Defying Barriers

I could not put down Ntate Sam Montsi’s ‘Defying Barriers’! It is a book of wisdom.

– Prof Bonang Mohale - Chancellor of the University of the Free State

Sam Montsi’s memoir is a compelling story of a life lived with courage and intent. Born in 1945 in Soweto South Africa, the first son of Basotho migrants, family relocation to Lesotho at the end of 1956 places Sam on a trajectory of realising his potential in a country about to become independent. As a young economics and business graduate,  Sam thrives in this non-racialised environment. Nevertheless, he is not Mosotho ‘enough’  and needs the facilitation of local, politically connected friends to gain employment in the civil service.

After a few years leading the Central Planning and Development Office,  followed by his position as Managing Director of the Lesotho National Development  Corporation he was well prepared for entrepreneurial exploits.

Forced out of Lesotho by a  threat from the military regime, Sam returns to South Africa, the country of his birth, only  to find he is now not South African ‘enough’.

Re-entering South Africa in the late 1980s  with his family as the first black General Manager of South African Breweries in the  Western Cape, they experience the underbelly of South African apartheid. His ‘outsider’  status in both countries strengthens his resolve. Defying Barriers is the story of how he did this.

As a visionary and a pioneer, his journey from SAB to the successful family business Montsi Investments is nothing short of inspiring.