The entrepreneur who used broken goods to repair his future. Meet Nkumbulo Magqabi

Nkumbulo Magqabi grew up wearing discarded clothes, but escaped poverty by selling discarded electronic appliances like toasters and blenders.

Raised in poverty, with no money even for school shoes, the 41-year-old entrepreneur is now a business story with a peculiar twist. He makes a living by repairing surplus home appliances, a beneficiary of an innovative skills training and business development programme. “We’d go to school barefoot, with jerseys and trousers that didn’t fit us because we never had anyone to support us,” Magqabi says of his schooling in the Eastern Cape. 

After years of hardship, Magqabi’s fortunes changed when he was referred to Cape Town-based NPO ‘Taking Care of Business’ (TCB), which aims to reduce poverty by equipping aspiring entrepreneurs with skills and resources. He learnt how to repair broken or discarded appliances received from TCB’s multiple retail partners. 

“In 2024, I had a friend who told me about TCB. And I thought, why don’t I try this.  I was expecting to get there, get given appliances that I can buy and sell or borrow and then come and refund them” Magqabi says in an online blog published on the TCB website.  “I didn’t expect it to be a programme where I’d get taught about business, about how to manage money, about how to fix appliances, about how to conduct yourself in front of clients. Now when I approach clients they can see I’m a professional businessman.”

“Whereas before I approached it as a hustler. I’ve learned how to control money. I’ve learned how to be a lucrative businessman.”

The programme turned Magqabi into a successful trader, prompting him to set his sights on expanding his business footprint.

His success, and the success of many others enrolled in TCB’s multiple programmes, underpins TCB’s growing impact, recognised this month at the Western Cape Economy Innovation Awards. Since inception, the organisation’s programmes have generated more than R500-million in entrepreneur profits, for thousands of microentrepreneurs.  TCB has redirected over two million items thanks to their partnership with around 2000 stores supplying surplus merchandise. To date, over 8000 people have come through these programmes.

“Our innovation at TCB is to help retailers redistribute their excess stock and to do that in a meaningful way,” says TCB founder Tracey Chambers.

“How we turn excess into economic opportunity, is that we have contracts with all of South Africa’s major fashion and general merchandise retailers. They donate R1.7 million to R2 million worth of goods to us annually and we bring that into our four large warehouses. We process the goods, and those goods are then available to our traders to purchase.”

The traders are then supported via a structured training programme focusing on maximising their income.

“It’s the biggest global collaboration of retailers anywhere in the world. We have a really South African story to tell,” Chambers said.

Watch a video interview with Tracey Chambers HERE.