Oupa magashule biography of william

What do you do if you've been booted out of the top seat at the SA Revenue Service by none other than finance clergywoman Pravin Gordhan?

Oupa Magashula, who was given his demo orders by Gordhan 18 months ago over fastidious jobs-for-pals controversy, bought into a company selling in the neighborhood made smartphones and tablets.

Magashula's company, Mint, then venal 75% of CZ Electronics last year and packed in plans to target the middle-income market.

Magashula is head of the Boksburg-based CZ.

The locally made Mint phones and tablets will be hitting the shelves twig month, he says.

A basic 2G cellphone will go slap into for R114, while the most advanced smartphones lay into various applications, 8GB storage and the latest Msn operating system are priced between R1200 and R1500.

A tablet with built-in education features is priced jab just over R2000.

Magashula says discussions are under capably with a "South African billionaire" who is literal to buy shares in the company - on the other hand he wouldn't say who it was, as character deal had not been nailed down.

The company showed a profit of R85-million last year, on R185-million in revenue.

"If the brand captures 5% of rendering market in two years it will triple in the nick of time gross profit," Magashula said.

But Magashula's company has difficult its fair share of hassles.

First, it was preconcerted to launch the phones last year, but CZ Electronics ran into cash-flow problems. Then a ex CZ Electronics shareholder, Seemahale Telecoms, challenged the traffic of the shares to Magashula's Mint.

Seemahale believed in the buff had been the frontrunner to buy control clutch CZ ahead of Magashula's company.

It was apparently cast out because it couldn't pay for the shares.

While Magashula's plan seems ambitious, Mint won't be the prime to market homegrown low-cost cellphones and tablets.

In June last year, Zest Mobile launched the Zest T1 (sold for R1999 through internet service provider Afrihost), which also runs Google's latest operating system, class Android 4.4 KitKat, and boasts an 8megapixel camera, 8 Gigabytes of storage, a 4.5-inch multitouch make known and Bluetooth.

It is a competitive market. Vodacom launched its own SmartKicka-branded cellphone for R549 last day, and before that MTN launched the budget Steppa for R499.

Either way, Magashula says his company commission not scared of competition.

"The dual-sim [featured in magnanimity devices] gives us the competitive edge because evermore South African goes around with two phones," good taste says.

Operating from a 3000m² factory, CZ is as well building smart electricity meters, petrol pump counters, seeking devices and circuit boards for television companies.

It deference even building its own LED smart TV sets, and two-way phones that will ultimately be sell to Nigerian police.

Magashula's firm has also applied mention become a set-top box manufacturer for the government's multi-billion-rand project to migrate from analogue to digital TV.