Sustainable housing could play a significant role in the way the continent tackles its housing deficit. We unpack the ground-breaking innovations, Initiatives and ideations&nbsp;developing&nbsp;the&nbsp;‘green&nbsp;scene’. 



In a village in the Mtwara region of Tanzania, a project borne from the concepts of architectural innovation, sustainability and social responsibility is underway. And it’s just one of many aimed at tackling the demand for environmentally-conscious housing in Africa.



A report from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) states that the continent’s housing deficit is estimated at over 97 million units and “this is expected to increase as the continent’s population grows, and urbanization continues”.



The clinical trial in Mtwara, dubbed The Star Homes Project, was initiated in 2021 by Denmark-based Ingvartsen Architects in cooperation with the Hanako Foundation and, according to the company, was developed by a cross-disciplinary team of architects, physicians, entomologists and social scientists along with local community leaders and stakeholders.



However, Jakob Knudsen, Principal Architect at Ingvartsen, says that the focus of the project, initially, was simply to improve the health of the occupants of the houses.



“The [houses] are made [of ] very light materials. It looks like concrete, but actually it’s a very thin steel profile with a thin plaster, so it has a very low material use. And what looks like glass is basically a net, so we kind of replaced all the walls with netting, and we made this house naturally very cool. We can see that we have lowered the material consumption and CO2 use by 30% to 40% depending on how you calculate it. And that’s because we try to kind of maximize all the components,” he says.



“It actually didn’t start as a sustainability thing. It started as a way to make the buildings cheaper, but we realized, during the process, that actually we are onto something where we’re using far less materials. It also became interesting from a financial side and a material side, and this is what we’re looking at now. We know that these houses are actually working against malaria, we can see that.”



An article from the World Health Organization on Malaria Day 2023 indicates that Tanzania is one of the four countries in Africa that accounted for slightly over half (52%) of all malaria deaths globally in 2021. Further to this, the country alone accounted for 4% of all malaria deaths, and the disease continues to pose a major burden in the northwest and southeastern regions of the country.



As part of the Star Homes Project, the health of the occupants of the 110 constructed homes will be compared to those living in 440 control homes over a three-year period, which is set to conclude this year.



“We conclude by the end of this year, then we have the three- year period. Nothing is published yet, but I can say that we have very promising results already on the malaria [aspect]. There’s a clear benefit from having a new house when you’re looking at malaria. I mean, this is a rural area in Tanzania, so lots of people [have] malaria, and they’re much better protected. But this is one of the first housing projects, to our knowledge, the first time a house has been built and used in this way to demonstrate it.”



Each house also has a 40W solar panel that provides lights in each room and USB charging, and rainwater is collected from the roof and stored in a 2,000-liter tank for clean drinking water. According to Knudsen, based on the materials used, it cost around $9,000 to build at the time.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-does-a-green-future-look-like">What does a ‘green’ future look like?</h4>



The ongoing demand for affordable housing coupled with growing climate change concerns has brought sustainable or green architecture to the fore.



Britannica defines green architecture as a philosophy of architecture that advocates sustainable energy sources, the conservation of energy, the reuse and safety of building materials, and the siting of a building with consideration of its impact on the environment.



A 2023 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) titled, Building Materials And The Climate: Constructing A New Future, indicates that the buildings and construction sector is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for 37% of global emissions.



However, herein lies the opportunity. Entrepreneurs and businesses alike have taken up the mantle to innovate, ‘go green’ and make a positive impact on the environment at large.



According to the World Green Building Council’s (WorldGBC) Africa Manifesto for Sustainable Cities and the Built Environment, by 2050, Africa will be home to 1.1 billion more people than it is today, and 80% of the buildings that will exist in Africa in 2050 are yet to be built.



Lisa Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer of the Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA) and Vice Chair for the WorldGBC’s Africa Regional Network, emphasizes the progress of the collaborative efforts across the continent. 



“We’ve got different sort of levels of Green Building Councils. In Africa, there are two established Green Building Councils – South Africa and Kenya, and the others are mixed between emerging and prospective. Our job, and I include Kenya in it, is really to support the prospective and emerging councils,” she tells FORBES AFRICA.



“Africa has [been] hit by climate events, so there is a huge awareness that, whether it be the Green Building Council or governments, [we] have to do something to alleviate these things,” Reynolds adds.



Knudsen echoes the sentiment on collaboration, stating, “I think one of the sustainability problems I see in Africa is that materials are used in a very inefficient way in many local buildings. You could easily save 30% of the materials if there was better knowledge for the builder who’s doing this, but that’s not something you can expect. We need somebody else who knows how to work with building techniques.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Trash to treasure</h4>



In 2019, the first plastic road was laid down in South Africa’s Jeffery’s Bay, and reports, published recently, indicate that it has lasted longer than traditional tar roads. And the uses for this often-troublesome product seem to only increase from here.



As per the United Nations’ goal 11 of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, entrepreneurs across Africa are tackling sustainable building prac- tices in their own way.



One such example is Kubik CEO and co-founder, Kidus Asfaw. Kubik, an environmental tech company, takes plastic waste and transforms it into low-carbon, low-cost housing in Ethiopia, where the startup is based.



Asfaw, who has worked for the World Bank, Accenture, and Google, as well as on technology and innovation initiatives for UNICEF, relays the story of how he got into the trash business. “I helped set up the first-ever circular economy project for UNICEF in Cote d’Ivoire, and we were able to create bricks out of plastic waste. We made over 500 schools using those and my love changed from software to trash, affordability, housing and cities. I did that for about four years,” he says.



“During that time, I learned the issues not just around trash, but a multitude of major challenges that human beings that live in cities are facing, especially on rapidly urbanizing continents like Africa. Alongside poor waste management [which] needs to be addressed, affordable housing is probably one of the biggest priorities in many countries right now. And then, of course, there’s climate change.”



Kubik, which was founded in 2021, produces products that are high in compression strength, non-flammable, non-toxic and modular.



“We’re a business that transforms hard-to-recycle plastic waste into building materials that real estate developers can use at a cheaper price than conventional cement-based materials without compromising the quality or safety of those buildings,” says Asfaw.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-63677" style="width:568px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kubik Wall expression</figcaption></figure></div>


“Part of them doing business with Kubik [is] they’re also reducing the greenhouse gas impact that they bring to building cities like Addis Ababa. In a nutshell, we take all of that very bad plastic that you typically see in a landfill, and we make things like bricks that can make an entire wall, and that wall is as unremarkable as it looks, because it’s supposed to look just like every other building. What makes it remarkable to us is how accessible it is to lower-income communities, price-wise, and how green and sustainable it is within the real estate sector.”



In South Africa, sisters Kedibone and Kekeletso Tsiloane are tackling the plastic pollution and waste management issue through Ramtsilo Manufacturing and Construction, a company they founded in 2013. The business focuses on transforming hard-to-recycle plastics and other waste products into eco-bricks.



Kekeletso, who has a background in engineering, tells FORBES AFRICA about how this passion project turned into a fully-fledged business in a traditionally male-dominated industry.



“We initially started with small construction jobs, so building roads and building small projects, and that’s when we actually noticed that we spent so much money on materials, specifically bricks for us. We went out to look for a woman-owned brick manufacturing company, which we struggled to find. We then started making the bricks ourselves,” she says.



