The doting family man There is a Setswana idiom, “Fa thlako ya pele e gatileng teng le ya morago e tla gata” – “where the front hoof of a cow has trodden so must the hindleg tread”, or roughly, “children must take after their parents”.

Dr Sam Motsuenyane acknowledged how his own mother and father had a profound impact on the way he lived his life and conducted himself.

While neither of his parents had much formal education, they were both devoutly Christian.

They were also diligent workers with a strong work ethic. His mother, particularly, resisted being dominated and was highly principled and insisted young Samuel and his brothers had to do their share of the chores inside the home.

Religion would always play an important part in Dr Motsuenyane’s life. He met his wife Jocelyn Nomgqibelo Mashinini in August 1953 while they were both Sunday school teachers at the Methodist church in Alexandra.

“At first sight she looked like somebody special, someone I could befriend and possibly take to the altar some time later. I did not delay in sending the right signals to Jocelyn,” he recalled.

They were married eight months later in April 1954 and settled down in Dube Village. Together they helped build a Methodist church and community there, with Dr Motsuenyane serving as a lay preacher.

Both were members of the church choir. At the time, Dr Motsuenyane was working for the African National Soil Conservation Association. This led him to travel widely and frequently, which caused a fair bit of tension between the newlyweds.

But cool heads always prevailed. Later though, Mrs Motsuenyane was able to accompany her husband on some of his longer trips.

She was with him in 1959 when he first visited the United States, but returned home to their children when he was awarded a bursary to study there.

She also accompanied him to Saudi Arabia when he was posted there as ambassador in 1996 to 2000, helping him to entertain visiting dignitaries and travelling with him around the region.

They had six children, all boys, whom they made sure got a decent education. As a Black family living in South Africa of the 1960s and 1970s, at the height of apartheid, they were not immune from the discriminatory practices of the racist National Party government.

Their eldest son, who was at university in the 1970s at the time of student uprisings against the nationalist government, eventually dropped out and did not finish his degree. Three of his sons got degrees in arts and law; another becoming a teacher. Two of his sons passed away early in life; one was a carpenter and the other, who had a tertiary qualification in business management, managed the family’s garage business in Soshanguve for 15 years.

While Dr Motsuenyane was lucky in that his children listened to him when he tried to guide them, he admitted, “sometimes they say I preach a lot. I always say that as long as there are no converts among them, I’ll continue to preach, and if you convert, I’ll stop preaching.”

Dr Sam Motsuenyane was a true man of the soil.

Before his interest in business and politics came his passion for the land and farming. For him, agriculture was at the heart of the economic development of Black people. “For development to be sustainable it must begin on the land, and where land is properly and fully utilised people will not go hungry,” he said.

As the child of sharecroppers, it was a given that his future would include agricultural enterprise.

It started in 1952, when the National Veld Trust employed Dr Motsuenyane to investigate the feasibility of setting up a soil conservation project specifically for Black people. Its goal was to highlight the problem of soil erosion and overgrazing and promote better conservation practices.

The African National Soil Conservation Association (ANSCA) was born in 1953 – its first conference reportedly “the largest meeting of African leaders since the founding of the Africa National Congress” in 1912.

Dr Motsuenyane toured the country spreading the message of soil conservation. At the same time, he was showing how proper use of the land could lead to the economic development of all Black people – across ethnic groups.

However, in 1958, the National Party apartheid government, which was at the helm of South Africa, feared this display of unity in a Black national organisation. Consequently, the divisive racist rulers demanded that the ANSCA be reorganised along ethic lines so that the Xhosa, Zulu, and Basotho had their own separate associations.

Instead of acceding to the government’s wishes, it was decided to let the organisation dissolve.

In 1960, Dr Motsuenyane and his wife Jocelyn were given the opportunity to travel to the US as part of a leadership exchange programme. While there he received a bursary to study agricultural science at North Carolina State College.

After his return to SA in 1962, instead of accepting a job offer from the Department of Bantu Agriculture as an agricultural officer, Dr Motsuenyane started a small nursery in Soweto selling flowers and trees to the residents of Rockville and other townships.

