It was a long journey for many on a sunny afternoon to the district of Laikipia, on the Equator, tucked away in the shadow of Mount Kenya.
Many had journeyed 200 kilometers from Nairobi to catch a glimpse of Africa’s richest footballer.
The longest journey of all was undertaken by Samuel Eto’o, who had flown from Moscow.
Eto’o leads a strange life in Russia amid vast wealth, unrest and racism. He scored 13 goals in 23 games for Anzhi Makhachkala, a team in Dagestan on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, close to the borders of Georgia and Azerbaijan. It is also a club slap–bang in the middle of Islamic insurgency. The region is considered so dangerous that Eto’o and his teammates have to train at a camp outside Moscow and fly more than 1,200 kilometers, 15 times-a-season, for home games.
On this warm afternoon in Laikipia, in the Kenyan highlands, there was no danger, merely adulation. More than 10,000 people crammed into the tiny football ground, with its two small stands, for the final of the Laikipia Unity Cup, where Eto’o was to make a symbolic kick-off.
The crowd was loud and jubilant. You could probably have heard the roar on the slopes of Mount Kenya. Thousands cheered and blew vuvuzelas as Eto’o, flanked by soldiers and the police commissioner, strode to the center-circle through a guard of honor made by players from nearby football clubs. It was a rare sight these days–one of the highest-paid athletes on the planet, in jeans and a T-shirt, mixing with the people as if he was about to lace up his boots and play.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-947" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Forbes.Africa-Samuel.Etoo-9-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />
The Cameroonian was in Kenya to promote conservation and environmental issues, but this trip to Laikipia sparked the idea of opening a football academy in the district. It would be the third in Africa after those he opened through the Eto’o Foundation in Gabon and Cameroon.
“I was driving back to the hotel when this crazy but beautiful idea crossed my mind. I hoped those who would attend the academy would take advantage of the opportunity. I want them to be better than me.”
Thirty-one-year-old Eto’o is the only man to win African Player of the Year four times. He earns $28.8 million a year. His club, Anzhi Makhachkala, is owned by a man who can afford him: Russian billionaire, Suleyman Kerimov. He is the 146th richest man in the world, according to Forbes, worth $6.5 billion. Kerimov, who was born and bred in Dagestan, owns stakes in everything
from long-distance telephone lines to Russia’s largest
gold mine.
The money may be good in Europe, but all too often the racism is bad, even though the authorities are trying to stamp it out. Eto’o has been in the thick of it. Once, while playing for Barcelona, he threatened to walk off the pitch as Real Zaragoza fans chanted racial insults at him. In March 2011, hooligans threw bananas—a crude expression of racism—at Eto’o’s fellow player and former Brazilian captain, Roberto Carlos. Russia, the host of the FIFA World Cup in 2018, is alleged to suffer from severe racism in football.
“Racism is everywhere and football is only a reflection of our society,” he says.
“Racism is about ignorance and nothing else. It’s not that hard to change a racist mind; all you need to do is to educate them,” says the striker.
The face of European soccer is changing fast. Almost all top European football clubs have an African playing for them. The success of the likes of Eto’o and Didier Drogba—who played a pivotal role in getting Chelsea the first-ever European Champions League trophy in May—is attracting more African football youth to Europe.
“A lot of youth have immigrated to Europe because they are looking for better opportunities. I actually want them to stay here in Africa so that they can build the continent,” he says.
Eto’o has a plan beyond football. The football academy he intends to build in Kenya will also focus on educating the youth on a number of subjects, particularly learning English.
“Football has given me everything and I would like to give back some of the things I got through football. That’s why I’m investing back into football in Africa.”
On the question of whether he will remain as one of the top-paid African players in the world, Eto’o was quick to detach football from money.
“Football is not about money, it’s about talent. My objective is to nurture the next generation of footballers so that this trend keeps on continuing. That’s one of the reasons why I am investing in football academies—so that the next generation can be as talented as ours.”
Eto’o’s contract with Anzhi comes to an end in 2014 and the Cameroonian skipper has planned his retirement. He has a number of projects that will keep him busy for years to come and a campaign against racism that is likely to take a lifetime.

A Crazy And Beautiful Idea  From Russia With Love

Throughout my career, Nelson Mandela, was a long-distance motivator for me. Whilst enduring the challenges that come with living in Europe, with a darker complexion, my mind constantly reminded me that there was a man in South Africa that had endured and was still enduring much greater challenges. The great man inspired me to hold my head up high and forge ahead. He makes me proud to be an African.
In Zambia during my youth, the African National Congress (ANC) was always talked about in a very hush-hush manner. I don’t think as children, our parents wanted us to know much about all the brave men and women exiled in our country. When it came to Nelson Mandela, great tales were told: how this man that was put in jail for his fight against the brutality of apartheid; for the right to be treated as a human being; for the right to be free. We didn’t have a picture of him, we hardly knew what he looked like, but we all knew of his courage and determination. He was our hero.
In Belgium and Holland in the late 1980s and early 90s there was much debate about apartheid in South Africa. Holland, in particular, was a melting pot of activists. It was in 1987 when my Dutch colleague, Ruud Gullit won ‘World Footballer of the year’ and dedicated his award to Nelson Mandela that I realized, my hero was a world hero and that there were other people in the world that truly cared for justice and democracy.
I was 28 when he was released in February 1990 after 27 years and I realized that he had been in jail for almost as long as I’d been alive! What a tragedy, I thought with anger. Yet when he came out of jail, he spoke of peace and harmony, without any bitterness or animosity towards his captors. He rose above the hardship and suffering and triumphed as a human being. He is an example to humankind that good overcomes evil—a victory we Africans were proud of; a victory that was an example to the world.
My career later took me to Mexico, where racism was a foreign concept to the friendly Central American country. I got a call from South Africa inviting me to play in the ‘Nelson Mandela Farewell game’—African XI vs. World All Stars XI—in honor of the great man who was about to step down as president. That weekend, I travelled for two days for thousands of kilometers by bus to an away game in Mexico. I arrived back in Mexico City at 8am, only to jump on a plane to South Africa. My trip took me from Mexico City to Paris and on to Johannesburg. I arrived in South Africa on the morning of the game. There was so much excitement, that fatigue was forgotten.
That day we were invited to have lunch at the Sandton Sun and Nelson Mandela arrived to meet us. Each and every one of us was dumbstruck by his presence. I remember one thing in particular: we had lunch, and I was with Jorge Campos and Claudio Suárez from Mexico. They were playing for the world team. When we went to greet the man himself, we asked one of the waiters to take our picture, which he did. On returning to Mexico we found that the picture he had taken was blurred. The waiter must have been shivering because the great Nelson Mandela was in the frame that it was completely out of focus.
This farewell match for the president of South Africa took place on August 17, 1999.  Coaching the World XI team was England coach, Roy Hodgson, and his team included:   Dunga; Christian Karembeu; Thomas Hassler and Hidetoshi Nakata to mention a few. Our African XI, coached by Jomo Sono, consisted of: Lucas Radebe; Doctor Khumalo; Mark Fish; and Phil Masinga. A great line-up for a great leader before 40,000 people at the Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg. I scored two goals in that match with the second goal in the 89th minute of the game. The final score was 2-2.
During the line-up I clearly remember feeling intense emotions on shaking his hand. I could ‘feel’ his greatness. I was humbled to be in his presence. For me, this was not just a football match, but a significant moment in my life, for me this great man epitomized what football should stand for: determination, courage, sacrifice, loyalty, forgiveness, goodwill and fairplay.
<div id="attachment_942" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-942" class="size-large wp-image-942" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/TL_586712-1024x668.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="309" />Kalusha Bwalya celebrates scoring the first goal. Mandela Farewell , 17 August 1999 , Ellis Park. Mandela XI 2 v FIFA World Stars 2 Photo Credit:©Duif du Toit/Gallo Images</div>
<div id="attachment_943" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-943" class="size-large wp-image-943" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AV_00020236-687x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="707" />JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; AUGUST 17: Neslon Mandela before the start of the Mandela XI 2 versus FIFA World Stars 2 match at Ellis Park on August 17, 1999 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Karel Prinsloo)</div>
I met him again, in Zurich in 2003, when we all waited anxiously for the announcement of the host of the 2010 World Cup, to which I was an ambassador. We shook hands and he commented that he knew me well and was my fan. I was bowled over by his humility and kindness. He was my fan? I was privileged to be one of the 16 people that were called in to make representation to FIFA on why this prestigious event should be hosted in South Africa. I felt very proud to be in the same room as Mandela, I believe that his presence was what ultimately swung the decision in our favor when South Africa was chosen as the host country.
I have read many books about Madiba but one of my favourite quotes is “There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” There is such motivation in those words, they are so wise and so very true.
I was honored to once again be able to take part—after nearly a decade—in another match to honor this extraordinary man. It showcased some of the best players in the world from the past and present including the likes of Abedi Pele, Doctor Khumalo, George Weah, Samuel Eto’o, Daniel Amokachi, Ruud Gullit Christian Karembeuand Lucas Radebe to mention a few. We played in Cape Town on July 18, 2007 in a gala prelude to celebrate the great man’s 89th birthday. The game united the global football family in a ‘90 Minutes for Mandela’ tribute. It commemorated the man who was instrumental in the decision to bring the FIFA World Cup to Africa for the first time in 2010.
In my leadership roles, as coach and administrator, I try to live by another one of Nelson Mandela’s quotes: “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” It is words like these, his wisdom and his largeness of spirit that make him an everlasting icon. He dedicated his lifetime to the promotion of human rights and democracy.
This great man has been my motivator throughout my career, albeit from a distance, he was with me all the way. His values in life are exemplary and deserve to be emulated. He remains, my hero and a bastion of hope for Africa and for the entire world.