“I am interested in the green economy and what happens to waste and that grew an interest of learning about the afterlife of waste. In our research, we did not know that plastic had different properties and had different values. In terms of money, per kilogram, in the recycling space, it has different prices as well. And with that, we then sought out to make a product that we’re still comfortable with, but is innovative and in the green space.” South Africa, according to World Wide Fund (WWF), produces over 2.5 million tonnes of plastic annually. And while the bricks produced by Ramtsilo reportedly function in exactly the same way as conventional bricks, Kedibone, who has a finance background, states that the company still had to do a fair amount of educating on the product.



“We’re still having to re-educate people. It’s a plug and play solution but it integrates seamlessly into the construction industry. That was one of our biggest value-adds… the fact that people could easily use the product because they had the same look and feel as the conventional brick,” she explains.



“We then realized there’s additional benefits that come with the products – from an installation perspective, from a condensation water absorption [perspective] – because of the use of the plastic. The brick is actually branded so that people know that they’re [buying] an eco-friendly product. We’ve seen from the retailers, that product doesn’t stay in the retail stores and it’s simply because of the quality [and] the performance of the product.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-768x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-63676" style="width:516px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kekeletso &amp; Kedibone Tsiloane (Photo Supplied)</figcaption></figure></div>


According to Kedibone, the bricks can be found at South African retailers like Builders Warehouse and Leroy Merlin in Gauteng. And while Ramtsilo’s business model tends to focus more on partnerships with corporates and retailers – a model that appears to be working well for them – Kubik’s has opted to focus on and develop the company’s relationships with waste pickers.



“We grappled with what our supply chain model should look like for many months. There are thousands of waste pickers in Ethiopia. Most of those pickers happen to be women, over 80% of them, and most of them end up selling their produce for the day to brokers at very low prices that are not economically sustainable for them to pass the poverty line,” he says.



“We wanted our business model to have a supply chain that not only worked at scale and made business/financial sense for us, but ethically is also empowering those that have previously been exploited in this space. We typically would work with city administrations that typically manage landfills. We get into a partnership with them, set up a collection site and we directly source from these waste pickers at prices that are at least three, four times more than what they would normally get from a broker.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-endless-possibilities">Endless possibilities</h4>



A quick search online reveals some of the most commonly-used sustainable materials in construction. Aside from bamboo and recycled plastic, others include recycled or reclaimed wood, cork, Hempcrete and biocomposite cement.



Traditional building practices have also been employed in some parts of the continent. UNEP had published an article about a project at a school in Burkina Faso, where the modules that form the structure for the school are built out of locally- sourced laterite. This is then cut into bricks and left in the sun to harden. The bricks reportedly absorb the heat during the day and radiate it at night.



Another example of innovation at work is the The Wits Flower Hall Examination and Test Centre in South Africa. Ac- cording to a recent release by the institution, the now energy- efficient building has been recognized for its sustainable design and shortlisted in the Creative Reuse category at the World Ar- chitecture Festival, set to take place in November.



“We believe that adaptive reuse is a critical foundation of green sustainable building due to the embodied carbon content of existing buildings. Wits has a great track record of repurposing buildings, for example the Science Stadium,” said Dr Heather Dodd from Savage + Dodd Architects, who worked on this project in 2022, in the release.



The growth of the sustainable or green building space presents significant employment opportunities as well, according to Reynolds.



“The more that certification grows, the more people need to be aware the job opportunities are growing with it. I do a CEO message on all our newsletters; the latest one is talking about job expansion. So, you know, there’s job creation, but there’s also potential for job expansion because we need accredited professionals; we need EDGE experts,” she states. “We did our first certification in 2009. If you think of pre-2009, there were no such things as accredited professionals. Now, small companies are formed just doing certification. It’s a true reflection of job creation and I would try to encourage more and more people to do it. If they’re in the space [and] it’s not job creation, expand your portfolio and go into this space.”

Com_Ingvartsen_Mtwara_StarHomes_C-JulienLanoo_20220907L1034048 copy

Building Africa’s Green Future: How One Project Is Even Aiming To Curb Malaria With Sustainable Architecture

The cover of the August (Women&#8217;s Month) edition of Forbes Africa beautifully captures the essence of the woman I interviewed only a few weeks ago. Gracious, soft-spoken, brimming with life and energy. Dr Thandi Ndlovu impressed the entire Forbes crew on that afternoon cover shoot with her broad smile, and open yet powerful demeanor. 



It is with great sadness that Forbes Africa heard of the accident that took her life on Saturday the 24 August 2019. 



READ MORE |COVER: <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2019/08/02/the-pioneers-feisty-fearless-and-future-proof/">Feisty And Fearless Pioneers Thandi Ndlovu &amp; Nonkululeko Gobodo</a>



She had given so much to South Africa and its people – through the apartheid years and during the 25 years of democracy, literally building a better future, first through her medical practice at Orange Farm and then through her company, Motheo Construction Group and the scholarships for tertiary education granted by her Motheo Children’s Foundation. 



That sunny
winter’s afternoon, I asked her if she, at the age of 65, was considering
retirement, and she laughed. A lively, amiable laugh. She told me she was
healthy and strong and easily worked 12 to 13 hour days. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="WATCH | Making Of The Women’s Month Cover: Thandi Ndlovu &amp; Nonkululeko Gobodo (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbeswomanafrica.com/cover/2019/08/16/watch-making-of-the-womens-month-cover-thandi-ndlovu-nonkululeko-gobodo/" target="_blank">WATCH | Making Of The Women’s Month Cover: Thandi Ndlovu &amp; Nonkululeko Gobodo</a>



She loved hiking, and has climbed Kilimanjaro twice, reached the base camps of Mount Everest and Annapurna in Nepal. At the time of the interview, she was training to climb Machu Picchu, the famed ruins in Peru&#8217;s mountains. 



One of her biggest passions was to make a difference in
people’s lives and to motivate people to achieve the best they could. The other
was to redress the racial tensions that still remained in South Africa. 



Dr Thandi Ndlovu, South Africa is poorer for your passing. 



