Richard Maponya delivered milk by bicycle in Soweto. He lived to open a 200-store shopping mall there.
Refused a clothing licence under apartheid, Richard Maponya built a dairy, shops and dealerships in Soweto, and opened Maponya Mall in 2007.
Richard Maponya was born in 1920 in Limpopo. At 24 he moved to Johannesburg to take up a teaching post in Alexandra township. He took a job as a merchandiser at a department store in the city centre, and within months was promoted to buyer, selecting clothes for black customers.
Blocked, then building another way
With capital from reselling clothing, he tried to open a clothing shop in Soweto but was blocked by the government’s refusal to grant a licence. So in the early 1950s he and his wife Marina established the Dube Hygienic Dairy, which used a fleet of boys on bicycles to deliver milk to Soweto customers who had no electricity or refrigeration. By the 1970s the business had grown to include several general stores, car dealerships and filling stations.
He was the first president of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) and the first black person in South Africa to be granted racing colours, choosing green, gold and black.
A mall in Soweto
He acquired the land in 1979 as a 100-year lease, and outright in 1994 after several attempts. On 27 September 2007 he opened the Maponya Mall in Soweto, with more than 200 stores and a cinema complex. He died on 6 January 2020, aged 99.
