Nthato motlana biography

Black business pioneer, community leader, altruistic medical practitioner, involved in several education initiatives, former secretary-general of the ANC Youth League, multimillionaire.

In the first part of his long life, Dr Motlana played a central role in the internal resistance that led to the liberation of South Africa, and then co-founded and built up the black empowerment company New Africa Investments (Nail), with a market capitalisation of over R10 billion and profits exceeding R300 million by 1999.

He has been dogged by accusations of exploiting black empowerment for the sake of self-enrichment, pardy because of expectations raised in the mission statement of Nail: "Having at last achieved political liberation, black South Africans now seek economic empowerment.

Our long-term goal is to roll back poverty, to generate jobs and to attain a standard of living commensurate with the resource base of our country".

What one thinks of Dr Modana depends