-Jill De Villiers

thandi2

Pioneer For Women In Construction Thandi Ndlovu has died

She came all the way for gold.
Akona Gwele, from a rural village named Qumbu in the sleepy innards of the Eastern Cape, a province in South Africa, arrived in Johannesburg, the city of gold, seeking opportunities she would have never found in her hometown.
Qumbu, formerly Transkei, is literally no man’s land. Young people, especially women, migrate to the cities looking for professional prospects other than nursing and teaching.
“I decided to come to Gauteng [South African province] because as the name says, it is known for being a place of gold; hence, I wanted to be closer to that gold. It promised more job opportunities and access to better education,” says Gwele.
The girl who, growing up, would fetch pails of water from the river for her household chores, went on to study electrical engineering at the Vaal University of Technology; and is today the owner of Westrand Safety, a supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) gear to companies in South Africa.
She even imparts her signature, introducing color and style for the protective gear she designs for women in the male-dominated industries of construction, mining and engineering.
“More people are now asking for comfortable styles that will not look like work gear and we are open to creating this and making sure we set trends,” she says.
She founded the company in 2015 and is a finalist in the Eskom Business Investment Competition, which provides a platform for South African owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to become part of a community of like-minded entrepreneurs as they look to build their businesses.
She is also a finalist for the South African Breweries Foundation awards via Fetola, a development agency focusing on igniting a culture of entrepreneurship in South Africa with an impetus on women, youth, people with disabilities and those in rural areas.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/02/13/traditional-and-thriving/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Traditional And Thriving</a>
Her clientele is mostly companies that have workers on the field, and in such industries as construction, education, engineering, mining as well as municipalities. Some of her clients include Anglo American, Sun Time Square, City Power, FET colleges, to name a few.
Gwele started Westrand in her bedroom with a laptop and her own savings. Prior to that, she was a salaried employee struggling to eke out a living.
After working in the engineering field for five years, Gwele could not see herself progressing in the male-dominated sector. The ‘glass ceiling’ compelled the mother of one to quit her job as an engineering technician and join a packaging company as a marketing executive but that didn’t last long, as here too, the entrepreneur in her was wanting to break out. She resigned yet again and that’s when she founded Westrand.
Her exposure to unsafe working conditions in different industries within the engineering field is what inspired it.
“I had visited many engineering plants and heard about all the fatalities and incidents that happen to staff and most of them are due to not wearing protective gear for the right exposure,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/12/14/situation-forced-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: &#8216;Situation Forced Me To Be An Entrepreneur</a><a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/12/14/situation-forced-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8216;</a>
Her seven-year experience in the corporate world trying to establish herself as a businesswoman prepared and strengthened her for her own venture.
This small-towner is now looking to establish a state-of-the-art factory manufacturing PPE safety wear and hoping to own one that also provides school uniforms for children in the Eastern Cape.
She will create job opportunities for her people, so hopefully one day they don’t ever have to leave Qumbu looking for them elsewhere. &#8211; Written by Nomsa Legodi

Keeping Them Safe And Stylish

As soon as I graduated from university there was an invitation from the managing director of a top Nigerian engineering company to join the organization. There I learned the business of construction and after four years of strategic support work I left to start my own building engineering service firm with a partner. It looked easy!
In Nigeria, starting a new enterprise seems like a piece of a cake and it’s very convenient for people to suggest you should “start something on your own”.  Lagos, where I live, has an annual government revenue one of around $1 billion. With this kind of cash seemingly flowing through the streets, it is assumed it is easy to finance one’s start-up.
My partner and I started our business with our tiny fund – around $320 – and within a few months, had invested most of it on marketing. We didn’t have a car to drive around Lagos so we used taxis to get to meetings. We pushed on until we eventually landed a construction site deal. This process taught us how unsupportive financial institutions in our part of the world can be.
The average entrepreneur in Africa finds it difficult to get their idea to market because of ridiculous interest bearing loans. As we began to talk to our banker for financial support, it became clear that the banking sector was not going to be of much help. We did not have a property, in a choice part of the city, to guarantee the loan which in itself attracts over 20% interest.
With time running out, and needing to get our workers and equipment to site, we resorted to a desperate measure. Desperate people do desperate things. In this case it was a ship sinking decision for us. A private investor offered us a short-term loan with a monthly interest of 15%. We assumed all would work out; we had millions to get people and equipment to site, and substantial work could be done to impress our client. Within 30 days, we would be paid and refund our creditor. It was unrealistic.
In an environment where uncertainty is high, relative to other part of the world, such a straight-line strategy requires many back-up plans. Our company defaulted and the loan extended to a third month, with an accumulated interest of 45% on every million naira. We defaulted because our client delayed payment. He couldn’t pay us because his funds were not released. That circle of failure is the undoing of many businesses.
In a society where moneylenders and investors place an emphasis on the reputation of an entrepreneur, one needs to have a plan to protect this. The harshness of the African business environment triggers desperation and keep entrepreneurs focusing on short-term plans. This needs to change; the longer a business’s plans are considered, the better it will be. There are other strategies that work with raising fund. In south-western Nigeria, Yoruba parlance says that “it is from home that treasures are taken out”. The interpretation is that success begins at home.
Many business owners that I have had the opportunity to talk to use their relationship with family and friends to raise funds, equipment and other resources. The benefit of this is that family is more willing to forgive you and this type of loan usually comes without interest. However, this strategy is limited on a continent where around 70% live below the poverty line.
This provides a huge opportunity for capital ventures and angel investors. It provides opportunities to bridge the poverty gap and create wealth on a continent that is thought to be the next global investment destination. To truly realise this opportunity, the purse of an entrepreneur shouldn’t be bullied.

Desperate People Do Desperate Things

I have taken a sabbatical from corporate life and as I write this I am experiencing, first hand, the cultures, history and architecture of the ancient world in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.
Travelling through Turkey, the Balkans and the new countries born of the collapse of the Soviet Union, one cannot escape the striking diversity of the infrastructure that modern citizens of these countries have inherited. There are important lessons we should have learned from the past, but have we?
Roman engineering and construction techniques laid the foundation for our modern construction technology and methods – they created massive infrastructure across 5,000 kilometers of territory from northern Europe to northern Africa and the Black Sea in the east over a period of around 500 years from 27 BC. The Romans were dedicated master civil engineers and constructors using marble and hard rock, such as granite, transported from all corners of their empire to create cities comprising massive structures, water and transport systems, as well as public facilities that could accommodate thousands in stadiums. They invented concrete and the manufacture of kiln-fired red brick. They recycled materials and large building components as the empire expanded and contracted.
“Why did the Romans build so many ruins?” asked a tourist to our great amusement – fact is that their structures have outlasted most others, hence these are still with us. The Romans worked from a master plan, used detailed design techniques, the best materials, and skilled craftsmen. They mastered logistics, manpower and project management like the ancient Egyptians had done 3,000 years earlier.
The Ottoman Empire usurped the Romans in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor for the next 400 years into the 15th century before Eastern European communities started to win back their countries from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks and re-establish their own art, culture and architecture. During their reign, the Ottomans, while perfecting the construction of large domes in their places of worship, chose interlocking soft sandstone and used simpler construction methods. Their structures have not survived as well, with some notable exceptions, requiring regular restoration and preservation, at great cost.
In Istanbul there are two obelisks a hundred meters apart. One is sandstone from the Ottoman era around 1400 AD, but now a crumbling image of its former self. The second is an Egyptian granite obelisk still in almost pristine condition from around 2000 BC, situated upon a still substantial foundation of a Roman hippodrome built circa 330 AD of solid granite, marble and red brick and mortar (cement).
Fast forward to my visit to Romania and Bulgaria, where the fabulous granite and marble structures of the Renaissance period, through to the 18th century post the defeat of the Ottoman Turks, stand proudly while all around are the crumbling relics of Soviet Russia era multi-story mass housing blocks and public buildings – falling apart after only a few decades. The new democracies in these countries have massive restoration and rebuilding programs – substantially funded with EU contributions, which fuels the British, French and German taxpayer debate on who benefits from the EU.
The contrast with the structures of the ancient and antique world is remarkable.
Spotlight moves to Africa and what has been achieved in infrastructure delivery.
The crumbling RDP houses, the years of time and cost overruns on public sector power plants and pipelines, roads and railways. The lack of infrastructure planning and maintenance across our region is in stark contrast to the world class private sector delivery of mines, toll roads, World Cup stadiums, renewable energy plants, commercial and retail infrastructure and private hospitals delivered in recent years.
It would seem obvious, and history tells us, that infrastructure is best delivered by professionals using proven design processes, skilled craftsmen, the appropriate materials and technologies, effective planning and project management techniques.
Infrastructure delivery should not be controlled by politics, cadre deployment, state institutions that have limited technical capacity, tenderpreneurs, or cobbled-together contractors who may be well-networked.
By nature of their training, demonstrable skills and track record, infrastructure delivery is the domain of professional individuals and companies who should, but still wait patiently, be invited into the inner sanctum of government to discuss the master plan for both South Africa and the regional infrastructure backlog that will unlock the future.
The Romans had this sorted – why can’t we?

