Kazang, the micro-payment processing service has acquired 49% of Sandulela Technology, a wholesaler of prepaid electricity to third parties.
Sandulela will remain under the leadership of CEO Nkululeko (Nk) Mvulana who founded the company ten years ago, and will retain its Level 2 BEE rating. The two companies will co-locate at Kazang’s Cape Town headquarters and share resources.
Sandulela’s municipal clients include Eskom, City Power, Erongored and eThekwini Municipality. The company provides the ability for the municipalities to sell prepaid electricity to their consumers using various distribution channels including point of sale, retail, online and mobile vending.
Kazang will provide point-of-sale deployment support to Sandulela and fulfilment of vendor management, and is currently building a new High Performance Switch (HIPS) which will be live within months to integrate to the various customers of Sandulela.
Martin Wright, CEO of Kazang, said the acquisition would provide convenience and opportunity for customers of both companies. “We’ll extend Kazang’s offering in informal rural and peri-urban areas by providing easy purchase of electricity and we’ll give even more small business owners a new opportunity to extend their businesses by becoming Kazang dealers in the municipal areas where Sandulela has been appointed. At the same time, we’ll be extending the customer base for Sandulela’s electricity providers.”
Nk Mvulana, CEO of Sandulela, said the he was looking forward to offering current and future municipal clients a speedier way to reach their markets. “South Africa has over 270 metropolitan and local municipalities that can focus on what they do best while we provide a friendly customer interface that makes electricity widely available to all. Working with Kazang makes the purchase and sale viable for both consumers and municipalities. It’s a win-win.”
With more than 15,000 retail points of presence across the country and another 5,000 in the SADC region, all connected through a single real-time technology platform, Kazang uses a watertight vendor management process which gives local retailers a role in the vending of airtime and electricity.
Coupling this with Sandulela’s proven track record in securing municipal electricity vending contracts provides a compelling value proposition to both the municipalities tasked with providing services to their customers, and to the small retailers currently operating in the urban, peri-urban and rural areas of South Africa.
