How I started building my wealth, Scott Sakupwanya speaks

By Staff Reporter

Gold dealer and Zanu PF legislator, Scott Sakupwanya says he started his working life as a garden boy in one of Harare’s low density suburbs before he was ushered into the lucrative mining industry at 16 by one of his former white employers who were impressed by his honesty and hard work.

Speaking in the Denny J Show, the Betterbrands businessman, further denies he has acquired his massive wealth through his political connections.

He is a close ally to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The Scottland Football Club owner says he is a Form 2 drop-out who used to visit Donnybrooke Racing Course near Mabvuku where he used to earn a living through washing motorbikes for whites. He would also later find himself hired to wash legendary Caps United goalkeeper Brenna Msiska’s football gloves.

Sakupwanya, who grew up in the less glamourous Mabvuku neighbourhood that has battled water problems for decades and is a constant territory for sewer bursts, denies abusing his links to the ruling elite.

“I was a garden boy. I never started in politics. I have had the faith and passion to start something and finish it,” he says.

He adds, “Through prayer and God, anything is possible.”

The politician and businessman says he put a lot of effort in washing motorbikes and was later employed as a garden boy, a job that opened doors for him to work as a mine manager at 16.

While working in the mine, the wily dealer says he took time to learn a lot about the industry until he started doing it on his own.

However, the capital was not forthcoming to buy gold for resale, he says.

To cover the gap, Sakupwanya says he earned trust from a lot of people who would entrust him with their gold to go and sell on their behalf and he would keep his promise to give them their dues.

He says he could move as much as 40kg of gold which was not his and would ensure the owners received their dues.

Sakupwanya says another of his secrets to earning his wealth was to keep track of millionaires such as property mogul Philip Chiyangwa whom he says he adored for his determination to rise from being a tomato vendor into a businessman of note.

“If you want to scale the heights reached by somebody, you should stay close to them,” Sakupwanya says.

He adds, “Your phone should have contacts to at least one millionaire as a sign that you are serious about life.”

Sakupwanya scoffs at people who denigrate them saying they are a bunch of crooks and yet they are same people banks are tussling to do business with.

The politician says he does not sleep as much as other people would do because he spends a lot of his time chasing money.

“When most of you are sleeping, I will be in the bush looking for money, collecting gold to sell,” says the businessman, who admits wearing a watch worth US$1,5 million which he claims was a gift towards his last birthday.

With a US$5 million sponsorship hitting his football club account, Sakupwanya dreams big about elevating the fortunes of Scottland FC, a team he named after himself.

He says he wants the club to be crowned as African champions one day.

Sakupwanya says he does not regret using his abundant wealth to raid opponents’ camps cherry-picking the cream of Zimbabwean football talent.

Apart from business and football, he says he runs a lot of projects to uplift orphans, widows over and above renovating a clinic he intends to equip with state of the art machines.

He undertakes the initiatives through his Scott Foundation he co-runs with his wife.