Where is caesar   when you need him

Despite preconceptions, you will find women in powerful roles are more than capable of outperforming their male counterparts across the infrastructure value chain.
As a sponsor of Woman in the Built Environment initiatives and training and career development, my former company, Group Five, led from the front. But it’s the girl power that we unearthed and nurtured that was an inspiration to me.
We committed ourselves to targeted recruitment at student level to attract ladies in all the engineering disciplines, quantity surveyors, construction management, finance and HR, to drive gender and racial transformation. Dedicated gender orientated programs followed.
The success stories are legendary. The 14,000-employee Group Five created an environment where women rose to the highest ranks, including board level and divisional unit directors, through to technical and support roles.
The most incredible stories came from the construction divisions. We placed newly graduated female students to fast track local-based programs and then deployed them to participate on an equal footing with the guys in some of the most remote sites across Africa.
One young lady was a construction management graduate who was bored with building another Sandton office block. So, we sent her to a mine construction site in Ghana. A few years later, she rose to become the successful multidisciplinary construction manager responsible for the complete mine construction project in a remote site in Mali, with a workforce of over 300. She did this while in her twenties!
HR is often a female-dominated field, but not historically in construction, given the robust male-dominated manpower, and remote location, challenges. Group Five changed that and after only a few years many of the most senior human and industrial relations posts were occupied by a group of tough, confident ladies. They dealt with violent labor disputes at home and in Southern and West Africa, but were able to stand as role models for the young recruits and we started to see long-term careers being nurtured across the group after many years of countering the notion that construction is not sexy or rewarding. For the next generation, particularly for females, we changed that perception.
The group won the right to construct the iconic Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital as a direct result of the strong female and demographically representative team that inspired the trustees of the Children’s Fund. The team delivered on every promise made in the execution of the project, which included tough social and transformative targets.
Female leadership in finance and commercial law is an inspiration to the construction industry, from gender activists and shareholders to the many aspirant female accounting graduates who rapidly rose to manage the finances of a suite of highly complex businesses. From basic construction to the securing of turnkey power plant and transport projects across Africa, where the group took an equity stake and executed the turnkey engineering design and construction, or led the debt and equity strategies with financial services partners, females led the way.
Group Five’s CFO won the 2014 Business Woman of the Year award for her leadership in driving business systems re-engineering, transformation, shareholder relationships and women in construction initiatives within the industry, and raised two kids at the same time. How many men can follow that?
In African construction, “if the mossies don’t get you, the taxman will” – some may recall this amusing tale from an earlier column. We nurtured another young star from the finance team who became an industry authority on African tax, the law, and what coercion one might find at a site when the taxman arrives with his own militia. Our team knew more about their tax laws than the taxman himself.
Our protégé was so successful that she became the tax lead for a big branded legal firm.
We attracted and developed skilled females across Africa and beyond – our brand had become synonymous with enlightened attitudes, was recognized as a socially responsible organization in many countries. To drive our geographic strategy, we needed skills from across the target countries. This gave us technical, construction, finance and HR skills from as far afield as the Philippines, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.
Fast forward to 2016 and look at which construction companies are surviving, if not thriving, amid an industry in deep recession. I wonder if it’s the female touch that has made the difference?

A Woman’s TOUCH

South Africa needs a solid plan to deal with the more than $245 billion of backlogged infrastructure that is curbing industrial growth and social development.
A toxic cocktail of events and cruel circumstances continues to damage a hitherto world class industry that is vital for any planned economic revival.
The construction industry is suffering like never before. It is still shrinking from its 2008/9 peak, shedding several hundred thousand jobs, margins plunging to around 2% and little sign of relief.
The reality is that, despite political hot air, very little of the backlog of crucial infrastructure, needed to attract foreign and domestic industrial development, is being dealt with. As inaction continues, the capacity to deliver this crucial infrastructure is being destroyed, potentially leaving South Africa at the mercy of foreign influence.
The political influence that black business has in demanding an end to perceived white dominance of the sector, as well as the ratcheting of transformation demands and targets for black empowerment and black industrialization, drives a relentless, but necessary, agenda at a difficult time of negative growth.
In addition, many of the local construction groups have suffered reputational damage and have been heavily financially penalized by government for reported competition infringements.
The industry has suffered massive losses on major projects in South Africa, Africa and Australia, many of which are public sector projects which were poorly engineered and badly managed by both government and contractor.
Share prices have plummeted in recent years and skilled people have been eagerly sucked up by banks, consulting firms, mining and industrial companies.
The public view is negative, and notwithstanding the understandable loss of trust, the government has paid little attention to the damage to the South African economic revival that we all hope for.
The localization of the nuclear program and the infrastructure embedded in the National Development Plan are wishful thinking.
There is a new group of transformational CEOs appointed into many of the large construction groups. We realized a massive wake-up was required. The old guard had gone and we had to deal with the fallout and culture change required to root out historic anti-competitive behaviors and racist tendencies. We found we were not close enough to government and black business and we were not listening to the messages nor understood the outrage directed at the industry.
A few of us traveled a lonely journey trying to facilitate a new beginning and open dialogue between a diverse and relatively untransformed industry peer group leadership and the fragmented approach from four ministries that purported to have control or influence over the industry.
It was not until the chasm between traditional business and government claimed its first victims, through the heavy fines imposed by the Competition Commission and the threat of further action, that the attitudes of some of the diehard leadership among the peer group changed.
They had finally realized it could not be business as usual. Their anger was misplaced. Government and black business action was not about a perceived vendetta, it was fueled by the perceived exclusion of black business and broken trust in the construction leadership’s apparent lack of commitment to transformation and clean business.
After five years, the unproven remnants of the competition matter remains disputed. The Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), the industry’s regulatory body, continues to threaten to impose blacklisting sanctions and state-owned corporations charged with implementing the major infrastructure works remain short of capacity and technical skills to be able to manage the projected infrastructure projects worth R4 trillion ($245 billion).
Yet the economy is screaming for the infrastructure to be built to attract regional and international trade and investment.
Construction leaders have fast tracked the inclusion of black business interests, cleaned house and retained capacity at great cost to support the national infrastructure agenda. Yet government remains distant and unengaged, while some black business structures continue to bark demands with self interest in mind.
It is suspected that tenders for much needed infrastructure are being withheld pending a resolution of the trust and empowerment issues. It also appears that cabinet is unsure of which politically acceptable route to follow. This is very worrying and is preventing the country’s progress.