He also did some landscaping work for people who had gardens, churches, and schools.

After he became aware that the state security apparatus was keeping track of his movements in Soweto, he and his family resettled on a farm in near Winterveld.

On his retirement from public life and service in 2000, Dr Motsuenyane returned to Winterveld where he was instrumental in setting up the Winterveld United Farmers Association. His involvement eventually led to the establishment of the successful Winterveld Citrus Project in 2002.

A short six years later, the project produced 70 tons of fruit, most of which was sold to Pick n Pay.

The racist and oppressive National Party was still freshly in power when a young Samuel Motsuenyane felt the sting of racism that was afflicting millions of Black people in South Africa.

In the 1950s while employed as a messenger at a sewing machine company, he was falsely accused of stealing pinking shears. The case was eventually thrown out of court, but he was forced to spend 14 days in jail “with hardened long-term prisoners” to await trial.

He later described the imprisonment as “the most traumatic and painful” period of his entire life.

Echoing the bitter experience of many fellow black citizens, Dr Motsuenyane was later to say of his accuser: “To him all Black people deserved to be treated just like slaves, without any freedom to say no to blatant injustices and the callous violation of their human rights.”

The experience planted the early seeds of resilience and contributed to him taking a life-long stance against discrimination and developing a passion for human rights.

Under the National Party regime Black people – especially Black businesses – faced severe difficulties. They could not own property in the so-called white urban areas. They could not access loans. They had no political rights. They were restricted to certain types of trades.

But Dr Motsuenyane had the audacity to soldier on.

As president of Nafcoc, he stood up for the rights of Black people. “I would not yield to oppression, and I did not want to be seen as having sold out my nation.”

While a lifelong member of the ANC, Dr Motsuenyane was never a member of the party’s policy-making structures. So, after he had retired from Nafcoc, Nelson Mandela tasked him to lead a Commission of Inquiry into alleged human rights abuses in the ANC military camps in exile.

Over eight months, he and the other commissioners visited various sites to conduct in loco inspections. They also held public hearings, where the testimony of 50 witnesses was heard, including that of 11 alleged perpetrators.

According to South African History Online, the Motsuenyane Commission report, published in August 1993, found that the ANC was guilty of torture in its camps and that specific individuals were responsible.

The commission also found that there was a lack of accountability for excesses both at the ANC’s Quatro camp (in Angola) and during the investigation of alleged enemy agents.

In addition, it found that arbitrary detention without trial became routine and that the ANC’s Officer of Justice was not effective in administering the code of conduct to protect the human rights of detainees.

While the ANC acknowledged the commission’s findings, it felt it was inappropriate to act against its members, when human rights abuses by the apartheid government and other political parties were not being investigated.

Subsequently, the Motsuenyane Commission laid the basis for the birth of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995.

While Dr Sam Motsuenyane was not at the forefront of the ANC, he could never be considered apolitical. His life’s work was after all championing the socio-economic development of his fellow black South Africans. As a lifelong supporter of the party he attended its meetings and supported its broader principle of “delivering the freedom of my people in South Africa”.

He believed he escaped reprisal from the apartheid state because he was considered by them to be “moderate” and because of his “reconciliatory approach”.

That approach would be put to the test when business and church leaders were forced to step in to help end the deadly violence that broke in the early 1990s and threatened the peaceful transition to democracy.

The ANC had blamed the apartheid government for stoking the violence, going so far as sending then president FW de Klerk an open letter with a list of demands, including an inquiry into police violence. De Klerk rejected the demands saying he would hold a summit to investigate all violence. The ANC rejected De Klerk’s proposal – and they were at a. stalemate.

When the political process came screeching to a halt in April–May 1991, church and business leaders stepped in. A “Committee of 12” facilitators was formed – seven from the church and five from business. Among the business leaders were John Hall, president of the South African Chamber of Business, and Dr Sam Motsuenyane, then a director of Barlow Rand and president of Nafcoc.