How Nelson Mandela  Won The World Cup

It has been a lonely few months in Mozambique. In the dim dawn, before the sun grips the rugged streets of Maputo, Juliano Maquina, runs in the hope of Olympic glory.
In many ways Maquina feels left behind, the last man standing. He is the only Olympic athlete who has trained in the meagre gyms of Mozambique–while his compatriots tone up in well-heeled countries around the world. If he can fight to become the last man standing in London, it would all have been worth it and could boost boxing in the land of his birth.
Maquina is the first boxer from Mozambique to qualify for the Olympics for nearly 20 years. He weighs 49kgs and will fight in the light-flyweight division.
The fight for Maquina began long ago. Every morning, six days-a-week, he trains in a basketball court in Maputo with no ring, no ropes, not even a punch bag–the lot of a sport starved of cash. Against the odds, the boxer with the baby face stays fit and tries to improve his technique ahead of being thrown to the finest young fighters in the world.
<div id="attachment_939" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-939" class="wp-image-939 size-large" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/lucas_sinoia_20120516_19-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />Lucas Sinoia</div>
“My dream is to make it to three Olympics and three world championships and take silver in two of them. My family have supported me and I hope that a successful boxing career will provide for them,” says Maquina.
At the very least, the 18-year-old southpaw has time on his side and clearly the stomach for a fight. Maquina had to battle hard at the qualifiers in Morocco to make it to the Olympics. Three boxers fought for Mozambique, Maquina was the only one to qualify in Casablanca; by contrast Angola sent six boxers, none qualified; South Africa sent nine, two qualified. One hundred and fifty four boxers competed from 30 African countries.
Maquina also has a good man in his corner, Lucas Sinoia, who fought twice for Mozambique at the Olympics.
Sinoia, aged 45, was born in the rural Mutarara Province in Tete in the remote north-western corner of Mozambique, and fought at 67kgs in the welterweight division. He was the champion of Mozambique between 1985 and 1996 and worked in a bread factory, to keep boxing, because the pay was so poor.
The answer to penury came from the barracks. Sinoia joined the army, which gave him the money and facilities to train. The army has long been a cradle of the sweet science. Legend has it that Mozambique’s first president, Samora Machel, used to punch sandbags for fun, on visits to his troops and was ringside at the big fights.
Sinoia thrived in the army and won a bucket load of medals leading to his qualification for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, as the youngest member of the national team, aged 22. He lost in the second round of the welterweight tournament to Spaniard, Javier Martínez, after getting a bye in the first. Robert Wangila, of Kenya, won the gold–the first Kenyan to win gold for his country in a sport other than athletics. Wangila, who fought 22 professional fights, died, aged just 26, from his injuries after a severe beating in the ring in Las Vegas in 1994.
Sinoia also qualified for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta where he built his reputation as a highly disciplined boxer.
The glory days in Atlanta were few, as Sinoia was beaten 11-6 in the first round by, Vadim Mezga, of Belarus. He retired in 1998.
Nearly 20 years, later Sinoia has put his own money up to start the Academia de Boxe Lucas Sinoia, in Maputo, where he coaches aspiring boxers, as young as eight. He is looking for the next heavyweight sensation, but has spent the last few months training the young Maquina.
“I have great hopes for Juliano, but fear that he will have a hard time. Apart from a small trip to Cuba and to Morocco for the qualifiers, he has no other international experience,” says Sinoia.
Together with trainer Braulio Montiel, from Cuba, Sinoia shares the job of coaching the national boxing team.
The Cuban connection is an old and powerful one. It began when Joao Caldeira, a businessman and President of the Mozambique Boxing Federation, went to teach Portuguese in Cuba in 1978. He stayed for five years and arranged for three Mozambicans, including Sinoia, to be trained in the Caribbean country which produced Olympic gold medallists such as the late Teofilo Stevenson. All three returned to become Mozambican champions.
The Cuban dash in the ring appears to be rubbing off on the young Maquina. He says his role model is the former Olympic gold medallist featherweight, Yuriorkis Gamboa, who is now unbeaten in 21 professional fights.
Sinoia and Monteil want to concentrate the meagre money, given by government to boxing in Mozambique, on training a small group of determined and talented fighters. They are looking to business for money to help the impoverished sport that could bring medals.
A successful international boxer could help coax this money from companies and revive what was once a glory game in Mozambique and a way out of poverty for many of the country’s poor.
In the 1960s and 70s, boxing pulled huge crowds and money in Mozambique. The hotbed of boxing with the seaside town of Beira and thousands took trains from all over Mozambique, as well as South Africa and Zimbabwe, for the big fights.
Money flowed through Mozambican boxing. The bets were big and boxers from across southern Africa travelled to reap the rewards of the ring.
These days of money and thunder may be a far cry from the quiet build up to the Olympics, on a shoestring, for Maquina, but there is hope. Already the victory in Casablanca has been hailed for putting Mozambique back on the boxing map.
Maybe the slender teenager, with the baby face and the sneaky jab, could stun the world in London. After all, the oldest saying in the history of boxing is the bigger they are the harder they fall.

The Lonely Last Man Standing

Heavyweight boxers David Haye and Dereck Chisora have been trying to get at each other for weeks now—on July 14, they will get their chance at West Ham’s Upton Park football ground in London. A crowd of 40,000 is expected, the biggest in Britain since Ricky Hatton beat Juan Lazcano in May 2008.
Both fighters will be unlicensed and angry; neither will earn any boxing ranking points from the fight—merely the grim satisfaction of winning what promises to resemble a street brawl. The British Board of Boxing Control has banned Chisora from fighting; Haye’s license has expired.
The first round of this street brawl was fought out on television, before a bewildered boxing world, at a press conference following Chisora’s loss to Vitali Klitschko for the World Boxing Council heavyweight title, in February at the Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany.
Was it real or staged? Many wondered. What is clear is that the two British boxers don’t like each other and it all boiled over in Munich.
It was the stuff the tabloids dream of. The Klitschkos’ manager, Bernd Boente, announced that no more British boxers would be given the right to challenge the world heavyweight champions, Vitali and Wladimir. This was a reaction to Chisora’s unbecoming behavior—to say the
least—before the fight.
First, Chisora slapped Vitali at the weigh-in. Then he spat on his younger brother, Wladimir, just before the fight.
After the fight it got worse. Haye, who had lost to Wladimir a few months earlier, was in the crowd of journalists at the post-fight conference. He objected to Boente’s statement about British boxers and demanded a rematch.
Sensing that Haye was stealing the show, Chisora responded by charging off the stage to attack Haye, verbally and physically. A brawl ensued amid the chaos of tumbling journalists, cameras and flying fists; Haye swung a camera tripod at Chisora. In the confusion, Chisora claimed he was glassed and said that he would either shoot Haye or hunt him down, or both. The German authorities detained 28-year-old Chisora and the British Board of Boxing Control banned him.
Chisora’s father, Paul, a contracts manager at a fireplace manufacturing company in Harare, was quoted in the Zimbabwean newspapers as saying: “If it was me, I could have kept my cool. He is still growing up and did not have anyone older who could restrain him.”
The two camps fixed the fight for July and persuaded the boxing federation of the small European nation of Luxembourg to sanction it because no one else would. This will be the first time a fight will be held in Britain, licensed by a foreign federation. The disgusted Luxembourg government withdrew its subsidies from the federation in protest.
It is a big story swirling around a young man from Zimbabwe. Chisora was born and bred in Harare and left for Britain to join his mother in 1999. He fights out of Finchley—Margaret Thatcher’s old constituency—and is a naturalized Briton with an accent more cockney than Shona.
Chisora fought 20 times as an amateur, before turning professional in 2007. Before he was banned, he was ranked 13th in the world heavyweight division, notching up 15 wins in 18 fights, with nine knock-outs. His winning streak of eight fights ended with the boxing authorities suspending Chisora for four months for biting journeyman boxer Paul Butlin in a heavyweight clash at the York Hall in Bethnal Green, London. As a result, he missed a fight for the British Heavyweight title against Danny Williams in 2009. He would defeat Williams a year later to become the British champion.
What irked Chisora was that Haye was given the opportunity to challenge for the world title first. Haye went on to lose to Wladimir in a poor showing after declaring that he would knock out both the Klitschko brothers in one night. Haye later claimed that he went into the fight with a broken toe.
By the way, Chisora went to Churchill Boys High School in
Harare—its mascot is a bulldog. Its spirit follows him still.