Inaction And Ineptitude

Heavy construction in Africa is not for sissies. A myriad of risks have to be dealt with, but it all boils down to three objectives: on time; on budget and on specification.
The route to success is dependent on three more critical aspects for the contractor: good people, good equipment and positive cash flow.
Getting the ‘Three by Three’’ right in Africa’s remotest locations means getting to grips with the risks that can include gun toting taxmen; more of that later.
Take the people: it takes a special breed to leave family behind and spend one to two years away from home, living in basic conditions, working on hot, wet and humid sites where communication is scarce and disease lies in wait.
Many sites are manned by a multicultural workforce. Providing traditional foods, ethnic, cultural and religious harmony is essential, and it happens all over Africa every day.
It’s the mosquitoes that get our people though – much of Africa is stricken by malaria and the good people we send to sites sometimes come home sick. It never really leaves your body and repeat infections are common. No amount of spraying work sites, medication, nets, creams, counseling and behavioral discipline guarantees immunity. In addition, if you are HIV positive, malaria is a death sentence – we voluntarily screened our workforce for HIV. The counseling was the tough part. Medical evacuation in severe malaria cases, and for other life threatening ailments, is a critical service that gives peace of mind to families back home. It’s the people that make for successful projects – mind the mozzies!
That said, construction leaders in Africa are a special breed and relish the exotic destinations they call home for a year or two. They love the freedom to operate, the responsibility they have and the life-changing challenges they experience daily.
Border posts are also a problem. Getting equipment across Africa is tough. No amount of planning and preparation is enough; you have to have the right paperwork and physically shepherd heavy plant equipment through Africa.
In my years in African infrastructure, getting plants to site and getting it home again without losing time, or being asked to pay exorbitant unofficial border duties, was rare. Ports can also simply let goods lie for weeks or even months, which piles stress onto projects.
Transport routes become toll roads as communities set up roadblocks and press for toll fees to allow heavy equipment to pass. Building a power line in Nigeria – a nightmare as the line passed through many communities, each of whom was promised work by the elders – meaning we had to divvy it all up and employ a military guard for each pylon to prevent sabotage.
We even hired nearby mobile police or ‘Mopol’ to ensure people and equipment got to the sites.
It’s a tricky situation which forces you to manage this risk; avoid compromising good governance, yet keeping the project moving.
Avoid all of the above and the taxman can still get you on cash flow and margin. Onerous tax regimes are fueled by hungry economies, fiefdoms masquerading as tax collection centers, corruption and western aid. Efficient tax collection systems are developed to lessen their future aid burden – a costly recipe for great creativity and duress.
No amount of technical competence, good governance, good people and good equipment on site can prevent the unexpected!
In the early years, in one large country struggling to emerge from its war-torn past, where we constructed many successful projects, the tax base was the primary source of regional government income. The published national tax code was the easy part – it’s the governor or taxman who you had to be wary of! The tax assessors would arrive in military trucks, with AK47s, to encourage payment of some creative assessments of the PAYE and company tax. Needless to say, we learned how to deal with this, never paid under duress, but tax clearance can run for years after the jobs were built and that’s an unexpected cost to the company.
Building in Africa? Sounds easy? If you are looking for rewarding challenges, seeing the world, excitement, personal growth and building something permanent –
try it!

Beware Of Taxmen Carrying AK47s

Will the announced nuclear program energize South Africa’s manufacturing and construction?
My background is power engineering. Building power plants across Africa generates as many stories as they do megawatts. It is ironic that, in Africa’s most electrified economy, there are tales of powerless people and an economy running out of juice.
Eskom, South Africa’s national power generator, is cooking with gas (turbines) – at the cost of around $78 million a month – while grinding away at the late completion of the new 9,000MW Kusile and Medupi coal power plants. Medupi’s first 800MW unit is generating power and will be on commercial load in September, with up to 1,600MW coming onto the grid each year for the next five years.
Keep your gas cylinders full and your camping lights charged – there’s more to this story!
South Africa has a 40GW-headache to cure in the next 20 years. The first 10GW is merely to match current demand. Generation capacity is 40GW with only about 30GW available due to the UCLF (unplanned capacity loss factor) being high. The national demand is over 40GW as mines and smelters have shut down to help Eskom. Medupi and Kusile will merely tick this box.
The second 10GW is needed to replace the old coal plants before 2025. They have been run hard well beyond their time. The third 10GW is needed to attract investment for growth and the fourth 10GW is for reserve capacity to allow for maintenance.
Coal may be easier and cheaper, but it’s dirty stuff and our economy has to be environmentally attractive to foreign investment. Few investors will stump up if it will worsen their carbon footprint.
So, 40GW in the next 20 years! Simply put, double Eskom. It has to be greener than ever before too – no dirty coal. That means nuclear topped up with clean coal IPPs. Wind and solar may be very sexy but they don’t deliver the big base load power that we need.
Like it or not, nuclear is the leading renewable energy source and South Africa is in play on the global nuclear stage to procure 9,600MW of nuclear power.
Contrary to the naysayers, nuclear energy’s lifetime cost is lower than most technologies, it’s expensive at the start, but cheaper to run.
South Africa’s nuclear regulatory body has defined that only the safest technology will meet the environmental and safety specifications for any new build program.
Russia, France and China are likely frontrunners, but who has the better and safest kit and who can offer a compelling financial deal? That’s where technology, money, politics and common sense meet in a witches brew.
The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) sets the readiness criteria for building nuclear plants. A nuclear power plant is split into three main sections: The Nuclear Island, The Conventional Island (Turbine) and the Balance of Plant. South Africa is ready to manufacture and construct on the last two sections, which are similar to the local content of Medupi and Kusile, with some nuclear safety alignment.
The nuclear codes and quality standards take a quantum leap in the Nuclear Island and that is where the nuclear certified contractors like Group Five, Lesedi Nuclear Services and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) are qualified. The country’s industry will have to partner with the successful vendors to hone those skills, train a workforce and learn from the build program in Europe, China and Russia.
There’s a buzz again. Nuclear vendors expected a request for proposals in August with a preferred Nuclear Vendor Country announced by March. Next year will see tendering for the local manufacturing and construction sector, with contracts signed in 2017 and construction starting in 2018.
The capital expenditure for 9,600MW will be approximately $40 to $50 billion, plus government costs and interest on capital. All this leads to trillions being spent over 15 years. That’s a big number that will reignite local industry and a knowledge economy after the last seven years of power cut misery.
Could we “boom” again?
&nbsp;
Additional reporting from Des Muller, head of Group Five Nuclear Construction Services.

double or quit?