Calling themselves the ‘Peace Facilitating Committee’, the facilitators hosted a peace indaba in Sandton between senior representatives of political parties operating at national level and trades unions on 22 June 1991. Only the white far right – the Conservative Party (CP), the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) – refused to attend, declaring it a communist plot.

The meeting ultimately resulted in the National Peace Accord, which listed the requirements for a peaceful transition to democracy. It set out for the first time on a fully multiracial basis, the principle that “the establishment of a multiparty democracy in South Africa is our common goal”.

The Accord was signed at a National Peace Convention held at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg on 14 September 1991. The Convention was to be co-chaired by two representatives from the “Committee of 12”: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and John Hall. However, King Goodwill Zwelithini threatened to pull out if Tutu co-chaired the event and Dr Motsuenyane’s services were eventually drafted to the cause.

The event attracted 400 delegates, even representatives from the far left such as the PAC and Azapo, who refused to sign the Accord, but did speak at the event. Again the only absentees were the CP, HNP and AWB.

Tutu referred to the convention a “miracle”. “I don’t mean that we have got our troubles behind us, but this is the start of a very important process: peace for all of our people in this country, stability and prosperity – they’re a possibility.”

In the 1960s to 1970s, Dr Sam Motsuenyane was given the difficult task of promoting a black bank for the people by the people, at a time when South Africa’s apartheid regime was at its most oppressive.

The National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) was struggling to raise the R1 million required to register the bank. However, the project started to gain momentum in 1972 when Dr Motsuenyane joined a black business tour group to Europe and the UK.

In London, Dr Motsuenyane took a chance and asked to meet Sir Anthony Keith, the then chairman of Barclays Bank. Dr Motsuenyane and a few fellow Nafcoc members were invited to lunch, where Dr Motsuenyane stood up to greet his host and politely told Sir Anthony that Barclays Bank owed his country and his people since they had contributed to the bank’s success in South Africa.

“It is time for your bank to turn around and see what it is that it can do to help promote […] the establishment of the African Bank in South Africa. This is our dream,” he said.

Instead of rebuffing Dr Motsuenyane’s bold overture, Sir Anthony agreed the bank owed them something and offered training to develop management skills for the bank and to contribute capital to the bank. Barclays would also help set up the bank once it had obtained a licence.

Securing Barclays’ backing proved to be a turning point for the project, with many skeptics at home now beginning to show support. That was one hurdle down, but there was a bigger one ahead: how to convince the apartheid government to issue the bank a licence, especially since the very idea flew in the face of the Nationalists’ anti-black and oppressive policies.

In 1973, while Dr Motsuenyane was in the US, he decided first to approach the African Development Bank (AfDB), a branch of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), for advice on setting up a bank. Applying for a visa to travel to the AfDB’s headquarters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, was tricky, since no African countries would issue South Africans a visa. Through his contacts Dr Motsuenyane managed to circumvent bureaucratic red tape and secure the correct travel documents. However, his journey across the Atlantic proved to be for naught. While the AfDB at first seemed receptive to Dr Motsuenyane when he presented his Nafcoc credentials. However, when he returned the following day to speak to the AfDB head he was rudely rebuffed. An AfDB official told him that as an agency of the OAU, the bank could not receive him, as the OAU did not speak to South Africa.

Dr Motsuenyane’s pleas fell on deaf ears but left the official with no doubt as to how he felt. He argued that he was not representing the South African government but the people – “the very victims of oppression in South Africa who are trying to lift their heads and do something for themselves. By doing what you are now doing to me, you are in no way helping us; you are in no way encouraging us”.

While his visit to the Ivory Coast ended in disappointment, Africa’s firm stance against the South African government was to work in his favour in Kenya a few months later. Through another contact, Dr Motsuenyane wangled an invitation to attend the AGM of the World Bank as an observer. Present at the meeting was none other than Dr Nico Diederichs, South Africa’s finance minister at the time and one of the governors of the bank. Diederichs was shocked, and possibly humiliated, when all the black delegates in the room walked out as he stood up and started to speak. It was after that that Dr Motsuenyane made his move.

