Against all odds, DAPHNE NKOSI triumphs, lives to lift others

Daphne Mashile Nkosi is the executive chairperson of Kalagadi Manganese.

Kalagadi Manganese (Pty) Ltd is a black women-led South African mining company. It is owned by Kgalagadi Alloys (44%) Kalahari Resources (36%) and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Limited (IDC) (20%).

The company was founded in 2007 and operates a mine which boasts the largest sinter plant in the world. Located at the Kalahari Basin, Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest province by land area, the mine features a shaft, ore preparation plant, sinter plant, rails and water dams.

The three farms on which they hold new order mining rights contain approximately 960 million tons of manganese ore deposits.

They have an underground mine to produce three million tons of Manganese ore (38% Mn) per annum, and an ore preparation facility and sinter beneficiation plant which will process the three million tons of ore to produce 2.4 million tons of a high grade sinter (44% Mn) per annum.

Daphne is also the executive chairperson and founder of Kalahari Resources and also giving business leadership at Exxaro, while at Eyesizwe Coal, she is a founding shareholder. Others include Women’s Development Bank Trust, Development Bank Investments Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Temoso Telecommunication (Pty) Ltd, Bhakhazi-Banalima (Pty) Ltd and FirstRand Empowerment Trust.

She was directly involved in the successful structuring of Cell C, the third mobile network operator in South Africa. She has a background in the banking, politics and gender issues.

To say I am in awe of this woman’s phenomenal story is to say it modestly. I was drawn to her humility meeting her for the first time and I knew already that I had to share her story to inspire us all.

‘Grass to grace’ and ‘Against all odds’ are truly the words best suited for her. You could easily tell she was in her element when she was speaking on the theme “Women in Leadership: Against all Odds” at the recently concluded Ibukun Awosika’s International Woman Leadership Conference that took place in Dubai. She shared from deep within, but I knew I had to have a one-on-one with her, and she obliged me. An experience I am yet to recover from. Truly an emotional one. We both laughed, cried, hugged each other at some point, but even through the tears, she shared her story and like she did to me, you will be inspired too. Come along with me as I share the inspiring story of the Queen of Manganese, the strategic mineral of the future, Daphne Mashile Nkosi, the Executive Chairperson of Kalagadi Manganese.

Daphne comes from a family of five people, four from her mother and one from her father (different mother) but her mother, being the nurturer that she was (God rest her soul) brought them all up. Daphne was the baby in the family, the last born.

Her mother never went to school because she got married when she was 16. Her father was in Johannesburg, in her words “He was busy gallivanting around” but the children grew up with their grandmothers from both sides. Both grandparents took responsibility for the children but one day, Daphne’s paternal grandfather was tired of his son not looking after the wife and the children. He gave Daphne’s mother money and requested that she should get into a bus and go and look for her husband. Her mother went with all the children.

They got to Soweto, and their father kept on with his way of life. Her mother looked for a job, later became a seamstress, that was what she could do. She did this because she had to take care of them all because her father was not often available. Sometimes, he would go for weeks, and her mother took care of them the best way she could afford.

“We could see other children enjoying the company of their lovely parents who were professionals. My mother was only earning 1 pound 6, and it was not easy for the 5 of us but we continued.” Daphne said.

Daphne was quite lucky because she was differently gifted than the others. She was doing well in school but during those days, there was apartheid in South Africa, and whether you were bright or not, there were no bursaries, nothing. She went to school, and as she was becoming 11 years old, she saw how her mother struggled and could no longer cope, so her mother had to distribute the children.

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Daphne went and stayed with her aunt, her brothers and sisters stayed with their grandmother, others stayed with their uncle from her father’s side. Daphne would wake up early in the morning to feed pigs before she went to school.

In villages, pigs are not usually kept with people, they keep them very far, so Daphne would wake up, walk quite far to feed the pigs. They got the food from where her aunt worked as an assistant nurse, so all the food she would bring that were thrown away at the hospital were used to feed the pigs.

When pigs are not full, they follow you and chase you because they eat humans, so Daphne would feed them and run away because if the food wasn’t enough, the pigs would find a way of getting out.