Kitted out in worker boots, hard hats and blue overalls, Iman Mkwanzi and Nene Mboweni are demolishing stereotypes. The owners of Mkweni Groundworks – a construction company specializing in general building, road signage, landscape and horticulture – are glass ceiling-crashers.
Mkwanzi and Mboweni began looking at different avenues for a new business, and discovered a trend – women were thriving in construction.
Inspired by them  making their mark in a male-dominated sector, they decided to get their hands dirty.
“We actually wanted to be in worker boots. We weren’t really fazed by project management, we felt like we needed to change the dynamic a bit and get in there…From the beginning, we’ve had funny reactions,” says Mboweni.
“You’ve got to be street smart – working from the ground upwards. If you know what the dynamic is at the bottom, understanding the dynamic at the top is easier. We’re trying to bring a fresh new mentality into it because there’s huge problems in this industry and enterprises have dominated and monopolized a space. The bigger enterprises grow, you lose contact with the ground but we’re in touch with it,” says Mkwanzi.
Mboweni studies medicine and runs a baking business, Nnüa; Mkwanzi works as a model and has just completed her degree in medical microbiology. For the duo, every day is labor intensive. Their new venture often involves breaking down glass walls and stereotypes.
“It’s male-dominated but if you’re assertive as a woman, you’re just as powerful,” says Mboweni.
“I’ve had stereotypes thrown at me my entire life. I’ve never cared and I’m not going to start caring about other people’s negative opinions – that just brings you down. We’re going to focus on the positive,” says Mkwanzi.
Constructing buildings and building careers – Mboweni and Mkwanzi are on their way up.

IMG_1784

Wearing Multiple Hats

Will the announced nuclear program energize South Africa’s manufacturing and construction?
My background is power engineering. Building power plants across Africa generates as many stories as they do electricity. It is ironic that, in Africa’s most electrified economy, there are tales of powerless people and an economy running out of juice.
Eskom, South Africa’s national power generator, is cooking with gas (turbines) – at the cost of around $78 million a month – while grinding away at the late completion of the new 9,000MW Kusile and Medupi coal power plants. Medupi’s first 800MW unit is generating power and will be on commercial load in September, with up to 1,600MW coming onto the grid each year for the next five years.
Keep your gas cylinders full and your camping lights charged – there’s more to this story!
South Africa has a 40GW-headache to cure in the next 20 years. The first 10GW is merely to match current demand. Generation capacity is 40GW with only about 30GW available due to the UCLF (unplanned capacity loss factor) being high. The national demand is over 40GW as mines and smelters have shut down to help Eskom. Medupi and Kusile will merely tick this box.
The second 10GW is needed to replace the old coal plants before 2025. They have been run hard well beyond their time. The third 10GW is needed to attract investment for growth and the fourth 10GW is for reserve capacity to allow for maintenance.
Coal may be easier and cheaper, but it’s dirty stuff and our economy has to be environmentally attractive to foreign investment. Few investors will stump up if it will worsen their carbon footprint.
So, 40GW in the next 20 years! Simply put, double Eskom. It has to be greener than ever before too – no dirty coal. That means nuclear topped up with clean coal IPPs. Wind and solar may be very sexy but they don’t deliver the big base load power that we need.
Like it or not, nuclear is the leading renewable energy source and South Africa is in play on the global nuclear stage to procure 9,600MW of nuclear power.
Contrary to the naysayers, nuclear energy’s lifetime cost is lower than most technologies, it’s expensive at the start, but cheaper to run.
South Africa’s nuclear regulatory body has defined that only the safest technology will meet the environmental and safety specifications for any new build program.
Russia, France and China are likely frontrunners, but who has the better and safest kit and who can offer a compelling financial deal? That’s where technology, money, politics and common sense meet in a witches brew.
The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) sets the readiness criteria for building nuclear plants. A nuclear power plant is split into three main sections: The Nuclear Island, The Conventional Island (Turbine) and the Balance of Plant. South Africa is ready to manufacture and construct on the last two sections, which are similar to the local content on Medupi and Kusile, with some nuclear safety alignment.
The nuclear codes and quality standards take a quantum leap in the Nuclear Island and that is where the nuclear certified contractors like Group Five, Lesedi Nuclear Services and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) are qualified. The country’s industry will have to partner with the successful vendors to hone those skills, train a workforce and learn from the build program in Europe, China and Russia.
There’s a buzz again. Nuclear vendors expected a request for proposals in August with a preferred Nuclear Vendor Country announced by March. Next year will see tendering for the local manufacturing and construction sector, with contracts signed in 2017 and construction starting in 2018.
The capital expenditure for 9,600MW will be approximately $40 to $50 billion, plus government costs and interest on capital. All this leads to trillions being spent over 15 years. That’s a big number that will reignite local industry and a knowledge economy after the last seven years of misery.
Perhaps it will be “boom” again?
&nbsp;
Additional reporting from Des Muller, head of Group Five Nuclear Construction Services.

Double or quit?

John Schooling lived up to his name and loved working as a high school teacher. Quitting the classroom and becoming an entrepreneur in construction had nothing to do with not liking his job.
“It was 1984, and I was tired of being broke halfway through the month,” he says. “My best friend from school and I then set up our own business doing renovations and restoration jobs.”
The company grew from strength to strength, growing into a very successful construction and development company. When the global financial crisis shattered the world and shook South Africa, Schooling and his business partner were forced to reinvent themselves and their business model.
<div id="attachment_3806" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3806" class="size-medium wp-image-3806" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/004-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />STAG Student Lodging | Photography by Clare Louise Thomas</div>
“We had planned an upmarket residential development and a hotel on a stretch of land near District Six, in Cape Town. These plans were canned after banks pulled their money from our investors,” he says.
“We then found out that the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), situated near that particular stretch of land, was struggling with a student accommodation shortage of 6,000 beds. We did some further research and found out that the countrywide deficit of adequate student accommodation amounted to some 200,000 beds. We decided to tap into this market, giving way to the Student Accommodation Group or STAG African.”
Schooling’s statements are reflected in the Ministerial Review of SA University Accommodation, presented by the Department of Higher Education last year. The report shows a shortfall of 207,800 university beds, meaning that less than 10% of first-year university students can be accommodated on campus. The reality is much worse as the ministerial figures exclude the shortfall at tertiary education institutions other than universities, including so-called technical vocational education and training colleges.
“The deficit at these institutions may be as high as another 200,000 beds,” says Schooling, noting that the available on-campus residences, particularly in impoverished areas, are not always in tip-top shape. “These residences are often dilapidated, unhygienic and unsafe. It is apparently not uncommon for as many as six students to share a tiny room.”
Solving this issue is critical. Research has shown that first-year students, who have a roof over their head at university, have an 80% chance of passing. This is double the pass rate of those roughing-it without.
Fixing this problem is unfortunately an expensive affair. According to the government, is costs some $3.6 billion to provide a decent roof over the heads of all students in South Africa.
“This is the price tag when one builds with bricks and mortar,” says Schooling. “STAG African does things differently, as we use Light Steel Framing (LSF).”
This technique has been used in Europe and the United States for at least half a century. It uses galvanized steel structural wall frames, floor joints, roof trusses with single skin brick walls or fiber cement boards as wall cladding.
“Building a LSF structure is 40 percent quicker than building that same structure out of bricks and mortar. The process also requires significantly less energy, making LSF construction even more cost efficient,” says Schooling.
There is another reason why LSF structures are more energy efficient than conventional buildings.
“The wall cladding comprises material from renewable forests and fiber cement. As a result you need 80 percent less energy to warm up and cool down a building to maintain an ambient temperature. On top of that, we fit our buildings with LED lights and heat pumps, which reduces energy usage even more,” he says.
STAG African has built a roof over the heads of 1,055 students. Various other projects are in the pipeline, including a 2,046-bed residence at the University of Fort Hare, in Alice, and an extension of the residence at the University of Stellenbosch’s Tygerberg Medical Campus.
“The 208 additional beds we are building will make this the greenest residence in Africa,” says Schooling.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3807" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/002-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Making way for energy efficient buildings is no luxury in South Africa, a country which faces a persistent energy crisis. Since 2008, the national power generator has struggled to meet the country’s energy demand. The power cuts are costing the economy up to $7.3 billion per month, according to the government.
While building decent, energy-efficient student residences, Schooling intends to create as many jobs as possible, particularly for young people. Data from the International Labour Organization (ILO) reveals that 52% of South Africans aged between 15 and 24 are neither at school, nor at work. As a result, 61.3% of all South Africans living in poverty are under the age of 25.
One of the main causes of the above scenario is a lack of skills. This is where STAG wants to come in.
“LSF building skills are much easier to learn and teach than building the conventional way. Apart from that, it is a new and very relevant skill in the South African context, for which there is a high demand locally. With the work STAG has in the pipeline now, we could create 12,500 sustainable, permanent jobs. We unfortunately do not have enough people with the right skills,” says Schooling.
“Our aim, therefore, is to offer training colleges to teach LSF building techniques to their students, while employing them. We will even draw up a curriculum. We can work up someone who is unskilled to highly skilled in two years. This is good for us, this is good for them, and for those whom rely on them financially: one laborer in South Africa on average supports seven to eight dependents.”
The pull of the classroom is still strong for Schooling, the teacher turned entrepreneur.