Approaching the minister at lunch, Dr Motsuenyane argued it was about time for the African Bank to be registered and that it would soften the attitude and criticisms against South Africa and perhaps prevent future walkouts. Diederichs seemed receptive to the idea.

Back at home, the government agreed to register the bank under three conditions: all South African banks should be allowed to participate in African Bank, not just Barclays; the first branch of the bank had to be situated in one of the homelands; and at least six of the homelands had to support the idea of the African Bank.

Nafcoc had no real choice but to accept the conditions. And thus began a cross-country marathon in a kombi to secure the support of all the homeland leaders. They started with Mangosuthu Buthelezi in Zululand, who threw the homeland’s weight behind the idea as well as committing to buy R25 000 worth of shares.

Chief KD Matanzima of Ciskei, an old acquaintance of Dr Motsuenyane, also gave his blessing saying: “Go ahead, Sam, you have our support.”

From uMthatha in Transkei they travelled on to Ciskei to meet with Lennox Sebe, who refused to commit outright to supporting the bank and refused outright to buy shares.

So far, the Nafcoc mission was two for three.

They visited Chief Tsiame Kenneth Mopeli of QwaQwa, Lebowa’s Cedric Phatudi and Venda’s Chief Patrick Mphephu in quick succession, and all agreed to support the bank.

The delegation was five for six. Then they travelled on to Mmabatho in Bophuthatswana to see Chief Lucas Mangope. After driving thousands of kilometres in a kombi across the country, their feet were swollen. They must have been exhausted as they arrived in Mmabatho near midnight.

They’d hoped to find accommodation at the official guest house near Mangope’s home, but the keys to the house had mysteriously vanished. As a result, the delegates had to cram themselves back into the kombi where they spent an uncomfortable night. “We felt this was their way of expressing their rejection and lack of welcome, ” Dr Motsuenyane recalled.

The next day, after the delegation outlined their plans, Mangope and his cabinet rejected the proposal out of hand, emphasising they did not want to be associated with the bank.

They were five for seven. The Nafcoc delegates then continued to Gazankulu where homeland leader Professor Hudson Ntsanwisi agreed to back the bank and buy shares.

With that, they had achieved their goal, with only Mangope refusing outright to support the cause.

Dr Sam Motsuenyane was looking forward to his retirement in 1996 – after two years as leader of the Senate, then Parliament’s Upper House. The Senate was being reorganised into the National Council of Provinces, and Dr Motsuenyane was after all almost 70 years old.

Two days after his 69th birthday, on 13 February 1996, he was approached by Cyril Ramaphosa, then ANC secretary-general, who told him he was being considered for a diplomatic post in Saudi Arabia. President Nelson Mandela’s government believed his business credentials were appropriate for the ambassadorial post in the Middle East.

This approach came when the new democratic South Africa was slowly being reintegrated into the international community after decades of being vilified and isolated as an apartheid pariah state.

Crucially, South Africa was selling the new democratic and free country as an investment destination. The country was also seized with broadening economic opportunities to all its citizens while doing away with the remnants of discriminatory practices.

So, the responsibilities associated with this post in the oil-rich country were huge.

On 14 February 1996, Dr Motsuenyane was summoned to the president’s office where he was formally asked to consider taking up the post of ambassador to the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Yemen. He would be resident in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but would also be responsible for the other four countries.

Dr Motsuenyane did not accept the offer immediately but told President Mandela that he would consider it. He wanted first to discuss the move with his wife, Joyce, who would have to accompany him to Riyadh for four years. He also wanted to discuss the posting with the rest of his family, but with “some subtle pressure” from Ramaphosa he eventually agreed.

Dr Motsuenyane enjoyed the challenges of working and living abroad. During his four-year mission, he used the many opportunities available to him to convey a positive message about South Africa to the international community.