When she came back from school, she had so much laid down for her to do and not enough time to rest. She would get to working again. When morning broke, the circle continued. As a child not birthed by her aunt, her aunt’s own children were priority and when it was time to do the chores, it was Daphne’s responsibility.

One day, her mother came to see her and found out she had sores all over her body, she was emaciated, she had kwashiorkor. Her mother took her back with her, she had a better job and was promoted, she became a better seamstress. Daphne went back to Johannesburg, got into school and excelled, but her father continued with his way of life.

When Daphne went to school and continued studying, she later became an activist and a member of the class of 76, the Soweto riots. “I was an activist. During apartheid, they were forcing us to do mathematics and science, using Africans as a medium of instruction, so we revolted as students in 1976. It changed the course of history in South Africa. I was part of that. Being part of that, I was detained, came back and I continued to be an activist.”

Daphne continued with life, scaling the hurdles and keeping on. She knew that she was gifted. It showed everywhere she went. “I have always been that child that excelled in all I did even from a young age. I won medals but medals were not putting food on the table, I knew that I needed to do more to be great in life.” She revealed.

She recounted that at her paternal mother’s house, there were 42 plates of food being served when each meal was ready. They had mostly pap and protein, but it was served with love. Her grandmother never went to school, but she cared for them all.

“When you look at what I have become, you can tell I was shaped by my environment, to be strong, do things for myself, not to expect anything to be done for me. Of course, young people today feel entitled, and I understand but I did not expect anything from my own parents, mainly because I knew my mother would if she could, but she didn’t have much nevertheless, what she could afford, we shared with love.” Daphne told me.

Daphne grew up sharing. Even while in prison for activism as a political detainee, she would share what she was given with others.

She had always known that she would not lack when she was on her own in life, and she did all she could to see that come to fruition.

“Something sparked in me when I was young, and I was convinced that I was never going to suffer like my mother and that no man was going to push me around. I was very clear. My mother suffered, though a beautiful woman, yet she suffered. We had nothing but we had a loving mother.” Again, Daphne reinstated.

According to her, there is nothing as beautiful as the heart of a mother because whether in poverty, whether she is crying, whether in pain, the loving heart for the children was present.

At Christmas time, other children would have new clothes, shoes and all, but all Daphne’s mother could afford were second-hand shoes and clothes, sometimes they won’t fit but the children were happy.

“Sometimes, it may not look good in the eyes of others but in our eyes as children, it was a new thing and we loved any gift from my mother.” Daphne said.

On dating, Daphne said she never dated at 16, she played sports with boys and all but never submitted to their interests, especially because that is also the age boys begin to have interest in girls. Daphne never allowed them. According to her “They would not say I love you, but they would chase you around. I used to beat them up because I did not understand why and what they were trying to do. I was also active in politics and school activities as well.”

Daphne had distinctions but there was no money to further her schooling nevertheless, she was a star, everything she touched literally turned to gold. It was why, when she had the opportunity to, she did so well, got more exposure, got better, got promoted at work, and was given trainings and again, she excelled.

Her life was a struggle, but she would tell you any day, that her environment made her who she is, and like her mother would say, even at 91, “I want to thank your father for abandoning us because perhaps you would have been a spoilt brat.”

When Daphne got married, she said to herself that she would never date someone who would abuse her. She was very clear on this. She admits that she turned out lucky because her husband, who was a lawyer (God rest his soul) never abused her, never hit her even though she has always been vocal.

“I actually told him not to dare. I was an open book. I had seen it all and did not want to experience that, so I was clear. Men are expected to do as they will, culture determines a lot of things and men have always gone away with different attitudes nevertheless, I wasn’t going to be maltreated.” She firmly stated.

As someone who believes in hard work, she recounted not being able to pay for her matric. It was 30 pence. Her mother didn’t have it. She went to a lady selling liquor and requested for 30 pence. She agreed to give her if she was willing to wash for her. Daphne was so excited, she started the next day, washed and ironed, got her money and paid. She continued and had pocket money. She made it a means of steady income for her, little wonder today, she has turned out to be the outstanding business mogul that she is.