Three Birds,  One Stone

Anselm Tabansi left a cushy job as an associate lawyer at a prestigious Nigerian firm to follow another path. He was heeding a call and is now a staple in Nigeria’s design and hospitality industry.
“I am a lawyer by profession, so this is not a familiar academic terrain for me. I worked for a law firm specializing in industrial and intellectual property and did that for about four years. I woke up one morning and decided it was not the path for me,” says Tabansi.
An Anselm Tabansi designed space leave a lasting impression on design aficionados. His is a story of passion and intent.
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His creativity reaches back to his academic years in England where an interest for architecture blossomed. While it wasn’t pursued, Tabansi subsequently found himself trading in interior accessories, supplying interior designers and shops at the start of his design career. Wrought iron was the aesthetic trend in England at the time. Tabansi, believing this trend would thrive in Nigeria, made a decision to test the market at home. Following some research, he took the plunge, opening a small-scale production workshop in Lagos. He started with one welder and soon added a painter.
It was a bumpy start, with the new company, Svengali Designs, struggling to gain any prominence. He needed to create some buzz and began producing samples for friends and furniture shops to gauge their interest. Tabansi’s new venture soon proved to be a great decision. Within a year, there was a surge in demand for wrought iron furniture in Nigeria, catapulting Tabansi’s business.
“I started producing wrought iron furniture, wrought iron for balconies, railings, stairs, and gates. It was in high demand at that time but a couple of years later, the trend began to shift away from wrought iron. It had become a fad. I knew we would start to lose a significant amount of clients. The trend was shifting to wood-based furniture. Aluminum and stainless steel for railings, followed closely. We made the necessary shift and we have never looked back,” says Tabansi.
This shift would transform Tabansi’s company from one that produced a single product to a multi-faceted one.
Nigeria’s creative industry has enjoyed rapid growth as homegrown designers were given a more enabling environment. A few challenges still exist however, power and policy being at the forefront.
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“The need to generate our own power is mandatory. This makes production very expensive as we were constantly burning diesel. The raw materials we use for our production are also heavily taxed on duty. This poses a huge challenge and we hope the incoming government addresses this.”
From conference tables to living room furniture, Svengali Designs has carved out a large slice in the market with production for hospitality projects taking off in 1996 and a growing customer base that cuts across key sectors.
Interior design is a key service the company offers. With a mix of locally produced and imported merchandise, clients come from far and wide. The factory has 160 employees.
A joint venture with Turkish company, Poliform, led to Svengali-Poliform, a production arm for stainless steel and aluminum railings. This has a 43-man workforce.
Looking to grow even further, Tabansi ventured into the hospitality business. Nigeria’s hospitality industry is saturated with international brands. Identifying a gap in the homegrown hospitality management industry saw the birth of Fahrenheit Hospitality.
“I am focusing on the boutique segment of the hospitality industry. Through my various past operations, I have assumed full control of over every aspect of delivering on this kind of project. Design, construction, outfitting, supplies and management is all handled within the group. We have not just reduced our costs but also ensured the quality of our design is adhered to.”
“Every final piece is a reflection of my style and taste.”
As he also plays the role of Creative Director, Tabansi supervises all steps of the production process. He says that the quality assurance at Svengali Designs gives his company an edge.
“Over the years, people have come to associate us with quality. It is my joy to hear that pieces that were purchased from us over 15 years ago are still in top form.”
Under the Fahrenheit Hospitality brand, there are plans to roll out a series of boutique hotels.
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As opposed to starting the furniture business years ago, where organic growth was needed, the hospitality brand is a capital intensive project.
“We are currently trying to attract investment with vested interest in our projects,” says Tabansi.
Despite the infrastructural bottlenecks, Tabansi‘s decision to remain a Nigeria-based producer is a conscious one.
Likening his personal style to a simple sophistication, Tabansi urges budding designers to follow their passion.
“I discovered my passion in design. Defining a space, deconstructing it and redefining it. From this, I get so much joy and constantly strive to outdo myself.”
Tabansi tries to cater for a wide spectrum of clients. He, however, says that quality comes with cost.
“Our pieces are affordable and we keep our products within the reach of many.”
Tabansi has exciting plans for the future of Africa’s design and hospitality scene. He aims to be on the frontlines, pushing the envelope.

The Iron Will That Propelled An Entrepreneur To The Top Table

United States (US) President Barack Obama announced that private companies are providing $12 billion to his Power Africa program, while US firms will invest more than $14 billion towards banking, construction and information technology on the continent.
The US-Africa Summit held in Washington in August focused on sustainable development, trade, collaboration, investment, and America’s commitment to Africa’s security, its democratic development, and its people.
Obama assured Africa’s head of states, gathered in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, that the US wanted to help Africa grow; nothing else. With his charming voice, he dismissed the notion that the US wanted something in return. Those who are not gullible know the US doesn’t do anything for free.
The African Union has 54 member countries. If the US really cares, it should help Africa in its entirety. It came as no surprise that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe didn’t get an invite. Other black sheep were Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic.
Some African nations declined to join the global superpower. Sierra Leone and Liberia focused on domestic issues rather than sucking up to the US, while Ebola kept West African countries busy.
Africa is not a charity case and progress can be made on our own terms. Foreign partnerships are vital, but the US is not the only option. China is currently forging trade agreements with several African countries.
Now more than ever, Africa needs education to exploit its resources. Academics Nkem Khumbah and Melvin Foote see this as a more viable option than pumping aid into the hands of corrupt officials.
“There’s a way to make a lasting and low cost investment in Africa’s next generation: Obama must bring education – science and technology in particular – to the forefront of the debate about African development,” wrote Khumbah and Foote in The New York Times.
Africa is experiencing an economic upswing, but its growth is predominantly based on extracting natural resources rather than increasing industrial productivity. Most African nations are far away from making any significant international breakthrough.
This is not rocket science. Power-obsessed African leaders need to understand and implement measures to help their countries grow.
Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist and author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is a Better Way for Africa, says donations to Africa provide many points to debate – millions march for it, governments are judged by it and celebrities promote the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that goes to Africa each year to be doubled.
Some, however, argue that aid has made the continent poorer and economic growth slower. The aid culture has left countries more debt-laden and vulnerable to the vagaries of currency markets. This leads to Africa being an unattractive destination for investment.
According to Moyo, despite the aggressive debt-relief campaigns in the 1990s, African countries still pay nearly $20 billion in debt per annum, a stark reminder that aid is not free. In order to keep systems going, debt is repaid at the expense of education and health care. Calls to write off the debt are hollow when it is met with a fresh infusion of aid. We are trapped in a vicious cycle.
“In 2005, just weeks ahead the G8 conference that had Africa at the top of its agenda, the International Monetary Fund published a report entitled ‘Aid Will Not Lift Growth in Africa’. The report cautioned that governments, donors and campaigners should be more modest in their claims that increased aid will solve Africa’s problems. Despite such comments, no serious efforts have been made to wean Africa off this debilitating drug,” Moyo points out.
Obama might have good intentions but Africa, the sleeping giant of the world, needs to wake up and guard its assets: both human and natural resources. It needs to protect itself from the toxicity of foreign aid.

