Afra, the driving power in CAG engine room

Elliot Ziwira
Senior Writer

As she strode on the dais, among an array of other African women of distinction, to receive a leadership award from the United Nations Global Women Foundation Advocacy for Change in New York, the United States, recently, Afra Nhanhanga could not help the welling tears in her eyes, threatening to open up in torrents as the country girl inside her was stirred.

Not that she is a cry-baby nor new to accolades, for she has been receiving them by the hateful locally for her business acumen, but the podium, about 12 532km from home, was more than humbling.

She was presented with the United Nations Global Leadership Award and recognised as an Outstanding Global Peace Ambassador for Change on March 14, 2023.

The award was presented at the She Rises Forum on Empowering Women Economic Sustainability through Entrepreneurship and Leadership programme held on the sidelines of the 67th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women held in New York, US from March 6 to 17, 2023.

In recognition of her sterling works, she was also conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy degree (Honoris Causa) by the Trinity University of Ambassadors, an American institution, at the same occasion.

This becomes her second honorary doctorate having been awarded another one by the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 2019 for her charitable work in Zimbabwe.

Striking, articulate, and intelligent, Afra has known what stereotyping, ridicule and rejection do to the human spirit, but never allowed it all to dampen her soul, which saw her rising to become the effective A in CAG Travellers Coaches.

On a recent visit at Number 1223 Tynwald South, Harare, to get into the space of the affable executive with more than 130 revving engines ferrying dreams across Zimbabwe and beyond under her wing, The Herald team got more than a glowing welcome.

Exuding so much confidence, and radiating a welcoming aura around her, Afra has a way of making whoever gets a chance to converse with her feel comfortable, secure and loved.

Clad in a stripped green blouse, black skirt and matching black high-heeled shoes, capped with a fashionable hairdo, Afra sinks into the black leather chair behind a polished hardwood desk in her office with numerous awards profoundly adorning its lime green walls, heartily smiles and begins her story.

Shaping the dream

“When God wills it, it will happen,” the God-fearing Afra opens up to The Herald, clasping her hands. “The good Lord has a way of working in people through other people for the realisation of what He wills.”

Outside, a grinder whirls, a bus horn honks, a heavy engine revs, a welding machine hums, and a distant voice calls out as the C.A.G family works in unison to deliver on their promise of safe travel.

“I was born on July 25, 1975 at Kadoma General Hospital to Annastasia and Golden Nhanhanga, and was named Afra after my paternal grandmother,” she continues.

Since she was the first child, as per tradition, in case complications associated with the first pregnancy arise, her young mother had to deliver among her people.

Young Annastasia could have delivered in her village, Kazangarare in Hurungwe District, Mashonaland West Province had it not been for her taxi operator father’s insistence for an urban setup.

Afra says when she was born, her granny named her Munyaradzi, saying as she was widowed at a young age, and left to raise her only child, Golden, who was barely three, alone, she had found a consoler in her first grandchild.

The young mother would later take her bundle of joy to Samusodza Village in Chief Mutasa’s domain of Manicaland Province.

“Since Munyaradzi was considered masculine, in Samusodza I was known as Nyarai until after Grade Seven, although my father insisted on Afra, which is on my birth certificate,” the C.A.G director, affectionately known as Tete, says.

Afra intimates that her namesake, who died in 1984, was an epitome of hard work, and taught her only son the quintessence of honest toil, a quality he imparted to his children, particularly herself and brother, Samson.

The mother of four says growing up in the rural areas taught her endurance as she had to walk five kilometres to Sadziwa Primary School in Mutasa, where she did her primary schooling between 1981 and 1987 from the age of five.

She says most people thought she would quit school considering that she had to wake up around 4am on school days to join others on the 10-kilometre trek to and from Sadziwa Primary School.

With winters particularly punishing, she would brave it to school in her plastic Sandak shoes, the fashion then.

Driven by pangs of sibling love, Samson, who is now the C.A.G managing director, born in 1978, and three years younger, opted to leave the comfort of the big city to be with his sister in the village.

“Sometimes it was only the two of us with two male helpers from Mozambique, although mostly we lived with our mother’s younger sister,” Afra reminisces.

“We would leave home early in the morning, Sam for his under-the-tree crèche, and I for school three kilometres further.”

She nostalgically recalls how she would wash Sam’s clothes when they were at one point left alone with the two Mozambican herdsmen.

“It was God’s plan,” she reflects, adding, “Since Father’s workload as the head mechanic at Mucheche Investments was heavy, and mother was nursing our baby-sister in Highfield, Harare, when I was in Grade Five and Sam was in Grade Two, aunty left home. So, I had to wash our clothes the best I could. And, at night, we would sleep at Maiguru’s.”

A visit to Harare was a once per year affair as the village was never short of chores to partake in.

