Lungani Zungu
At age 18, Jabulane “Jabu” Mabuza joined the students who protested on 16 June 1976 in Soweto against the Bantu education system.
His participation in the uprising led to his suspension from school.
Exactly 45 years later, to the day, the 63-year-old businessman took his last breath on Wednesday on the day the country commemorated the Soweto student uprising.
Mabuza died after Covid-19 related complications, his family said.
Growing up in Mpumalanga the odds were stacked against Mabuza and his family and they moved to Johannesburg during his teen years.
This is where his business spirit was awakened.
Mabuza started off driving a taxi and went on to own his own fleet and later joined the corporate sector.
He described his own path to success as having “ups and downs” but nothing could derail his journey.
“I fear poverty because I have been there. I would do anything not to go back to it,” he was quoted as saying in 2015.
Among the positions he held before include being the CEO of Tsogo Sun Holding, CEO of Telkom and much more recently chairman of the Eskom board in 2018.
A year later, he was appointed as acting CEO of the struggling power utility.
When the pressure mounted for him to step down as acting CEO of Eskom in 2020, he did not fight back but left peacefully.
In his resignation letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mabuza apologised for failing to rid Eskom of its woes, including load shedding.
Sipho Maseko, his long-time peer and the current CEO of Telkom, said Mabuza was not a saint.
“He had his flaws like all of us. He was a human being and was prone to make mistakes. But he was a great man.”
Mabuza leaves behind his wife, Siviwe, and three children.
His family has yet to announce the details of his funeral.