Why Aid Is Bad For Africa

The construction of one of the world’s most futuristic buildings, in terms of kindness to the environment, happened as an afterthought to the R22.5 billion ($2.6 billion) deal that four years ago saw UK-based multinational cellular operator Vodafone gather a 65% controlling share in South Africa’s Vodacom.
Vodafone’s Innovation Centre, at its headquarters in Midrand, Johannesburg, opened at the beginning of this year. It is a seemingly unremarkable single-story, glass-and-wood structure designed to accommodate only around 12 researchers; but it has been awarded six stars by The Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA)— the only such rating achieved in this country and indeed all of Africa. The six stars denote it as a world leader.
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The idea for the building took shape shortly after the mammoth cellular-phone share deal, when the two companies’ technical teams were to be integrated. According to Suraya Hamdulay, Vodacom’s executive head of corporate citizenship, the interdisciplinary task team planning the merger decided it would be nice for the innovators to do their research inside an innovative building.
The whole exercise fitted with Vodafone’s stated intention to, by 2020, reduce its carbon emissions by 50% against its 2006/7 baseline of 1.23 million tons, and to reduce emissions in its emerging markets by 20% in 2015 against a 2010/11 baseline.
It was decided to locate the facility in South Africa because—being both an emerging and a developed economy—it would help consolidate the group’s efforts across the board.
With its six-star rating, the Vodafone facility is at the spearhead of a growing trend in South Africa—as in most of the world’s developed countries and a few developing economies—towards environmentally friendly building practices. The global tendency took a decisive turn in 2002 with the launch of the World Green Building Council, a federation of national councils that was joined by South Africa’s in 2007.
The GBCSA says, on its website, that buildings are estimated to consume 40-50% of the world’s energy through their construction and operation. Green buildings can more than halve the energy use of conventional buildings, with similar reductions in potable water usage, runoff to sewer and solid waste. The council’s purpose is to promote green building, act as a resource center, develop and operate a green-building rating system and improve knowledge and skills through training and education.
The features that had it award the Vodafone Innovation Centre its highest rating are remarkable for their novelty and also for their simplicity. Designed with the help of WSP Environment &amp; Energy South Africa, part of a leading international company, the innovation started with the very choice of a site and its preparation.
The building, reminding one somewhat of an unassuming wildlife lodge, is situated on what used to be a parking lot serving Vodacom’s adjacent headquarters. In the construction, as much use as possible was made of waste and discarded materials. Soil excavated for the foundations and second-hand tiles and reject stock bricks were used in the landscaping of the mainly indigenous garden and its pathways.
The whole purpose was to limit the use of concrete and cement to a minimum. Three layers of compacted soil separated by recycled plastic membranes form the foundations. Gabions resting on the layered foundations support the floor. Outside, air is cooled as it filters through the rock-filled wire-mesh baskets that form the gabions and serve to ventilate the building through vents along the sides.
The double-paned glass walls serve a variety of purposes. They reduce heat from outside and allow hot air trapped between them to escape through vents in the roof. By letting in natural light they limit the use of electric lighting. Bright light is dimmed by the building’s extended eaves and automatic blinds shut out direct sunlight. The see-through walls also create a sense of translucency, especially for those working inside who are able to look out into the garden.
Rain water from the roof goes into tanks from which it is used to flush the toilets and irrigate the garden. Inside the building is a small atrium serving as a wetland through which water from the sinks and basins get purified and re-used to flush the toilets.
The air-conditioning is done by an intricate system of solar tubes on the roof that pipe water into an absorption chiller and cooling coils from which it is passed through pipes in the floor and through cooling grids that are mounted in pot plants for the condensation to wet the plants. A spread of 292 photovoltaic panels, generating 230 kWh a day, drive fans that cool air by blowing it over the cold pipes.
No power-storage batteries are used. Through what is called virtual storage, excess electricity is diverted to Vodacom’s adjacent building to reduce its use of Eskom (the national electricity supplier) power by day. At night, the favor is returned in decidedly unequal measure by passing back such small amount of Eskom power as the Innovation Centre might need.
Even though it is mainly solar power that gets used, everything is designed to limit consumption. LED lighting is linked to motion sensors so that when nobody is in the building the lights will automatically switch off. The researchers work on laptops as they have been found to be the most power efficient.
“We are engineers, we have to have coffee. So we looked around for the most power-efficient coffee machine we could find,” says Etienne Gerber, the center’s program manager.
<h4>There&#8217;s a big new trend in building</h4>
The trend towards greener building is gathering pace in South Africa, as in a good many other countries, despite hard financial times. Since its establishment five years ago, the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) has already awarded 23 star ratings to buildings around the country. A further 34 buildings are in the pipeline for registration. 
Rosanne Mitchell, the council’s marketing executive, says as consumers become more discerning and environmentally conscious, they will be the drivers of sustainable design and construction as well as greener building occupation. The building industry itself is changing. Green building practices used to be implemented by only a few companies. Now these are practically standard practice. 
Vodafone’s Innovation Centre in Midrand is the only building to have been given six stars. Five more buildings have been awarded five stars for excellence, and seventeen have received four stars, which is for best practice. 
The five five-star buildings are the Standard Bank in Rosebank, Absa Towers West in Johannesburg, the Aurecon Century City Campus in Cape Town, Millennia Park in Stellenbosch and the Sisonke District Offices in Ixopo, KwaZulu-Natal. 
The GBCSA has over 1,000 member companies broadly representative of the private and some public sectors. Apart from developing its rating system, it has put more than 3,000 people through green building courses and accredited 400 green-building practitioners. 
Mitchell says there are strong indications that more and more the construction industry and the corporate world will see green building as an inevitable part of business as usual. As with fire safety standards and disability access, sustainability will soon be taken for granted. 
According to several recent surveys, it will become just the way we build.

Tag: Construction

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