Daphne’s husband was an activist. He was taken to Robben Island. Robben Island was where, when arrested and convicted as a political prisoner, you were kept. Her husband was there for 10 years, came back in 1987 and when he came, he could not practice as a lawyer because, after going to Robben, the law said (at that time) that he must write a letter to the Minister of Police to ask for forgiveness. He refused and stated clearly that he had served his sentence as a political prisoner there, therefore there wasn’t a need to apologise. He opted for abandoning his practice as a lawyer.

He then started working for NGOs, began the Labour and Economic Research Counsel, and he was organising funding for students and some people that came from Robben island to work. Some were even sent to the London School of Economics.

As Daphne continued in life, she worked for the national movement of rural women, rural advice centre as a community worker, and became the national coordinator for the whole country. She had gone through retail, graduated and became a manager. She had the capacity, she continued to study, started the National Women’s Development Bank, to give loans to rural women and that exposed her further to the struggles of ordinary women and their survival strategies.

In her observation, the struggles that women had were the same. The fact that they could not take decisions. When their husbands left the country, they would go to Johannesburg to work in mines because it was the city of gold, and they never came back to their families. When they died, the women who they left and had been keeping the home in their absence were not given assets, they often asked the husband’s brothers to take over. The women had no say and sometimes were chased out.

Daphne worked with such women and was attracted to work with them because somewhere in her subconscious, she knew what happened to her mum and didn’t want women to suffer same. Daphne was the first to engage the Centre of Applied Legal Studies to do research on the minority status of African women under customary law in South Africa.

They researched on that and realised that when women have small businesses, they can feed themselves and children and make profits, hence the need to support them with funding. “It was like a micro lending. So, the bank was loaning the women small money to buy items, make profit and feed their children.” Daphne explained.

Daphne was then nominated by the UN to go and study Development Finance in Japan, because according to her, they probably felt it would assist with what she was doing as a community worker, after doing a diploma in Community Studies, almost like an auxiliary social worker.

She continued with the rural advisory centre to start income generating projects. As she was doing that, she was approached by another organisation, they said they had seen her working with women, putting structures together and requested for her to join them, and she joined.

On setting up Kalagadi Manganese, when she joined the other organisation (as mentioned above) she did as they requested on building structure, and then became a shareholder of the coal company. The company is a 90billion rand company listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange. According to her, they wanted her to put up a structure, come on board and keep quiet.

“I was also the only woman on the board, and I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I brought in another, but she died in 2006. They didn’t want me to speak, and they were obviously tired of me mentioning women empowerment.” She said.

So, Daphne started looking around and found an opportunity. She was sitting with an 88 year old man who told her he had worked in the mines and that there was an opportunity. She applied quietly, because the men in the company she was with had made her angry, so it was a protest project. She made up her mind she would start a company that she would control and bring women in the way she wanted and she birthed Kalagadi.

She had a family, house and a car, but had no collateral, yet, she wanted a loan. She went to the banks and they asked what she had as collateral and she responded saying “nothing”. She had a home she and her husband were paying a bond on so they didn’t own their home, it was still owned by the bank, neither could she use the car as it was in same category and as such, they were not qualified to get money.

They later raised the money by going to development funding institutions. The first time she went, she wasn’t given. The second time, she went to an investment bank and they gave her 12million Rands. The lady was sympathetic because Daphne wept.

She said, “I cried, even though I don’t know why because I am strong. I guess the passion for what I wanted to do, to use what I have to be a blessing to humanity, was my push”.

This happened in 2004. The woman told Daphne she wasn’t going to give her a cent and that she wanted all the money to go into drilling. She told Daphne to go and get technical people that would give her quotations and they would pay the people directly.

So, they were paying directly for her to get technical experts to drill 14 holes. They did a prefeasibility study and it stated that there was manganese. She took the report, went to the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa and said to them “I have this prefeasibility study, if you give me 60 million Rands, I will give you 20 percent of my shares.”

So, she gave them, took the 60 million, didn’t take a dime from it, put it into the feasibility study which valued the company at 6.8billion Rands. She sold 50 per cent shares of the company for 3.4 billion Rands, took everything and pumped it into the mine.