As ambassador, he prepared several visits of South African dignitaries, including President Mandela and his then deputy Thabo Mbeki and business leaders, to Saudi Arabia, and vice versa. One such important event was to organise the first large high-powered Saudi delegation to South Africa in September 1997.

The delegation landed in Cape Town in two 707 jumbo jets.

In addition to promoting South Africa as an investment destination, Dr Motsuenyane promoted its agricultural exports, particularly poultry, ostrich, sheep, and goats; wildlife conservation, which saw South Africa donate three cheetahs to Riyadh Zoo; as well as mining; manufacturing; and tourism. Also, during his tenure, South Africa concluded formal defence and miliary agreements with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

On his departure from Saudi Arabia in August 2000, Dr Motsuenyane described his years there as: “happy, fruitful and enjoyable”. Of his future, he said: “My firm decision is to retire, and to spend the rest of remaining years doing the things I like most … These are farming and writing.”

As president of Nafcoc, Dr Sam Motsuenyane realised that their fight for the economic freedom of Black people could not be divorced from the political struggle to break the shackles of apartheid.

The ANC had gone underground when the organisation was banned in 1960. Nelson Mandela and seven other ANC leaders were imprisoned by the state and others, such as Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki had gone into exile.

Amid extreme volatility in South Africa in the mid-1980s, Nafcoc decided to reach out to the ANC in exile to chart the way forward economically and to iron out any differences that might exist between them.

In 1985, tasked with delivering a Nafcoc memorandum to the ANC, Dr Motsuenyane secured a meeting with Mr Tambo in London where they discussed Nafcoc’s role in South Africa’s transition to democracy.

Dr Motsuenyane had further contact with the ANC leader, when they coincidentally bumped into each other boarding a flight from London to Lusaka. They were both on their way to visit family in Zambia. Dr Motsuenyane was booked into the economy section, but Mr Tambo managed to persuade the airline staff to move him temporarily to sit with him in first-class section. There, had a chance to further their discussions and agreed there should be greater consultations between their respective organisations.

In May 1986, Dr Motsuenyane led a 12-member Nafcoc mission to Lusaka to initiate discussions about the future economic policy for South Africa. He described the discussions as “fruitful” and said the Nafcoc delegation “was accorded high respect by the ANC”.

Not long after, on 12 June, PW Botha’s government issued a nationwide state of emergency that restricted every aspect of Black people’s lives. From 1986–1987, more than 26 000 people were detained. The state of emergency was to last until 1990, when Mr Botha’s successor, FW de Klerk, lifted the state of emergency and the ban on the ANC.

In 1989 in the dying days of apartheid, Nelson Mandela invited Dr Motsuenyane to meet him in Victor Verster Prison near Paarl in the Western Cape, where he was still imprisoned.

Mr Mandela indicated to Dr Motsuenyane that they should work together to formulate a new economic policy that was “realistic, achievable and workable”. Dr Motsuenyane cautioned Mr Mandela about the wisdom of nationalising the economy – saying the ANC did not have the resources to handle a nationalised economy, and that “the repercussions could be far more harmful and disadvantageous to the country and the very people whom the policies were intended to help”.

Dr Sam Motsuenyane had a front-row seat to history in the making when he served in the first democratic government formed by President Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1996.

Then the new Parliament was seized with the historic tasks of repealing the obnoxious racist apartheid laws from the statute books and passing major legislation to bring about democratic, non-sexist, and non-racial South Africa.

The irony was probably not lost on Dr Motsuenyane – as a legislator in the new South Africa he helped to discard the laws that nearly extinguished his dreams of forming African Bank during the tough days of the apartheid regime.

One of these mammoth tasks was the making and adoption of the new Constitution – the bedrock on which the new South Africa was built.

While having never served as a member of the ANC’s policy-making structures, Dr Motsuenyane had been a lifelong member of the organisation.

After leading the Commission of Inquiry into alleged human rights abuses at ANC military camps in exile, the North West provincial government deployed him to Parliament after the historic 1994 elections.