Grimy Grudge Match

Fresh from training in London, the approaching Olympics is just starting to feel real for Johny Akinyemi.
<div id="attachment_932" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-932" class="size-large wp-image-932" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/143000275-1-1024x663.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="307" />Aerial view of the Olympic Stadium</div>
“After I qualified it was a bit of a dream, and then you have to quickly realize it’s not that long until the games. You have to get down and focus on the training and put in the hours and the hard work,” he says.
A British-born canoeist of Nigerian blood, Akinyemi, 23, has a realistic shot at a medal in London in the white water slalom, having beaten Beijing bronze medalist, Benjamin Boukpeti, in the qualifiers to book his place. Since then, he has put in the hard graft, training at altitude in South Africa and on courses in Cardiff and London. “Now I’m at quite a high level of training. I don’t want to peak too soon,” he says.
Raised in Warrington, near Manchester in England, Akinyemi represented the British team at a junior level, and was for a time the country’s top youth canoeist before switching allegiance to Nigeria, narrowly missing out on a trip to China in 2008. Since then, he has worked hard to improve the profile and practice of the sport in West Africa. The Nigerian Canoe Federation was founded in 2007, attached to the country’s active rowing association, based on Victoria Island in Lagos, and Akinyemi has been there since the start, getting a crash course in the country’s infamous bureaucracy on the way.
“We got a container full of boats delivered to Nigeria—some sprint canoes and slalom kayaks. It took about 18 months to get them out of the port, but eventually we got them out,” he says.
It is unlikely that the sport is going to challenge Nigeria’s other sporting passions—soccer and wrestling—but it is generating a buzz in certain circles. The country picked up two canoeing medals in the All Africa Games, on top of Akinyemi’s own qualification for London 2012. Once the games are over, he will head to Nigeria’s Calabar region to scout out some white water to train on and to hopefully set up a club there to train the next generation of slalom competitors. Akinyemi believes that the potential is there for Nigeria to achieve.
“In Lagos, there are canoes everywhere. There are villages out on the water—canoes are a way of life for those guys. They’re not carbon kevlar, but I’m sure that if we could, in some way, get these guys in competitive canoeing they would be good at it. They’re used to the water, they’re used to using the paddle, and they’ve got the strength.”
The success and the interest has not, however, transmuted into riches for the sport or for Akinyemi himself, who is currently looking for a sponsor. Up until 2011, most of his funding came from his father, who paid for airfares and gear. The Nigerian Olympic Committee has paid for his canoe for the London games and is contributing to the fees for training on the Olympic course, which come to £60 ($93) per hour. The Olympic Solidarity Commission, which funds athletes from lower income countries, allocates him around $1,000 a month for training and equipment, which, given the cost of canoes and the requirement for international travel, is a drop in the river.
The dreamlike rush of excitement, followed by hard graft and tangles over sponsorship, of Akinyemi’s experience is, in microcosm, the London Olympics. Since winning the bid, the euphoria has dissipated amidst a mixture of traditional British cynicism and genuine economic pain. The 2009 recession was followed by a brief and uninspiring calm, before a combination of deep state spending cuts and the European sovereign debt crisis dragged the British economy back into the mire. The Olympic stadia are among the few buildings of scale still under construction in London, as funding dried up and the rationale vanished for new skyscrapers in a city where jobs were being lost.
Britain notoriously overspends and delivers late on its big projects: the Millennium Dome, £200 million ($362.3 million) over budget; the new Wembley stadium, a year too late; so it was hardly surprising that expectations were fairly low. The experience of the Dome also highlighted the difficulty of turning showcase projects into useful infrastructure.
The Olympics, more than any event, is known for its white elephants. Greece, which hosted the 2004 games, as if it hasn’t suffered enough this year, has the embarrassment of a number of crumbling and unused facilities. After spending more than €10 billion ($12.2 billion) on running the games, Greece now has the cost of the upkeep of these abandoned buildings.
On the flip side, both the Barcelona and Atlanta games, in 1992 and 1996, respectively, are seen as exemplars of how to handle legacy programs. Both benefited from smart investments in infrastructure and marketing. London hopes to follow their example, rather than that of Athens, but the signs are not encouraging. A deal to sell the Olympic stadium to West Ham football club fell through in October 2011 and the Olympic Park Legacy Committee is now on the hunt for tenants.
The rest of the site in East London will be renamed the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with the sports facilities opened up to the public and the athletes’ village turned into housing. Just how much demand there will be for a high tech velodrome in Stratford, one of the capital’s more deprived areas, remains to be seen.
One part of the organization does seem to be running smoothly: Sponsorship, branding and broadcast rights are expected to generate around £2 billion ($3 billion) for the International Olympic Committee and the London organizers, and commentators have remarked on how visible the corporate presence is in the 2012 event.
The 70,000 volunteer “Games Makers” will have their training materials prepared by McDonald’s, which will be operating the world’s largest fast food outlet in the Olympic village for the duration of the games. The US chain is one of 11 worldwide “Olympic Partners”—a group which also includes Samsung, Coca-Cola, Procter and Gamble and, controversially, Dow Chemical.
Dow’s contribution, which includes a “wrap” for the Olympic stadium, caused uproar amongst human rights groups, including Amnesty International. Dow acquired Union Carbide, the company responsible for the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India. Fears that the Indian team would boycott the opening ceremony, or even the entire Olympics, proved unfounded, but the issue has left a sour taste.
The commercialization of the games—the organizers insist that private sponsorship is what makes them possible—has also been a story. The aggressive clampdown on the use of trademarks, including the words “London 2012” have made headlines as small businesses in East London are warned that they could find themselves in serious trouble should they try to associate themselves with the event. The policing of this skirted close to farce at times, with reports that monitors from Locog—the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games—have arrived on set at photo shoots to prevent non-sponsors from recreating famous sporting moments or straying too close to the games. An East London florist was threatened with legal action unless she took down a display showing the famous rings made from flowers. Athletes who tweet endorsements for the “wrong” brand have been told they face expulsion. Others have sneered at the spectacle of the supposedly solemn ceremony of the torch relay being led by the Coca-Cola “Move to the Beat” bus blaring out pop music.
In working class East London, there is a sense that the London Olympics is a show more for the brands than for the people. There is also the question of whether the city can accommodate the extra 325,000 people per day using the transport system; the ire caused by the “games lanes” set aside to allow officials to bypass the inevitable gridlock; the near-indecipherable logo; the oddly phallic mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville; the £500 million ($768.5 million)—plus security operation that has seen anti-aircraft missiles stationed on rooftops in Tower Hamlets and warships in the Thames.
Even so, the excitement is building, albeit not as fast as the organizers might have hoped. The torch relay—headed of course by the sponsors’ buses—flickered in the public imagination before a long-awaited spell of hot weather hit the country and the British public moved en masse away from their television sets and into the sunshine. There was first the Queen’s Jubilee weekend to get out of the way, and then the European football championships, which usually puts the country into a disappointed mood. With these out of the way, the criticisms and introspection could either crescendo ahead of the opening ceremony on July 27, or disappear beneath the kind of pressured, euphoric patriotism the East End is famous for. For competitors like Akinyemi, however, it is unlikely to matter—he has canoes and the pride of Nigeria on his mind.

Canoe Win A Medal?

