Former South African Revenue Service (SARS) Oupa Magashula has bought into a company that is selling locally-made smartphones and tablets, the Business Time is reporting this morning.
According to the paper, Magashula was told to leave SARS about 18 months ago by then finance minister Pravin Gordhan after a jobs-for-pals scandal. He has since formed a company, Mint, that bought a 75% stake in CZ Electronics, it reports.
CZ Electronics sold a 75% stake to Mint Electronics, a subsidiary of Limpopo-based mining and energy company Sekoko Holdings, for an undisclosed amount, last May.
Business Times quotes Magashula as saying the locally-made devices will hit the shelves next month. The entry-level 2G handset will sell for R114, with the high-end handset retailing for between R1 200 and R1 500, it notes.
The paper also says the tablets, with built in education apps, will cost just more than R2 000. Magashula also tells the paper than an unnamed billionaire is keen to take a stake in the company.
The locally-made handsets - set to be produced in Boksburg - have been on the cards for some time. However, the venture has not been without its setbacks as CZ Electronics' initial partner Seemahale Telecoms found out through the media last year that its partner had sold the stke to Mint.
Thabo Lehlokoe, chairman of Seemahale Telecoms, subsequently threatened legal action in a bid to rescue some of the action he would have reaped from being involved in the project. However, Walter Stander, head of corporate affairs for Mint Electronics and CZ Electronics, refuted Lehlokoe's claims, saying Seemahale's October 2013 deal with CZ had performance criteria that were not met.
CZ Electronics, formed in 2002 with the acquisition of the production assets of the Alcatel factory, in Boksburg, makes electronics on contract for the telecoms, signalling telemetric, defence, utility metering, vehicle tracking and data acquisition industries.
Sekoko Holdings is a South African black-owned mining and energy company based in Limpopo, with its head office in Johannesburg. It was founded by Limpopo-born businessman Tim Tebeila.
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