He never expected he would eventually serve as leader of the Upper House – then called the Senate but now known as the National Council of Provinces. For two years he served as leader, fronting debates in the House and serving on a variety of committees, from the audit committee to commerce and industry, to foreign affairs.

As chairman of the committee on provincial relations, he again found himself crisscrossing the country to hold discussions with people at grassroots level as well as provincial leaders.

Among the most memorable successes of the committee was negotiating the return of the Taung Skull, which was being kept at Wits University for teaching purposes, to the people of Taung in the North West.

He also argued for the retention of industrial activities in deep rural areas. He explained later: “If we do not do that, the amount of encroachment in our cities and the informal settlements which are cropping up everywhere around the country will continue to grow. Instead of allowing uncontrolled rural-urban migration, the economic strengthening of the areas from which these people come should be considered.”

He regretted he was not able to complete the work on this issue; however, he said of the committee: “I consider this committee to have been the most productive of all the committees I served on. It sought to find answers to the daily problems which confront our people everywhere.”

Dr Motsuenyane’s constituency was Brits in the North West, where his negotiating skills came in handy in getting two sides of the agricultural divide to come together peacefully to find a solution to sharing water. “We visualised this problem not as a Black problem, but a problem for all of us in the area.”

As a parliamentarian, Dr Motsuenyane was thankful for being able to contribute to South Africa’s development.

There were, however, two things he did not enjoy about his time in Parliament in Cape Town: being away from his wife, who remained at their home in Winterveld; and the unforgiving wintry weather.

Dr Sam Motsuenyane’s involvement in African Bank started in 1964, when the seeds of the idea for a bank for the people by the people were first sown at the very first conference of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc), then known as the National African Chamber of Commerce (Nacoc).

It would take another 10 years for that seed to take root, and it was largely thanks to the perseverance and steady guiding hand of Dr Motsuenyane that it eventually bore fruit.

The idea was born out of the realisation that a Black bank was needed to promote and finance Black economic development. It was an audacious idea at that time – the apartheid regime was at its most oppressive and the rights of Black people were summarily being stripped away. In fact, Nacoc’s first conference was held only one month before the Rivonia Trial, which found Nelson Mandela and seven ANC comrades guilty of treason and sentenced them to life in prison.

Virtually all black anti-apartheid organisations were banned. Many of their leaders were either in jail or fled into exile to escape prosecution. The grim menace of death in detention became a new ominous feature in the suppression of resistance against apartheid.

In addition to the draconian pass laws restricting their movement, Black people were not allowed to own property in urban areas, and it was illegal for them to run businesses in townships, unless they provided essential goods and services. Those who ran shops could only sell a pre-approved list of 26 items.

While Black people could bank their money in traditional banks, it was impossible to access loans. Loans required collateral, which Black people simply did not have.

“Interestingly though, financial institutions were always happy to take our money whenever we brought it in for banking. They just did not bother recycling the money back into our communities,” Dr Motsuenyane recalled.

Having attended university in the US, Dr Motsuenyane had witnessed firsthand how Black communities there had set up their own banks to solve the same problem of access to capital. He used his experiences in the American South to help convince Nacoc that a Black bank was a necessity for the economic development of Black people in South Africa.

He also played a major role in raising capital for the venture. It proved to be slow going. In 1964, a call had gone out to Nacoc members to donate R100 a year.

At that first meeting the princely sum of R70 was raised. The chief obstacle to fundraising was the belief that any Black venture on this scale was doomed to failure.

“People need to have a history of successes to believe things can be done. Where people or communities have a history of failures, or of restricted progress and development, they come to believe that everything is impossible. This is quite sad and true about many African communities who have not seen themselves achieve anything and succeed. They wrongly believe that nothing can be done,” Dr Motsuenyane would write later.

There was nothing for it, but to roll up his sleeves. Following his election in 1968 as Nafcoc’s third president, it was up to Dr Motsuenyane to cultivate support for the idea of an African Bank. An account was opened at the Church Square branch of Barclays Bank in Pretoria, where those who wanted to buy shares in the new bank could deposit their contribution of at least R100.

