Deputy Minister of Military Veterans Richard Hlophe, commonly known as Richard Mkgungo officially opened a bakery that is run by military veterans in Mamelodi photos by Dimakatso Modipa
Deputy Minister of Military Veterans Richard Hlophe, commonly known as Richard Mkgungo officially opened a bakery that is run by military veterans in Mamelodi on Thursday.
The Minister explained that the bakery is aimed at benefitting struggle stalwarts so that they can be able to put food on the table for their families like all other people.
“We chose to open the bakery in Mamelodi because it is closer to Amscor, which will be monitoring the business to make sure that everything runs smoothly here,” he said.
The Minister said R430 000 was used to establish the bakery and part of that money will be used to provide training for staff members so as to equip them with proper skills to run this entity independently.
“The military veterans and their beneficiaries are the ones who will be working on the business and it was spearheaded by the Minister of Military Veterans together with Amscor.
“The bakery will go some way in alleviating the rate of unemployment among veterans because it is only unemployed veterans who will be working at the bakery and no one who is employed somewhere will be allowed to come and work here,” he said.
“Training for veterans has already started and they are ready to start working but there will be further, continuous training courses to make sure that they have all the required skills to run the bakery,” he said.
He revealed that in the past military veterans were given various businesses and companies but those enterprizes collapsed due to lack of proper training for the veterans in any given business venture.
“There’s lots of military veterans who didn’t benefit anything at all for their efforts in the struggle against apartheid and the ushering of democracy in South Africa and we know them, we care about them and we want to take care of them,” said the Deputy Minister.
“The Department of Military Veterans was set up specifically to take care of the welfare of the former liberation war fighters in the form of pension funds, medical aid schemes,” he said.
He went on to say they as the Department of Military Veterans have realised that some of the military veterans are still physically and mentally fit to work and can work in projects like the one similar to the bakery enterprise.
He urged the community of Mamelodi to support the veterans’ bakery business and stop supporting businesses that are in the suburbs or the CBDs where they would for example purchase bread for R20 while the selfsame bread is available in the township at a cheaper price,” he said as he opined that this scenario is caused by the fact that in many instances black people don’t trust businesses that are run by their own black folks.
Military veteran Eric Mahlangu told Tshwane Talks that he is a member of the Jelani Cooperative which is solely owned by military veterans and its purpose is to improve the lives of the veterans as the majority of them are indigent and destitute.
“The cooperative was registered in 2024 but we have been struggling with funds to start any sort of business ever since, but we managed to meet up with the South African National Military Veterans Association (SANMVA), who connected us with Amscor which has a sector that takes care of military veterans and this is where we got financial support to start a bakery business,” said Mahlangu.
He said military veterans are the ones who will be running the day-to-day affairs of the bakery.
“We are going to produce quality bread at an affordable price of R10 for both brown and white loaves,” he said.
He emphasized that the low price of bread that they will be selling their bread at will ultimately lead to the price of bread going down throughout Mamelodi because currently those that sell bread just increase prices for no reason at all except greed,” said Mahlangu.
“Our low price will be afforded by the poor as well and shops that sell Mamelodi’s bunny chow (sphatlho) are our target because sphatlho is consumed every single day of the week, including Sundays,” he said.
Mahlangu revealed that the bakery will be operating 24 hours a day and those wishing to buy bread at the bakery are most welcome to do so any time there.
He consoled indigent and unemployed struggle veterans countrywide not lose hope because SANMVA and Amscor will be rolling out bakery businesses throughout the country for the benefit of all the veterans.
He thanked the community of Mamelodi in advance for their support because he is confident of their patronage from now going forward.
The bakery is owned by Eric Mahlangu, Simon Shivambu, Andrew Msimanga, Lindiwe Sibande and Nkele Khalo. The name of the bakery is called Jelani Community Bakery.
Amscor Chairperson Alex Mahapa told Tshwane Talks that they feel honoured to assist liberation war veterans to acquire skills and empower them in their businesses.
He said there are bakeries owned by struggle veterans in the Vaal area as well as in Cullinan.
He stressed that in the past veterans have been given enterprizes which they would in turn wrongfully sell to other people.
“We have made it a rule that the bakery business is not transferrable; that it is solely for the benefit of veterans to help them take care of their families,” said Mahapa.
He said Amscor has a business enablement office which unemployed veterans can approach in order to get funding for projects that are existing already.
“Military veterans have been part of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and we don’t want to give them small pennies but want to empower them with something that will be a legacy to their own children,” he said.