Building the mine required 12 billion Rands, so she built it. Then, the biggest steel maker, Arcelormittal bought 50 percent and in 2011, they sold back the 50 percent to her, paid 3.4 billion Rands and then she built the mine but during the financial crisis in 2013, Arcelormittal had their own problems and sold back the shares to Daphne for 150million dollars, he sold back 15 percent to her.

At the moment, she owns 80 per cent of the company, the development funding institution still owns 20 percent, and 12billion Rands has been pumped into the company. The mine is producing, and the business is doing well. Goldman Sachs actually valued the company at between 25-33 billion Rands. “A mining company takes long, but when it starts paying, it starts paying big. We are now looking at consolidation and growth.”

Daphne’s life has indeed been a journey. In 2008, she lost her husband and she said to me, “It nearly killed me. A loss is something, grief is something else. As I was left to organise the funeral, I still had to keep the business running, sign cheques, had to approve things. I was doing this sitting at home because with us, when you lose your husband, you sit at home on the mattress on the floor in a corner until the funeral.

With tears in my eyes, I was signing and doing everything. After then, I stayed home for four months, working and wearing black. I wore black for a year.” Daphne narrated.

As she continued, her husband’s brother who was on Robben Island with him died two years later. As she was growing the business, her last born, woke up one morning saying “I am flu-ish, can I have the medical aid card?” Daphne gave her and she went to the pharmacy, got medication, took it, and a day later, her temperature spiked.

Daphne’s first born, a medical doctor, was called by Daphne. She narrated to him all that happened to his sister. He came, saw her and took her to the ER. When they got to the ER, her legs refused to move but they checked, gave medication and asked that she be taken home.

She gets home that night, her temperature spiked to 42 degrees. Again, Daphne took her to the hospital, and they kept her but said they couldn’t find anything. They investigated her for a month and the second month, she started having seizures because her temperature was very high. They checked again and found nothing. Then finally, they found out that she had a very rare form of cancer called Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare but potentially fatal condition in which certain white blood cells (histiocytes and lymphocytes) build up in and damage organs, including the bone marrow, liver, and spleen, and destroy other blood cells. It could kill in 6 months, and that was exactly what happened to Daphne’s daughter, she died. “That was the worst tragedy that I had in my life.” She painfully shared.

“I have not recovered and I will never recover. I have not recovered because she was my baby, the last born of my children, she was my friend as the last born, but, I continued against all odds to do work.” Daphne said amidst tears.

Daphne started a foundation to build three hospitals in her honour. They carry her name. She has spent 400million Rands on that. Daphne said this has helped to keep her alive as she found a sense of purpose for her death, because even in her absence, her daughter is saving a lot of lives.

“I built two other hospitals, one is Zakithi Nkosi Haematology Centre of Excellence, South Africa, a state-of-the-art facility based at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, to help in dealing with cases of children with different forms of blood disorders. It doesn’t serve South Africa alone. Then I built the paediatric oncology centre, the second largest in Africa. The first one is in Egypt. I built it for children with cancers.”

Every year, on the 1st of June is Zakithi’s birthday, Daphne always ensures to do something in remembrance of her. Last year, she started to build the trauma unit. Also, on the 1st of December, Daphne honours Zakithi by reaching out to children because that was when she was buried.

These are the things, aside her businesses, that keeps Daphne going. “I am hardworking and I have a sense of purpose in life. When I get my dividend, 50 per cent of it goes into social infrastructure for the simple reason that my husband never enjoyed the benefits of the hard work we did, neither did my daughter, so what I do with 50 per cent is say, if they were both alive, and were to inherit anything, it would certainly be at least half, so today, if for instance I get 50million Rands in dividend, I take 25 million and put into social infrastructure.” Daphne explained.

“I am successful in my businesses, my son sits on the board, every six months, I get dividends. We are listed on the stock exchange in Johannesburg so it is no longer an issue. Also, in Kalagadi, I am still the chair. I have been working with my son for 10 years now. Of course he is the successor in title so he will continue to run with Kalagadi. We are doing very well at Kalagadi, but we have not yet declared dividend because we need to honour the money we have taken from development funding institutions.”