In May, Edvard Munch’s The Scream sold for $120 million becoming the most expensive painting to be sold at auction. A week later, Mark Rothko’s Orange, Red, Yellow sold for nearly $87 million. Irma Stern’s Two Arabs sold for R21 million ($2.5 million) last year, the highest price for a painting sold at auction in South Africa. Eleven of the 20 highest prices fetched at auction in the world and nine of the 10 highest prices in South Africa have occurred since 2008.
The near-collapse of the global economy didn’t stop the market reaching its highs. Wealthy collectors remain wealthy. And top-quality items appreciate even in poorer market contexts. Fine art auction house, Strauss &amp; Co, reported a boom in 2010 with a turnover of R187 million ($22.3 million) and a strong market for 2011 making only slightly less at R170 million ($20.2 million).
Despite hammer prices being up, masterpieces are out of the price range of many collectors and dealers. The high end of the market is one part of the story, it’s the segment that appeals to the popular imagination, and to those of us who are so insanely disconnected from the real world that we continue to hope that one day, we too may be able to buy a Malevich or a Twombly.
“The run-of-the-mill part of the market is in a sorry state,” says fine art expert and auctioneer, Stephan Welz.
“At this end of the market, dealers have in the past bought a large percentage of works as stock-in-trade to sell to the average salaried person who wants one or two nice pieces on the mantelpiece.”
It would be silly not to admit we’ve been affected. Those works least affected are those with rarity value; anything decorative has been devastated,” adds Mark Read, director of the Everard Read gallery.
<div id="attachment_927" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-927" class="size-large wp-image-927" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/artauctionauctioneer-1024x755.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="349" />Steven Wlz at the Strauss and Co auction</div>
Given then that the Old Masters and historic paintings are too expensive for most collectors and dealers and, of course, there are fewer of them, dealers both abroad and locally have turned to contemporary artists, which are normally fragile in the secondary market and a highly speculative sector.
For the last two years, contemporary works have topped auction sales at Christie’s—an international company offering art auctions and private sales to clients. In South Africa, artists like Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, Walter Battiss and Erik Laubscher are fetching good prices as the market broadens. But there are no guarantees of a handsome profit, even if you’ve studied past performance prices, says Welz, and those are less available for contemporary than older works. Some wonder, too, about the staying power of this market compared to those works time has already validated.
Markets, of course, depend not only on buyers, but also on sellers.
“When the market isn’t favorable, sellers are reluctant to sell, and they’re usually in a position to choose their market,” says Welz.
What’s more, sellers don’t know where else to invest their money since opportunities are currently few—stock markets are down, rates on savings accounts are low and interest is taxed, even gold has been volatile.
A conversation between Sotheby’s chair of contemporary art for Europe, Cheyenne Westphal and an anonymous American collector as reported in the Wall Street Journal serves to illustrate the point: “I phoned him up and told him, ‘Do you realize that in the present market, we can get you $50 million for your Rothko?’ There was a very long silence on the other end of the phone. Eventually, he replied, ‘Well, Ms Westphal, that sure is tremendous news. But what the hell would I do with $50 million in the bank?’”
To try to predict prices and understand trends, we turn to the market intelligence provided by public auctions (auctions are fairly transparent compared to private sales, prices are published and annual reports are available) and historical price indexes. But, even armed with these prognostications, one feels uneasy in generalizing across the market.
Part of the reason that trying to draw any conclusions about the health of the art market is so difficult is because that very term is a misnomer. A number of small markets combine to form the art market and while Old Masters are selling, demand for contemporary or modern art pieces may be declining; buyers supporting the fine arts market are not the same people who are buying decorative art.
The Wall Street Journal last month quoted Christie’s international as saying its art business had proved resilient and that a growing population of super-wealthy collectors were sustaining demand for top works. “We have not seen the global economy affect our business,” said Steven Murphy, Christie’s CE. The Mei Moses All Art Index, which measures art market returns by tracking the sale and resale of major art works, mainly in New York and London, claimed an 11% return for investors in 2011, outpacing stock market returns for a second consecutive year. But the problem is that not all art performs equally and most art never gains enough value to be represented at the kind of auction that index compilers track—it’s an incomplete picture. So studies like these fail to provide any proof that art is a solid investment generally.
Some economists explain the market’s relative buoyancy, saying fine art isn’t part of the global economy. Rather, they say, it is part of the booming economy of a set of super-super rich individuals or ‘Ultra High Net Worth Individuals’ who are just growing richer. For these people, and because a painting is singular and no one else can own it, an astronomically expensive work does an almost unparalleled job of saying just how wealthy and cultivated they are.
Let me illustrate what I mean. As I stood in front of the Stern on auction, Arab, I felt a little let down. It was small (66,5 x 65,5cm) and it was beautifully painted, the frame hand-carved, but I couldn’t help asking myself, ‘How can it possibly be worth R9 million [R17 million ($2.0 million) as it turned out]’, and that’s the thing, it isn’t, it signals that you’re spending money, squandering money even because what you’re buying can’t be worth that much. And it’s this fact, the fact that it isn’t a sensible way to make money that drives the trophy hunters.
But perhaps in comparing Arab to the value I would place on a house, I would be too narrowly defining an investment. Today, the value of an artwork is often determined by collectors for whom there is nothing more at stake than making money. Previously, critics and connoisseurs had some influence on which pieces were perceived to be good. “Today’s art market is by and large misinformed,” said veteran advisor Thea Westreich in the New York magazine. “People are using their ears, not their eyes, to select works, buying based on market trends rather than art-historical standards.”
The critic, Clement Greenberg, was right when he said of culture and its place in the economy of life, “a poor life is lived by anyone who doesn’t regularly take time out to stand and gaze… without any further end in mind, simply for the satisfaction gotten from that which is gazed at…” He also said, “there are, of course, more important things than art, life itself, what actually happens to you”.
Overseas, the art market is huge and growing—there is a new class of people buying art. But in South Africa, the market is incredibly small, says Stefan Hundt of Sanlam Private Investments’ art advisory service. “If we have 5,000 serious buyers, it’s a lot,” and adds it’s for this reason that an art fund wouldn’t survive.
If the economy continues to stagnate, Welz and Read anticipate tough times to come. Even if it starts to grow, since the art economy lags behind the normal economy by about a year, it will be some time before private collectors and corporates have any disposable income to invest in art.
Let art be first a pleasure, the prevailing wisdom goes, then an asset. That way, the quality verdicts of the public, which make it a capricious investment, won’t matter so much. As an asset market, says international-capital-markets expert Amir Shariat in the New York magazine, “art remains non-transparent, overly prone to taste and fashions, and extremely illiquid. People forget that illiquid doesn’t mean ‘low price’. It means ‘no price’.”
Perhaps art isn’t even an investment or perhaps it’s an investment of a different nature. There’s an intangible pleasure in owning a painting and, unlike stocks, art doesn’t earn dividends and it costs to keep—you have to look after it, make sure it doesn’t deteriorate and insure it and then there are steep transaction costs. Unlike other investments, the art object is unique, “detached from the sanity of a cause” in Samuel Beckett’s words (though less so when we look at overpriced contemporary works like Damien Hirst’s, which are made with the sale in mind). In being inexplicable, to take Beckett’s reasoning to its conclusion, art objects may be a source of enchantment, and in following the trading of these in the financial arena, emptied for a moment of the wonder they can inspire in quieter moments, we can forget that.

The Art of Art

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I will go to school and study hard. I’ll be a success. I promise mama,” vows 10-year-old Lucky, at his mother’s grave. Lucky (Sihle Dlamini) gathers his few belongings, and like so many other South Africans leaves his rural Zulu village to the city.
Lucky (2011) is a poignant depiction of contemporary South African society and its problems. It explores the complex cross-cultural and racial relationships. It steers away from well-worn depictions of relations between black and white South Africans as depicted in archetypal post-apartheid South African films. The film explores the rainbow nation through relations between black and Indian South Africans. The film is in Zulu and Hindi with English subtitles.
Lucky’s arrival in the city is overshadowed by his uncle, Jabulani, (James Ngcobo) who has spent the schooling money—from the boy’s mother—on alcohol and women. He hands the boy an audio cassette with a final message from his mother. Jabulani says the youngster should make himself useful by finding a job instead. The boy sleeps hungry on the doorstep.
The film tracks the relationship between Lucky and Padma (Jayashree Basavaraj) who lives in the same building as Jabulani. She is his only hope of listening to the audio cassette. The Brahminic Indian widow, receives him with caution. She does not disguise her racial prejudices when she handles the audio cassette with a cloth and uses her walking stick to prod Lucky. The boy sleeps on her balcony, behind locked doors and drawn curtains, in a manner adopted by many South Africans in the face of poverty and guilt; Lucky is shut ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
Padma cares for the boy, but what seems to be a sudden change of heart, is actually a façade to receive a R200 government grant allocated for AIDS orphans. In return for cleaning her house, she sends him to school.
Together they undertake an emotional journey to Lucky’s village to escape from his neglectful uncle. Here they are met with the deeply-ingrained stigmas associated with AIDS, the disease which took Lucky’s mother. “Mother told me not to share food with you because you will spread the disease,” he is told by a girl from his village. Together with Padma, he goes in search of Dumisani (Vusi Kunene), a man who was believed to be dead and who might be his father. Dumisani, a funeral singer, is a constant reminder that in the midst of life we encounter death. The musical score, written by Phillip Miller, features African instruments and allows Kunene to explore his musical range.
Over time Padma’s maternal instincts overcome her Brahminic racism when she sells her belongings to help the boy. In a heart-warming scene, their bond transcends the language barrier when they talk about family, over Padma’s open family photo album.
This is award-winning writer and director, Avie Luthra’s, second feature film. It is based on the 2005 short film, by the same name, which won 47 awards. “Improvisation made the scenes and relations between the actors appear real and believable,” he says.
Willie Nel was well cast as the director of photography. The hand-held nature of the cinematography gives the film an authentic feel, allowing for a sense of voyeurism. “We wanted to strike a balance between documenting the story moments, and creating an intimate connection with our characters,” Luthra says. The camera attempts to go unnoticed, it hides behind grass, balconies, window panes and burglar bars. By doing so it simultaneously delineates the divide between characters to illustrate that understanding and compassion are needed for real reconciliation and to break down prejudice.
The film will be released on July 21 in South Africa; and is expected to be released in other parts of Africa in the coming months.

