudla in Kwaggafontein and Herschelle Sigudla, the physiotherapist in eMalahleni, same. Those are my brothers. Herschelle was born right after me, he’s the child of my father and mother,” Sgudla said.
Sgudla was replying to a statement released by SANCO this week charging that he should be investigated and charged for “money-laundering” for his habit of dishing out R200 notes to poor people during community meetings.
He said their success is due to the teachings they got from their parents that “a giving hand is blessed”.
“And today we are reaping from it,” he said. “Go to God and ask what is “money-laundering”? When God creates all of us we are given a different mandate and the mandate that I was born for I know and I will die with it,” he said.
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He said he did training in the 1980s as an upholsterer and began a business fixing and covering furniture for the people of eMalahleni, which is where his nickname ‘Masofa’, meaning ‘sofas’, come from.
He was merely a 23-year-old boy with “a mind to enter business and unleash my God-given business talents”.
“I have worked hard for everything I have and when I give people money it’s my money. I don’t steal money. I can do anything I like with my money, including buying expensive things and enjoying it alone but I don’t want to do that. I want to help people develop and become billionaires like myself and which is the reason PRET was formed. Why do they bark at me for my money? he asked.
He said he doesn’t do tenderpreneurship”, saying those who say so are lying.
“Everybody knows I’m not a tenderprenuer. Those who say I’m a tenderprenuer are mistaken. I’ve never filled up a form and applied to the municipalities, no, no. I don’t do that. I’m an enteprenuer, a businessperson, a property developer, an industrialist. I buy land and develop it. I own office blocks across the province and in Gauteng,” he said.
(edited by ZK)
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