Daphne is all about helping smaller businesses also thrive, hence her decision to go into infrastructure development. She has a rapid load of station and has allowed smaller miners to come and load on her station because according to her, “I cannot be successful alone, you have to bring in other people to be successful. Younger miners who are just starting out do not have the capacity and the money to do it so I must enable them to get to greater heights as well. We can combine as an army of black people, young professionals must actually develop Africa. For us, our legacy is that we need to leave this world with a legacy that says we were able to achieve this therefore it should continue.”

“Look at Mrs Awosika, she has started an army, a cohort of women that must take the race forward. Ours is to mentor and share our stories so that others can learn. The young ones of today may look at poverty differently, but challenges will always come however, it is important to note that life is a relay race, and you must pass the baton.” She advised.

Asked why the choice of manganese as her area of major business focus and her answer gave it away. According to Daphne, Manganese involves steel making and without it, you cannot have a building, you cannot have a road, you cannot have pots to cook and so on. She refers to manganese as the strategic mineral of the future.

She said, “I chose manganese because while I was with the Women Development Bank, a report said 97 per cent of what women make they put into social infrastructure, and I wanted to be there to make sure that the mineral that can help to get these funds has women in its operation.”

Furthermore, Daphne adds, “I want women to go into manganese, go into mining because for me, it pays well. Women must go into these industries to change the world. I want women to go into lithium, iron ore, cobalt, maritime, oil & gas, agric-business to ensure food security and so on. Kemi, everyone is now looking for assets in manganese because of the strategic nature.”

Daphne has also had her share of not pleasant experiences with the women folk, it has however not influenced her negatively as she is resilient on supporting women businesses.

In narrating her experience, she mentioned that, “When doors are closed in your face, you sometimes understand because the world is filled with different experiences, but when women do it, it hurts more. I am in business to make money, but I am also in it to help women make money too, to open doors for them. When you are doing things for people who do not see what you are doing for them, it hits hard.”

Daphne remembered how she was rejected, called names by a group of women who she thought could help her back then, these women were in the investment community, and she heard them speak bad of her. She couldn’t function, she was shattered, it hit her so much that she felt betrayed deeply because she was trying to make a difference in the lives of women.

She called them the queens of patriarchy “I called them the queens of patriarchy because they didn’t see the bigger picture. They sat there, using the fact that they are appointed to those boards which represent women to make money for themselves, they never sat to see the value in their position, and that they were there to make sure that they protect each other as sisters’ keepers. When that doesn’t happen, it hits you hard.”

Daphne began to wonder why they would do such, then one day, she woke up and said these were queens of patriarchy, because according to her, they actually enjoyed when women are belittled and not given a space on the table. They rejoiced because other women didn’t succeed and would continually perpetuate the status quo.

For Daphne, “They are women who we think are representing us but in the actual case are not. I asked myself why they were doing this? It pushed me to start an organisation called the Women of South Africa, where women matters are prioritised.”

She however said some of these women later came to her for help and she never saw it as a time to revenge but helped them too.

I requested for Daphne to share words of encouragement to anyone going through a tough season and she had this to say. In her words, “When I lost my husband in 2008 and daughter in 2016, I still had my mother, but on the 28th Of October, 2020, two days before my mother’s birthday, she passed on. I buried her on November 5th, but on Christmas Day of same year, I lost my brother and his wife and I am still here. With all the pain (which never goes away).

Against all odds, I am alive, running a successful business, still a mother, still a mentor, a grandmother to many children, against all odds, whatever the obstacles.

Kemi, for steel to be shinny and strong, it has to go through fire, 1200 degrees. I run a processing plant and we take 24 hours to fire the plant from zero to 1200. Steel must go through that to actually be strong. When I face all my hurdles, I say I am like steel, I have got to go through fire. To everyone going through a tough phase of life, hold on, you are coming out strong as steel, this pain will not be for long. Keep hope alive, if I went through and came out as steel, you will scale through too. Never give up, you are destined for greatness.”