Sometimes Luck Has To Be Filmed

After 12 years on stage, fans worldwide still marvel at the performances of Africa Umoja, a colorful musical that took two old pals, Thembi Nyandeni and Todd Twala, 10 years to craft. These two performers came from the dusty streets of Soweto. Together, they created a world-class theater piece that showcases the African cultural renaissance through rhythm and dance and has visited more than 30 countries.
Young people idling in the streets motivated Nyandeni and her friend to create this production.
“Showbiz helped me to find myself. Now I want to protect others who are vulnerable,” says Nyandeni. Her father supported her throughout her dancing career by taking her to discos and parties. “My father would drop me and wait for me outside and I would dance through the night. At four in the morning, he would take me home with all my friends.”
Past members of the troupe have performed in big shows on Broadway in New York, like The Lion King. On average, dancers spend about five years with the troupe. Collen Mavundhla, aka “Mosquito”, is one of the oldest cast members. She’s been there since the group’s inception. “I’ve seen a lot of cast members being developed into professionals,” says Mavundhla.
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Umoja’s recent performance in Lagos attracted captains of industry, senior public sector officials and members of the diplomatic community. First Bank, Nigeria’s oldest bank and the show’s sponsor, was so impressed by the performance that it proposed to partner with the dance troupe. According to Folake Ani-Mumuney, head of marketing at First Bank: “The choice of Umoja is really based on the theme behind Umoja, which is the spirit of togetherness. This is something that transcends South Africa. It is something that finds a place across the globe and Nigeria.” Ani-Mumuney believes the proposed partnership will go a long way to bridging the gap between Nigerian and South African businesses and correct some of the negative perceptions that exist about the countries.
Relations between South Africa and Nigeria are strained after South Africa deported 125 Nigerians from O.R. Tambo airport. “When the political relationship hits a bad patch, South African companies bear the brunt of it as they are the face of the bilateral relationship in Nigeria. Business people suffered most from Nigeria’s retaliation on the visa issue and they formed the bulk of those turned back at the airport recently. The foreign minister had already threatened to ‘clamp down’ on SA’s companies if SA did not apologize for its immigration officials’ actions,” wrote Dianna Games of the South Africa Nigeria Chamber of Commerce.
For Africa Umoja, partnership with a Nigerian bank is an opportunity for them to be part of the solution. “Umoja is not just a South African story, it is for everybody African. So I would like to put together 12 South African and Nigerian singers and dancers to create a show that will be a symbol of unity between us. My vision is to bridge the divisions between Nigeria and South Africa,” says Nyandeni. She concedes that the road ahead is not going to be easy. In addressing tensions, cultural diplomacy will be an invaluable tool. There are prevailing negative stereotypes, she says, that need to be dispelled. Yet there are few neutral channels to nurture understanding.
Of course, to discourage stereotyping will require more than one show. But, says Ani-Mumuney,
“I always say one thing about the creative industry; it is only limited by the limits of our imagination, which
is limitless.”

Dancing Across The Divide

In a golf-cart-type vehicle, Nico Dekker zooms between stages, cheerfully greeting staff as he drives past. “Hello!” he greets to the left. “Howzit?” he shouts to the right in South African slang for “How are you?”. The cart zigzags over a short patch of sandy gravel road, climbs a small hill and comes abruptly to a halt next to an ancient water well.
Dekker, CEO of Cape Town Film Studios, sportily jumps out of the vehicle and starts walking in long, determined strides through what is southern Africa’s first permanent backlot (an area outside a film studio used for outdoor filming).
<div id="attachment_915" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915" class="wp-image-915 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/MG_5388final-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Nico Dekker</div>
It’s like time travel. A couple of minutes ago, Dekker, casual in jeans and a dark-blue shirt, stood in the middle of one of the studios’ enormous four stages, pointing out its ultra-modern, high-tech features. Now he strolls through 13th-century Carcassonne, a medieval village of thatched stone houses, arches and narrow lanes in the south of France. The $2 million outdoor set was built for a TV production by English film director Ridley Scott, based on Kate Mosse’s bestselling thriller, Labyrinth. Now it is used as a backdrop for any movie set in ancient times.
“Impressed?” Dekker asks while running his hands through his strawberry-blond hair. It’s the effect he secretly hopes for. “I rather undersell the studios and surprise people, than make a big announcement and struggle to live up to it,” he says, his grey-blue eyes twinkling. Since the Cape Town Film Studios became operational in November 2010, Dekker has sought little media attention, letting the films produced here speak for themselves.
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Since opening, the studios have attracted Hollywood productions like Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio, 3D action film Dredd, superhero movie Chronicle, and Safe House, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Presently, South African director Anant Singh, whose company Videovision Entertainment is a major stakeholder in the studios, is turning Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, into a movie here.
The feedback from Hollywood has been positive. Jim Dodson, executive producer of the 20th Century Fox film Chronicle, said Dekker and his team did “an amazing job in laying out and designing the [Cape Town] studios”. Because production costs are much lower in South Africa than in the US, the movie cost $12 million to produce but made more than 10 times that amount at the box office. The Cape Town studios had produced a film that “looks like $100 million for less than half that figure”, said Dredd producer Andrew Macdonald. “Now that’s value for money,” Dekker beams. “We give life to film projects that were seen as unaffordable in the US or Europe.”
South Africa—particularly the region around Cape Town with its beaches, mountains and winelands—has been a prime location for the advertising and film industry since the dismantling of apartheid in 1994, which led to the lifting of sanctions.
“It offers beautiful locations and an incredible variety of landscapes, all within a three-hour radius,” says Dekker. Cape Town’s palm-lined Camps Bay beach often serves as a tropical backdrop. Only two hours outside the city, the barren scenery of the Cederberg or the arid Karoo make for desolate desert settings, while the green hills around Grabouw, an hour’s drive from Cape Town, give an impression of the Swiss Alps.
But until the studios opened, material shot in and around Cape Town was taken overseas for studio work, post-production and visual effects—and that’s where the real value-add is taking place.
This has now changed. Cape Town has become a destination for both location shoots and high-end studio production. Producers go home with a finished product. That’s a tremendous economic opportunity for the country, according to a 2010 Deloitte Touche study, which found that every dollar spent on studio-based film production leads to $2.50 in GDP. At full capacity, the Cape Town Film Studios can add about $180 million to South Africa’s GDP, says Dekker.
With a $750 million annual turnover, the film and television industry contributes a big chunk to South Africa’s economy, creating employment for 30,000 people, and jobs in related industries such as transport, hospitality and catering. Although the Cape Town Film Studios only employ 16 permanent staff, large productions provide an average of 400 jobs over a six-month period, Dekker says. That includes not only highly skilled technical personnel but also work for carpenters, builders and garment workers who build props and make costumes—this means jobs in a country where almost a quarter of the population is unemployed.
The decision to go ahead with the film studios was nonetheless a gutsy and expensive structural investment. It cost $41 million to build the 17,000m2 complex of four stages with support rooms, production offices, green screens, workshops and a cinema on 200 hectares of land a 40-minute drive from central Cape Town and 10 minutes from the airport.
The South African government made it clear that it was not prepared to take on the financial risk. Instead it called for public tender in 2003, which was met with skepticism. “The initial feedback was negative,” admits Dekker. “Most industry experts were extremely skeptical about an African studio handling high-tech shoots.”
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It took five long years to find the money. In 2008, the bulk of the budget was put up by a consortium of Sabido Investments, which owns South Africa’s free-to-air television station e.tv, and Singh’s Videovision Entertainment, which has received international praise for movies like Sarafina! with Whoopi Goldberg and Red Dust with Hilary Swank. “It was not a safe investment. It had its risks. But I felt they were reasonable given the exponential growth of the local film industry in the past decade,” says Singh.
Wesgro, the investment and trade promotion agency in the Western Cape, contributed 10% to the budget, while a group of local business investors hold a 5% share. South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry and the City of Cape Town spent $6 million on road infrastructure to access the studios.
Months of research followed. Dekker visited major studios to learn from their experience. “I asked everyone from Fox to Disney, Universal and Warner to share what they would do differently if they were building today,” he says. The result: The Hollywood Reporter ranked the Cape Town studios among the world’s top 10 last year.
Although Dekker admits that studios are generally the industry’s “loss leaders” because their high overheads cut sharply into profits, he believes it will take a mere five to 10 years to see a return on investment in Cape Town. “Even if not all of the stages are always occupied, there hasn’t been a day the studios have stood without production,” Dekker says. They have already started to write black numbers before tax and interest.
“The studios start looking like a really good investment,” agrees Singh.” More and more international productions are coming in. The successes of films like Safe House and Chronicle prove us right. Now even the skeptics say building the studios was a smart thing to do.”
Dekker has ensured that there will be various additional sources of income: the land, on which the studios stand, has been zoned into residential, retail, commercial and light industrial areas, including rights for a hotel. Twenty film-related companies will move onto the site within the next couple of years.
The South African government has, meanwhile, recognized the studio’s economic potential. To make the country more competitive internationally, it is considering scrapping the cap on tax rebates. Currently, foreign producers who spend more than $1.5 million on a South African production and film half of it locally over at least four weeks qualify for a 15% rebate. This is small compared to other countries like Belgium, Brazil, Spain or Hungary, which offer incentives of 40% or more. In contrast to South Africa, their governments also provide free resources such as access to police, army, navy and government institutions and co-financed marketing.
That means South Africa faces some stiff global competition, especially from other cheap locations like Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Chile, which offer low rates, highly skilled technicians and are geographically much closer to the US or Western Europe. It needs to “offer the best overall package”, as Dekker calls it. “Some of the world’s most sought-after locations at affordable rates, together with a film studio on par with Hollywood in an English-speaking environment,” says Dekker. “There is huge potential to unlock.”

