|
Answer is blowing in the wind
|
|
|
Carol Paton
Financial Mail
Friday, February 19, 2010
|
|
|
|
As a child growing up in the Tsitsikamma, Eastern Cape, entrepreneur Mike Msizi thought he lived in the windiest place in SA.
Now the majority shareholder in an alternative-energy company that plans to build a wind farm where he grew up, he has found out that what he thought as a boy is pretty much true. Wind speed measurements rate the area the second windiest in the country, says Msizi, who has persuaded the Amafengu community to make their 7 000 ha farm, obtained through land restitution, available as the site for the wind turbines.
The community has set up a trust, through which it will participate in the project, inspired by Msizi's enthusiasm. Msizi himself has established a company - Watt Energy - which in turn has partnered coal-supplying giant Exxaro as the commercial force to drive the venture.
His aim is to become one of SA's new generation of independent power producers, producing 40 MW of power to sell into the national grid.
Producing wind energy was an idea that hit him in the midst of Eskom blackouts two years ago.
"The place where I grew up was so windy that I always thought this would be a possibility. When the Eskom crisis happened I was the first one to come to the Eastern Cape government in Bhisho and say let's get something going. It's about having a can-do attitude," he says.
However, the choice of a completely new industry, which requires large capital investment and has uncertain returns, is not the usual springboard for the average black entrepreneur trying to break into the world of business. But Msizi is not the usual kind of guy.
He started out as the owner of a small corner shop in Port Elizabeth and worked his way up to become one of the city's biggest distributors of SA Breweries products, supplying most of Motherwell's shebeens.
With a bit of a reputation as a businessman, he was later appointed a non executive director of Shatterprufe, the PE-based windscreen manufacturer.
But besides his business experience, there is a lot more colour to Msizi's past. He had a lengthy stint as an ANC exile, including many years in Denmark; a couple of seasons as a television actor on an SABC wrestling show; and a term as a city councillor for the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, which he still serves.
From all of these things, Msizi seems to have gathered and learnt: from sitting on the Shatterprufe board he gained business acumen; from living in Denmark he learnt about alternative energy; and from WWP Thunderstrike, in which he plays the role of a cigar-smoking "chairman", he learnt to create opportunities and grab them.
The Danish connection has been particularly useful. Denmark has the biggest wind energy industry in the world with many of the turbines owned by co-operatives and families. Msizi has used his Danish connections to secure donor funding for the Eastern Cape Community Wind Development Association which is part of his consortium, from development agency Danida.
It is Msizi's positive approach which has led him down these varied paths, and which he says is sadly missing in both government officials and the many ordinary citizens he encounters on a daily basis.
He bemoans the problem that "these days everybody wants something free". As a black entrepreneur he is endlessly hassled, he says, by people who want handouts - jobs, money or contracts - but do little to help themselves.
It is an attitude that is the antithesis of his personality which, if confronted by failure, will move on and try again.
|
|
|
 Print this article |
 Send to a friend
|
|