Cape Town – Billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe said the way Afrikaans business people intertwined their success with their own communities should be broadened throughout South Africa.

Speaking to a packed media briefing session at the World Economic Forum on Africa on Thursday, Motsepe was quizzed by local and international media on economic issues as well as topics they hoped he would give them a sound bite for.

He shied away from making headlines for his views on e-tolls, Fifa and government policy, but instead focused on his passion for young entrepreneurs in Africa.

“Most successful families have a duty to their community and those less fortunate,” he said. “Take the Afrikaans business community. The great success of families was to be intertwined with the success of their communities.”

He said his family did the same when they owned a grocery store and beer hall outside Pretoria when he was growing up.

“I saw my parents pay for the school fees of people in the village that reflected their recognition that they had no future if no one in their village succeeded,” he said.

Asked his views on the brightest spots of hope in Africa, the African Rainbow Minerals chair said it was “my passion in young Africans”.

“Young black and white South Africans make me very proud,” he said. “Twenty five years after Mandela went to his first World Economic Forum in Davos, young black and white people don’t know what it means to have different colour and are so excited about the future.

"It makes me very, very proud.”

How Africa can excel

“Africa in many fundamental respects is not different from other continents,” he said. “We have to do the things to create jobs, uplift standards of living, take people of out poverty and create skills in those sectors.



“The single most important partner [for governments] to realise all these dreams is partnerships with the private sector,” he said.

Learning from countries like India, Motsepe said “we have to accelerate regulated fiscal environments and governing policies that attract investment and make South Africa globally comparative”.

WATCH: Full press briefing with Patrice Motsepe