Picture This

One of the sweetest sounds of reconciliation in a troubled land could soon fade.
Eighty-four teenagers, from all walks of life, with one common denominator: a love for music. This is the South African Youth Choir (SAYC), made up of youngsters between the ages of 13 and 18 who embody the rainbow nation through song. Most of them come from disadvantaged backgrounds, most have little but their voices—all sing in harmony with choristers of all creeds and color.
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“These children make Madiba’s dream a reality,” says SAYC events coordinator Anél King, using former president Nelson Mandela’s clan name, the man whose vision it was to create a peaceful, multi-cultural, non-racist South Africa. In many ways, this choir is that.
Since its launch in 2004, SAYC’s musical director, André van der Merwe, has been touring the country every October in search of new talent, visiting cities, small towns, townships and villages. Competition is tough. From several hundred teenagers who audition, between 20 and 25 are selected.
“I look for a good voice and good ears, but also for personality, charisma, energy and resilience,” Van der Merwe says.
At a recent concert in Cape Town, Van der Merwe told the audience: “This is the real South Africa, not the one you read about in the papers.”
Most choir members come to live in a hostel in Durbanville, 25 kilometers outside of Cape Town, where they receive not only musical education—training in pop, rock, jazz and classical music—but also free accommodation, meals and tuition at the nearby high school.
“It’s much more than a choral group. It’s an upliftment program for disadvantaged youth,” say Cecile and James Horne, a retired teacher couple who run the hostel and see themselves as the ‘parents of the choir’.
“We practically offer them a new life.”
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The teenagers confirm this. “Being in the choir has opened a whole new world to me. For the first time in my life, I feel I have options,” says Teboho Mashiya, a 15-year-old chorister who grew up in rural Phuthaditjhaba in South Africa’s Free State.
Mashiya and his peers belong to what South Africans like to call the “free generation”: those born after apartheid. But as the country’s democracy comes of age, South Africa’s youth continue to face a difficult future due to poor education, high unemployment and persistent poverty combined with the slow recovery of the economy from the global financial crisis.
The SAYC wants to be a place where talented youths find hope and opportunity.
“We teach them tolerance and social skills so that they become responsible, confident, well-balanced young adults,” says James Horne.
The recipe seems to work: since its inception eight years ago, all choir members have passed their high school exams, most with good enough grades to secure a university bursary. Many have moved on to careers in music, human sciences or business.
But for the current SAYC members, the dream of a better future might get a rude awakening. A streak of bad luck with sponsors, worsened by the economic downturn, has seen the choral group run out of funds. The first sponsor was the ill-fated financial management firm, Fidentia, which folded in 2007. For almost a year, the choir lived on a shoestring budget, surviving on once-off donations from individuals and small businesses.
The situation brightened at the end of that year when a Cape Town firm, Steeledale Reinforcing, came to the choir’s aid, sponsoring a year’s costs and a trip to Canada’s Kathaumixw Choral Competition, where the SAYC won first place in several categories. A year later, national oil company PetroSA took over, funding the group for another three years. But since then, money has dried up and the SAYC faces closure.
“After PetroSA didn’t renew funding, it’s been bleak. We have applied to other institutions, but so far, nothing has come through,” says SAYC chair André de la Harpe.
“Our coffers are empty. Soon we will have to close down. It’s a harsh reality that would destroy the children’s future.”
The choir, which has performed with singers like Katherine Jenkins and Sibongile Khumalo, is trying to make money by offering lessons in piano, voice and music theory as well as regular concert performances and CD sales. But income from these efforts is a drop in the ocean, says De la Harpe. Basic running costs are pegged at about half a million dollars or $580 per month per child. Ensuring long-term sustainability over four years at full budget would require $4 million.
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Until now, the commitment from those involved with the choir has been remarkable. The entire staff—from the conductor to the hostel parents, cooks and cleaners—has been working without pay since the beginning of March. Rent for the hostel is in arrears. So are school fees. As the rumor of the choir’s potential closure spread through the hostel, the children went into shock, says Cecile Horne.
“It’s like a sword hanging over their heads,” she says.
Tears well in the eyes of Chanté Petersen, who joined the choir in Grade 8 and will graduate from high school this year. The 18-year-old, whose parents are unemployed, knows only too well that her chances of making it out of Elsies River, the poverty-stricken, crime-ridden township she grew up in, are slim if she returns without a matric certificate.
“The choir means everything to me,” she says.
For others, like 17-year-old Daniel Meaker from Pretoria, the future doesn’t look much brighter. “Money is pretty tight at home. I am very worried about the choir disbanding. I don’t know what I’d do,” he says.
For now, all will sing for their supper.