“Whatever we ate had to be produced at home; vegetables, chickens and all. For a balanced diet, we would go fishing at a nearby stream. We would tend to our vegetable patch and mould bricks to build our homestead, supervised by our helpers, who never abused us. We worked hard spurred on by Father’s philosophy that everything we had was ours (zvaive zvinhu zvedu),” Afra recalls.

The two siblings would part in 1988 as Afra left for St Killian’s Mission, a Catholic school in Rusape, for her secondary education up to Form Four between 1988 and 1991, and Sam headed back to the capital.

“St Killian’s Mission resonated with my rural background. I was so taken in by the Catholic traditions that I wanted to be a nun,” she chuckles.

Notwithstanding the stars that keep shining brightly on her, Afra’s claim to the limelight had not been a smooth glide.

It dawned on her from an early age that for one to get the best apple, one has to learn to climb trees, and not wait for windfall fruits. She, therefore, took it in her stride that neither her rural background nor gender was an impediment to success.

The making of an entrepreneur

“After high school, I wanted to proceed to A-Level, but my calculative father had other plans for me. So, I ended up at the Secretarial Skills Development Centre along Fife Avenue, Harare in 1992,” Afra informs The Herald.

This period of her journey was marked by yet another detour in light of God’s plan for the 47-year-old executive. Thus, armed with a secretarial course, in 1993, she saw herself ushered by the business angels to Kariba where her father’s favourite cousin, Juliet Huber (nee Nhanhanga) lived.

Married to a white Austrian man, she asked her to join them in Shurugwi where they operated the Garden Motel and the Grand Hotel.

“Aunt Juliet wanted me to be someone in life, so she decided to empower me with entrepreneurial skills. She is one of the two women who shaped me, the other one being my grandmother. Having no children of her own, she treated me like her daughter,” Afra says.

Starting from the reception, she would later become proficient in the day to day running of the business.

“She would say, ‘Mainini, chinhu chenyu ichi’ (little sister, this is your thing). She groomed me. And, I started taking the business as my own from a tender age, as she would sometimes travel out of the country with her husband, leaving me in charge. I would lead a team of more than 60 employees,” says Afra with a faraway look in her eyes.

Having run away from an impending enforced child marriage into an orphanage at St Augustine’s High School in Penhalonga, where she met her husband, Tete Juliet understood want it meant to be an empowered women, Afra says.

She, therefore, kept a hawk’s eye on her beautiful niece, ready to swoop down on any would-be predator, while mentoring her on business and life.

Then, around 1996, when she felt that her ward had grasped the nitty-gritties of business, Aunt Juliet inquired of her what her intentions were, to which she responded that she wanted to be a teacher. Afra sentimentally recalls: “She said, ‘Mainini, I have taught you how to run a business, now tell me, what does your heart desire?’ And, when I confided in her that I was passionate about teaching, she whispered, ‘Then, go for it. But, explore first.'”

Sadly, Aunt Juliet died in 2000, without getting an opportunity to witness what her mentee would become.

Afra, the teacher

In pursuit of her dream, the country girl once again leaves the comforts of hotel life and headed to Zvishavane where she got a relief teaching post.

She was deployed to Masase Mission Primary School in 1995, and taught there until 1997.

“The shift from working from the comfort of a hotel to a rural setup taught me a lot. It was such an explorative experience away from my aunt’s hawkish, yet loving eye,” Afra reflects.

She feels that the teaching experience augmented the entrepreneurship skills acquired from Aunt Juliet in a big way, as it gave her confidence and impartation ability.

“At Masase Mission, I also learnt that disability is not inability, hence, the need to treat everyone equally. In the three years I was at the school, I took mixed classes with up to 20 learners with visual impairment,” Afra recalls.

She particularly remembers two of them whom she took from Grade Four through Grade Five, Paul and Crispen; brilliant pupils, always in the top 10, regardless of the learning setup.

“They would always participate with the assistance of their classmates—reading out instructions on the board for them. They would write in braille and have their work marked by a proficient teacher. Paul Gumbo, from Mberengwa, was just something else. He graduated from the University of Zimbabwe with a Law degree, if I am not mistaken. I am still in touch with him,” she adds.

“I would have gone on to train as a teacher full-time, but, again, my father would not approve of it.”

Armed with critical skills in entrepreneurship and teaching, Afra’s guiding star led her to Harare end of 1997.

The birth of C.A.G Travellers Coaches

When the proverbial hornbill led Afra back to Harare at the end of 1997, her father had already acquired a Datsun pickup truck, which he used to transport commuters from Lusaka, Highfield, to Mbare Musika.

She would briefly assist him in this enterprise, while Sam was away at school.

The expansion of Budiriro, a high density suburb in western Harare, opened up new opportunities in the construction sector. And, Afra’s father, Golden, was not one to close his eyes to such openings.

He, therefore, bought two ‘ancient’ trucks and ventured into material supplies; selling pit sand, river sand and stones.

“We supplied most households in Budiriro 4 and Budiriro 5,” Afra says. “The two trucks would also come in handy during harvest time. My father behind the wheel of one of them and Sam driving the other, the duo would head to Hurungwe where they would assist farmers in ferrying their produce to the Grain Marketing Board.”

