seven days of precious kofi

As I speak to Precious over the phone, I note that she is a soft-spoken individual. Her voice is calm and disarming, and shamelessly I take advantage of this natural kindness by threading on a subject I wouldn’t have dared touch had she not been so welcoming. Her financial crisis.

Earlier this year it was reported in the Sunday World that she was broke and had been kicked out of her Illovo apartment, in Jozi, as she could no longer pay her rent.

Tabloids have a nauseating tendency of feeding solely on negative information, which tends to be inaccurate - so I dismissed it as rumour. But the rumours kept resurfacing and I thus decided to follow it up and settle it.

-
Mgongo is her first step to recovering what she had lost
-

"Yes, the article was accurate. I made some very bad business decisions, with the wrong people but I take full ownership of the debacle" says Kofi with a heavy sigh. “You know what, Nwabisa, I think I had to go through that phase, in order to become what I am today. I would’ve never have moved back to Cape Town and I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for that misfortune. It opened doors for me," she adds, now calmer than she had been since we'd started the conversations.
With the utmost tranquility, she resolves; “Now I am at a stage where I’ve always wanted to be”.

Like me, you probably know numerous prominent personalities who've soared into fame and at some point fell flat on their faces, never to rise again.

When news broke that Precious had lost all her fortune many might have thought her doomed and never imagined that she would come back so soon. Mgongo, a 13-part show that she just finished filming, is her first step to recovering what she had lost. The show, which is sponsored by Sony, concentrates on music, movies and gadgets. It will be aired on Mzansi Magic from the 11th of October 2011.

Through this day-to-day conversation I begin to see that I have been wrong about Precious all along. I've always thought she was your average girl, born with a silver spoon in her mouth. I had never associated an informal settlement with her. It was Dr Di Hornby who crushed my perception of the dark skinned beauty.

Dr Di had been encouraging the Community Social Development (CSD) advanced certificate graduates not to undermine their achievements, and began sharing a story of how Precious Kofi, at 24, with no tertiary education addressed a lecture hall of more than 250 people with no script in hand as she delicately narrated her story of growing up in the depths of poverty in Mandela Park, outside Hout Bay.