Singing For Survival Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Igugu is the horse that stole the hearts of many and cost those who failed to believe.  An Australian filly sired by an Epsom Derby winner, Galileo, Igugu has sent waves through the racing industry and was named “Horse of the Year”. Igugu was bred by Kia Ora Stud and bought at a yearling sale for $65,000 by Livestock Traders in 2009. It was then sold to Andre Macdonald—a former electrician and now principal officer at Lido Electrical’s East Rand branch, in South Africa—from the Summerhill draft in 2009 at the Ready-To-Run Sale for $127,530. Macdonald had gone to the sale with the secret intention of buying both of Galileo’s fillies in order to up his chances of owning a champion, only to be outbid for the first horse by South Africa’s top trainer Mike de Kock at $255,060. Luck was on his side when the second horse turned out to be the champion.
Macdonald’s love of horses began when his family moved to the northern suburbs of Johannesburg at a time when horse riding was popular with children. His daughter took an interest and joined a stable. He then bought a horse each so they could ride together on their property. His daughter grew up, got married and Macdonald sold the horses.
“Before I knew it a friend of mine said they had a horse for sale and asked ‘do you want to buy it?’ I said ‘I don’t want to buy it but I’ll think about it.’ Twelve o’clock that night they phoned me and said ‘your horse is standing in the stables.’ But I didn’t say no, I said ‘okay I’ll take it.’ It was the biggest mistake I probably made,” Macdonald recalls. Sitting with a dud, Macdonald then got serious.
Igugu is now co-owned by the Macdonalds and Sheikh Mohamed bin Kalifa Al Maktoum—who also co-owns the 2010 Vodacom Durban July (the July) winner. The royal family clearly has a love for the sport. Years ago, in the United States, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is reported to have bid $10 million for a horse at a yearling sale. Sheikh Mohamed bin Kalifa Al Maktoum‘s share came about when he took interest in Igugu and went into talks with Mick Goss, CEO of Summerhill Stud, about acquiring his 25% stake. Not one to be satisfied with a minority share, the sale was in jeopardy unless the Macdonalds, who owned 75%, sold 25% shares to Sheikh Mohamed bin Kalifa Al Maktoum to ensure an equal partnership.  Macdonald says this is something he would only have done for Goss.
It’s common practice in the industry to have more than one owner of a horse. As much as this can be seen as spreading the winnings, having more than one investor means spreading the risk as well as the costs. These costs include training fees, farrier fees, veterinary care, insurance, race entry fees, jockey fees, ownership registration fees and transport.
For most this is a business after. For Macdonald, it’s a sport.
And as with any business, there is money to be made and Igugu has made more than her fair share for her owners.  She’s a Triple Tiara Princess, winner of the 2011 Vodacom Durban July as well as the 2012 J&amp;B Met (the Met). She is only the second horse to have ever won both the July and the Met. The only other horse to have done so is Pocket Power, who also holds the record for winning the July three times. The prize money for the July and Met alone were $361,600 and $301,330 respectively.
The industry is big and money is no problem for those looking to be a part of the thrill. There are seven sales that take place every year and they work the same as any auction. Potential buyers get a catalogue beforehand and the bidding wars begin. The aggregate price at the Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale held in April was $10,576,311; it was $564,713 at the Milkwood Stud Sale in May and $922,184 at the Cape Mare &amp; Weanling Sale in the same month.
Macdonald laughs as he remembers how he first tried to pick horses at sales. Not knowing what he was doing, he’d shadow the trainers while they checked out the horses.
“If he wants to turn his head left, I turn my head left and if he goes right, I go right.”
You must remember that these buyers take risks on untested horses. De Kock does not shy away from the fact that this is a risky business and is all about luck. He admits that picking up a horse at a sale is not an exact science but reiterates Macdonald’s advice of having a professional around to help.
If it’s so risky, why get into it?
“There is a 1% chance of a horse being a champion from a sale but that’s the intrigue. It’s a sport that becomes a part of your life,” he says with a hint of excitement in his voice.
For de Kock, it all started with two years of military training at an equestrian center and then moved on to work for a number of trainers. In 1988, the trainer de Kock worked for died and since he already had a good working relationship with the owners and staff, he took over the late trainer’s string. He is now the top trainer in the country and is also an owner. Having won the July four times, he’s three wins short of the record for trainers.
Training a race horse takes a hell of a lot of patience says the expert. Purchases would occur when the horse is around 18 months old. If you buy one from a Ready-to-Run Sale it can be ready to race by 24 months, provided it suffers no injury or illness. The monthly cots will average somewhere between R7,000 ($840) and R8,000 ($960), but the rewards for a great runner are tremendous. The industry consists of owners, trainers, breeders, racing operators, insurers, transporters and blood stock agents. Racing operator, Golden Circle, stages both the Vodacom Durban July and the J&amp;B Met. The company has numerous operations and reports an annual turnover of more than $216.8 million. Racing operator Phumelela’s glory comes from staging the Triple Crown and the Triple Tiara. The Triple Tiara’s spoils are $783,151, including the bonus for the horse that wins all three legs. The Triple Tiara—won last year by Igugu—has a combined prize of $270,911, not including the $120,366 bonus.
With this amount of money on the line, it’s no wonder these fine creatures are insured.  The way that the insurance works, is that the horse’s value is established by looking at its track record, breeding and other attributes.  If the horse is a filly, its value will be higher as it can be used for breeding. An unknown horse that’s just been bought at a sale will be insured at the fall of hammer price. As the horse develops a track record and its value increases, so will its insured amount.
The international scene is also a potential money maker for the lucky few. The Dubai Carnival in January has nine events, with $27.25 million to be won.  Unfortunately, the export protocol needs reform. Australia requires 60 days quarantine in the African Sickness Free Zone in Cape Town, South Africa, followed by another 60 days in Europe. Dubai involves 21 days of quarantine in Johannesburg, 90 days in Mauritius, 30 days in Europe and two weeks in Dubai. This means that a horse competing internationally not only has to forgo most of the South African season but it also loses training time and so will run at a disadvantage against other horses on the track.
This is all due to the fear of the African Horse Sickness (AHS). Paranoia, de Kock calls it. He claims that this is the one thing holding the industry back from being a major export industry that creates jobs and adds to government revenue. What we need, he says, is to get more aggressive and let the trading partners know that this is not a major threat. The fact that South African horses competing internationally are doing so well, is a testament to how strong the industry is.
Igugu is geared to start her international career in Dubai. As for her chances for this year’s July?
“Some people don’t win the Met or the July. I was lucky enough to win both. I don’t know when that will ever happen again,” says a realistic Macdonald. He feels that his horse has already done more for him than he could have asked for.
Horse racing has a tradition of being elitist and de Kock says that the image that the sport portrays, along with that of a lack of transparency, is another one of one of the industry’s problems. Syndication, however, is one way to get around this as it makes the sport accessible to more people but de Kock says that it is up to people to educate themselves and the industry to demonstrate the available opportunities. Nonetheless, de Kock is, as he puts it, “bullish” about the future of the South African horse racing industry and expects an explosion if it were to get it right.