It was around this time that the founder and Golden G. in C.A.G bought his first bus shell—a DAF model commonly known as the ‘Bullface’, and self-assembled it.

Christened ‘Visitor’, the 65-seater bus plied the Kuwadzana-Mbare route under the trade name, Golden Nhanhanga and Sons, with its first garage at 10440 Budiriro 5A, Harare, which was the family’s home.

“It was the norm those days for businesses run by blacks to trade that way—So-and-So and Sons,” Afra says.

The father, son and daughter trio would endear themselves as visitors to the people of Kuwadzana; Afra as the assistant conductor to her brother Sam, while their father took the wheels.

“Opening and closing the heavy door was quite tasking, especially for a woman. But, I endured because, as Father would put it, zvaive zvedu. The bus industry is not for the faint-hearted nor is it a terrain for the lackadaisical. It is hard work,” she says.

Blending with other conductors and drivers at Mbare Musika was not such a big issue for Afra, for they have accepted her as one of their own. But, there was another level at which she had to be accepted, associations for bus operators.

Through interaction with others at the rank she would learn that a meeting for bus operators was convened, so she would go. Those were the days of such big players as Chawasarira, Kukura Kurerwa, Pioneer Transport, Broken Arrow, Tenda, Keystone and Musasiwa, among others.

Upon arrival, they would ask her which company she was representing and the type of buses they had, and she would proudly tell them.

“They would chuck me out, saying chidingly, ‘That is not our idea of a bus. Golden Nhanhanga and Sons’ Visitor is not a bus'”, Afra recalls. “Associations for kombis would not accept it either. To them it was not a kombi. It was always looked down upon.”

Torn inside, the teary Afra would go home and tell her father how their beloved Visitor was dismissed as a bus, beseeching him to buy “real buses”.

Therefore, the journey to the formation of brand C.A.G began with the acquisition of AVM buses in vogue then.

“We would buy old buses or shells and cut off the faces and reassemble them to be in tandem with AVM fad,” Afra says.

She was the one who came up with the idea to register a company around 1998 to regularise their operations. She would always insist on having all their papers in order to avoid brushes with the law.

With Golden’s vision linking up with his son Sam Chakadei and daughter Afra’s, C.A.G, an acronym of their first names, was born around 2001.

“Father gave Sam and me his parents’ names. Chakadei was our grandfather’s name, and Afra was grandmother’s name,” the good-natured executive says.

As the company grew it moved its garage from home to a rented property close to High Glen Shopping Centre.

Now, the company, which is one of the success stories in the transport industry after independence, operates from two garages; at number 1223 Tynwald South and 260 Empowerment Way in the Willowvale industrial area.

With Sam at the helm as the managing director, the firm has spread its tentacles across the country and beyond its borders.

Described as a versatile, God-fearing go-getter, who can mingle easily with all stakeholders, Afra says she is inspired by the virtuous, faithful and hardworking Proverbs 31 woman.

Xavier Nyawasha, one of the employees at C.A.G Travellers Coaches, says the transport executive was an all-rounder who monitors the overall overview of the organisation, seeing to it that it functions smoothly.

“She also makes sure that we are dressed well for the good image of the company,” he says.

Cassian Chigovera weighs in, outlining Afra’s role in recruitment and the day to day management of the company.

“She is a good communicator, who delegates and teaches us how to conduct ourselves at all times. Also, she teaches us how business is run,” he says.

Kudzai Chipango describes her as an inspirational and humble leader.

“She really inspires me. She makes sure that drivers and conductors are following the Code of Conduct in the discharge of their duties. She does the recruitment, the books and all that. She is well-involved. From her, I have learnt perseverance, patience and putting God first. She always says, ‘God’s time is the best'”, Kudzai says.

Afra’s husband, Edson Chinhamu, who is also one of the directors at the company, and has been a bastion and mentor to her, describes her as determined, generous and hardworking.

“Overally, she is the pillar of this organisation. She is an all-rounder. For this business to function it needs an all-rounder, who looks into the staff welfare of the organisation, and maps strategic alliances with stakeholders. She has the ability to manoeuvre her way to get results. She can interact at all levels, and remembers everyone by name,” he said.

Whatever may be the issue, she has a way of weathering the storm for the greater good of all.

“She always prevails. When she decides on something, it will always go that way. She is a go-getter. If she says salaries should rise, they rise; if she says this is not the right time to acquire more buses, they will not be bought,” he adds.

With her day starting at 4am and sometimes leaving the office around 11pm, Afra says her inspiration comes from God, and the desire to help others.

Emphasising the essence of prayer, she says parents need to pray for their children, businesses and families. They should also involve their children in business so that they learn the ropes.

“I encourage parents to work with their children for them to appreciate honest work. Children are not eggs, they do not break. We bring our children here after school so that they contribute through learning in one way or the other,” she says.