Dr Motsuenyane traversed the globe to drum up support for the bank – his journey taking him from the US to Europe and the UK, to the Ivory Coast and Kenya.

Despite setbacks he persevered.

He engineered a meeting with the South African finance minister, Nico Diederichs, on the sidelines of a World Bank gathering in Kenya and managed to convince him that by registering the African Bank, the government would be able to soften increasingly hostile attitudes towards the country.

Back home, the government agreed to allow the registration of African Bank – with several provisos, including that the first branch of the bank be in a homeland and that at least six of the homelands had to support the idea of the African Bank.

That meant Dr Motsuenyane had to pack his bags again. In a marathon trip, he and his Nafcoc colleagues travelled the length and breadth of South Africa to get support. In the end, they managed to secure the backing of six homeland governments, bar Bophuthatswana.

The next hurdle was to get buy-in from Bophuthatswana to locate the first branch in Ga-Rankuwa near Pretoria. There was such massive support from the people of the homeland that the South African government could no longer hold back its approval.

When African Bank was finally registered in 1975, Dr Motsuenyane was elected as its first chairman, a post he held for almost 20 years.

“On that day when we inaugurated the first branch of the African Bank, there was a tremendous downpour of rain. Just after we said ‘Amen’, the rain came down in torrents. We sang ‘Glory hallelujah” when our long-cherished dream was transformed into reality,” Dr Motsuenyane recalled.

Dr Motsuenyane resigned from the board in 1995 when he was posted as South Africa’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

In the intervening years, Dr Motsuenyane remained a true friend to African Bank, through all its ups and downs – championing its cause to remain a bank for the people by the people, just as he had envisioned it.

An audacious feat, indeed.

It was with deep and heartfelt sorrow that African Bank today learnt of the passing of the bank’s founding chairperson, Dr Sam Motsuenyane, at the age of ...

The loss of Dr Motsuenyane will have an enormous impact across South Africa and worldwide – both in the business sector and on the lives of ordinary South Africans.

He will be remembered for having immense positive impact in his multiple roles in his life:

He was the son of the soil. He was a parliamentarian. He was a diplomat. He was a father. He was a family man. He was a human rights champion. He was a devout religious man.

Above all, he was a superb entrepreneur, who did not accept any barriers.

This black business pioneer rebelled and worked relentlessly against the heavy odds created by the intransigent racist National Party. But he triumphed.

His hard-fought battles have become a source of inspiration for us all who love and believe in the future of this country. Today black businesses can hold their heads high, thanks to the resolute groundwork of pioneers such as Dr Motsuenyane.

At a time when South Africa’s economy is struggling to keep its head above water, with growth languishing at below 1% and unemployment at all-time highs, the country would do well to remember Dr Motsuenyane’s audacity to set ambitious goals and then, most importantly, to follow through to ensure those goals were met.

Instead of hiding his head in the sand, he confronted challenges head-on, believing that if you had a problem, you found a solution. And you persevered until those challenges were overcome.

At a time when South Africa has been greylisted by the global Financial Action Task Force, we would do well to remember the integrity displayed by Dr Motsuenyane in his business dealings.

At a time when South Africa’s people have been polarised into different groupings, which seem to be proliferating at an exponential rate, Dr Motsuenyane’s experience in negotiating with people from across the political spectrum would have been invaluable.

That was despite his not being a political animal, or perhaps because of it. That loss in incalculable. At a time when a large percentage of people seem to be driven by selfish motives or greed, Dr Motsuenyane’s selfless commitment to building a better future for generations to come will be particularly missed.

While we mourn the loss of Dr Motsuenyane, we celebrate his many contributions to the country. Our hope is that we continue to learn from the lessons he has left behind.

We can honour his legacy by ensuring his dreams are kept alive and continue to be fully realized. African Bank joins the rest of the country in sending its condolences to Dr Motsuenyane’s wife, Joyce, his children, and grandchildren.