Horsing Around

Here is a festival which is growing despite the unofficial cultural boycott called on Swaziland by the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN), a South African-based organization. The “cultural boycott” is called in support of political reform in the monarchy; and  has already kept South African musicians such as Ringo Madlingozi and newcomer Zahara from performing  in Swaziland.
<div id="attachment_894" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-894" class="wp-image-894 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/photobramlammers-0131-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />SWAZILAND, MALKERNS &#8211; 20120525 &#8211; The Giant Puppets od Mozambique performs during the Bushfire Festival, Swaziland International Festival of the Arts. Photo: Bram Lammers</div>
Bushfire has grown from the initial 4,500 visitors to 17,000 with an impressive number of artists from all across the continent and Europe performing. The offering is great—from comedy to spoken word, reggae, house and theater, all on a small budget of R3.5-4 million ($476,000). It’s Swaziland’s biggest event and employs over 1,000 locals.
The MTN Bushfire festival took place during the last weekend of May. This idea which formed in Jiggs Thorne’s mind, has grown into a Swazi institution that has attracted many from across the globe and a major sponsor like MTN.
<div id="attachment_891" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-891" class="size-large wp-image-891" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/jiggs1-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />SWAZILAND, MALKERNS &#8211; Jiggs Thorne Photo: Bram Lammers</div>
Jiggs Thorne (Jiggs) is a Swazi native who studied drama and politics in South Africa, two subjects he feels are pretty much the same thing. As a creative, whose passion was theater, Jiggs’ first job in Johannesburg was at the Market Theater, as a waiter, as well as at the adjoining jazz club. He opened up a shop selling African crafts from Swaziland and got the idea for ‘House on Fire’ where the festival took place.
Jiggs refers to ‘House on Fire’ as an “on-going creation&#8230; a fantasy scape” that started 10 years ago, and sits on what is now a family business complex on their farm in the Malkerns valley, in rural Swaziland. His idea was to create a space to nurture the local creative industry.
Bushfire is six years old and all the festival proceeds go to an NGO called ‘Young Heroes’, started by Steve Gallagher, a former member of the Peace Corps. Young Heroes tries to help the AIDS orphans in the country. It keeps the orphans with relatives and allows people to sponsor them, these 1,000 sponsored households receive monthly cash stipends to assist with food, clothing and education. When Gallagher and Jiggs came together they realised that they were both looking for the same thing and found a partnership that has worked for them both.
Jiggs says that the name Bushfire comes from “the flames from ‘House on Fire’ expanding and growing outwards”. Its primary focus is developing the local arts while its secondary focus is raising awareness and addressing Swaziland’s great social issues.
The festival receives funding from local partners and businesses and MTN has just signed a 3 year title sponsorship.
This is something that takes a year to plan and implement. Walking through the festival, you could see Jiggs carrying sculptures; running around approving requests; trying to find crew on the two-way radios and keeping an eye on things.
Keeping in line with sustainable growth and sharing, Bushfire participated in the AFRIFESTNET, an African Festival Network, launched in Accra, Ghana. The launch was attended by 37 festivals from 18 countries. The idea for Bushfire’s involvement is to be able to share artists and connect with other festivals— taking advantage of economies of scale by coordinating their efforts, dates and acts.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-890" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Csydwillowsmith_bushfire_friday_56-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />
Entering the festival, one gets a condom to spread the message of safe sex and responsible fun. Swaziland is said to have the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, which was sitting at 26.9% in UNAIDS’2009 estimates.
Music was not the only entertainment on offer. There was a market with locals selling their wares and a great focus is placed on free trade and being eco-conscious. The food stalls had everything from pizza to Indian and Mozambican food. The two campsites were full of festival goers who braved the winter chill, all in the name of a good time. Walking along the campsites you heard distinct murmurs of siSwati, German, French and a mixture of accents.
It was a great success in anyone’s eyes and a lesson to all about using whatever means available to push your message across, by celebrating diversity and making a difference.
Africa, where’s your fire?
<h3>“Ayo, Marry My Brother!”</h3>
The crowd stood patiently under the stars on a clear, cool, night, as the band set up for the artist they’d all come to see. Then, there she was… cut-off denim shorts, long legs and Chuck Taylors.
She sings like only she can, drawing you in, then she stops.
<div id="attachment_895" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-895" class="size-large wp-image-895" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/photobramlammers-0918-1024x703.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="325" />SWAZILAND, MALKERNS &#8211; 20120525 &#8211; Ayo performs and moves through the audience to dance and sing with the crowd during the Bushfire Festival, Swaziland International Festival of the Arts. Photo: Bram Lammers</div>
“The stage is too far. I don’t like it,” she says.
She makes her way to the edge of the stage. The crew and her manager look on stunned as they realize what she wants to do. Jump! Security rush to help her down. She says she hates distance and climbs onto the barrier to sing. The guard is standing there, holding onto her legs; the people are ecstatic; phones, cameras, tabs and ipads capture it all. In the blink of an eye she leaps from the barrier and is among the singing crowd. There’s a mad scramble by the crew to get to her, they jump the barrier, struggle with the gate. She doesn’t seem to notice or care very much… You may not see her but you can definitely hear her. What a voice. What a woman. It’s no wonder they wouldn’t let her end the set.
“We want more. We want more. Down on my knees… Down on my knees,” the crowd chanted for their favourite song.
“Ayo kissed me,” says one ecstatic fan as she screams out, “Ayo, marry my brother!”
If you haven’t guessed who was making waves, we are talking about singer, songwriter and mother—Joy Olasunmibo Ogunmakin, better known as Ayo. This 32-year-old German-Nigerian—who was born near Cologne, Germany—blew onto the music scene with her 2006 debut album “Joyful” and hasn’t looked back or stopped dancing.
She may be scared of flying, but after six years and three albums, she’s a true gypsy. In about a week Ayo flew from Guadeloupe to Paris, then into Swaziland for the MTN Bushfire festival. Then it was off to the Réunion Island, via South Africa, and then back to Paris—where her two children eagerly awaited her return.  Such is the life of one of the hardest working women in soul. Twenty-nine scheduled performances and an album recording between May, 11 and August, 3 alone. And she still has the energy to climb barriers.
It’s amazing to think how she manages to juggle her many roles with such grace and humility.
Her life has not been an easy one, with a mother who struggled with addiction and stints in foster homes. As a biracial child, fitting in was a challenge. Ayo points out that her middle name— Olasunmibo—means “the one who was born outside” and she doesn’t like the term “mixed” being used to describe her race.
“Mixed means 50/50, I think of myself as 100/100,” she says.
Ayo‘s music appeals to so many different people from so many different walks of life and transcends generations. She doesn’t know why this is but notes that we all share more than we think.
“My music is a therapy. Instead of going to the shrink, I’m playing music and writing music.”
‘I’m Gonna Dance’, ‘What Is Love’ and ‘Down On My Knees’ are only a few of her songs, which she calls antibiotics.
This mother of two, who’s all about connecting and sharing, is a true child of Africa, who feels she draws her strength from the continent.
“To me Africa stands for strength. I see strong people and people who have a lot of hope, who believe. People who know what it’s like to get up every day and fight.”
To her, it’s not about following the American and European industries but embracing the talent in the continent from whence it comes.
Not a fan of reality talent shows, she believes life is where you learn.
Heavens, I ran into her again the next day, waiting for the fight to Johannesburg and she looked just the same as she did on that stage; smiling, open and casual. We parted ways at O.R. International, in South Africa, with a promise that she’ll be back to perform in Africa.
It was off to Réunion Island with her straw hat in hand. I wonder whether she jumped the barrier there?
&nbsp;

Setting Fire To Swaziland

Sighting a Moseme Road Construction yellow truck on the Johannesburg freeways during the 2010 FIFA World Cup preparations was a given. Travelling along the N1, the N3 or near O.R. Tambo International Airport, you were bound to bump into one—or a big board bearing the company’s grey triangular logo. The company is only one of a handful still standing after the near collapse of South Africa’s construction industry after the 2010 World Cup infrastructure boom.
“We were one of the few wholly black-owned civil engineering companies at the time that got the biggest contracts,” marvels Ernest Moloi, who is the sole owner of the company.
His business is now picking up after having to retrench staff and close down other business units. “I had to reduce the business and refinance it with R48 million ($5.8 million) of my personal funds,” says the maverick who explored at least 10 business ideas before settling on civil engineering.
Moseme currently employs 250 staff, with business units that include asset holding, property development and Roadfix, which develops asphalt that can remain in potholes for up to 20 years. The company is based in Brakpan on the East Rand of Johannesburg.
<div id="attachment_889" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-889" class="size-large wp-image-889" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTP4567-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />Enerst Moloi</div>
Since the economic meltdown and drastic slowing down of infrastructure development after the 2010 World Cup, Moloi has been travelling throughout Africa in search of business opportunities. He has managed to convince the Ugandan government to build a toll road from Kampala to the corridor of Kenya, and preparations are underway.
“First the government had to come up with legislation for that and then a feasibility study,” he says about an original idea that he pitched to the government. In property development, Moseme is planning to build shopping malls outside South Africa. They are holding discussions in Botswana and Uganda about the ventures.
Moloi founded his business from humble beginnings, through bold moves and determination.
“I asked a neighbor if I could build her two back rooms to use for generating extra income and she agreed,” he says.
He then gathered a few guys from the neighborhood who were  unemployed, bought building material and had them do the work while he managed the project.
“They did such a great job that the client was very pleased, and that was the beginning of my entry into the world of construction.”
This was in 1994, at the advent of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) when the South African government was making efforts to empower historically disadvantaged individuals. Moloi took advantage of the socio-economic climate and used his
limited experience to seek government tenders.
“My first tender was for R25,000 ($3,000) to build a clinic in the informal settlement of Orange Farm, in the Vaal vicinity. I did not even own a car and therefore travelled by taxi every day from Soweto to the site,”
he says.
For someone who had been unemployed, this was big money. “Instead of paying myself a salary, I opted to pay only the workers as I had already figured, because I was the big boss, at the end of the job the balance of the money would all be mine.”
As it turned out, he had miscalculated the budget and ended up not getting a cent. That was his first and biggest mistake which he will not forget for the rest of his life.
“Since then I always engage an accountant in all my business dealings prior to signing any contract,” he declares.
The one lesson learnt from the experience was to treat himself as an employee and pay himself a regular fee. He said that this is a common error by most emerging entrepreneurs. They see the price value of a contract and then think that it will make them rich overnight.
Moloi’s next contract was valued at R45,000 ($5,400). It paid him enough to buy an old Honda Ballade. Life was better as he could get to work quicker.
Several contracts down the line, Moloi made his first million. Instead of getting excited by rewarding himself with a flashy car and a home, he resisted the temptation to show off with expensive material possessions. He continued his modest lifestyle as a tenant in his mother’s back yard in Soweto.
“I had to plough the money back into the business by purchasing the necessary equipment to operate it properly and efficiently,” he explains.
Today, Moseme is one of South Africa’s four biggest, wholly black-owned civil engineering companies. Its growth strategy was for a long time bolstered through joint ventures with some of the large construction companies, among them Murray &amp; Roberts and Group Five. At the height of the 2010 FIFA World Cup preparations,
the company’s order book was over R500 million
($60.1 million).
Moloi appreciates the good intentions that underpin the BEE legislation, especially since he has benefited from it. However, he feels that in civil engineering, not enough is being done to ensure that the intended beneficiaries garner the big contracts.
“The updated BBBEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment) scorecard removed the HDI clause which gave black contractors an advantage with the 10% black-ownership rating. That killed a majority of black-owned companies because that was the only advantage they had to help them grow,” he says.
The new level rating is virtually color blind and therefore gives white-owned businesses the advantage because they are far more established and resourced. “This is throwing us outside of the market as white businesses can also source business in the private sector, which is predominantly white-owned anyway,” he says.
Moloi’s suggestion to government is that it strategically award contracts to black-owned companies that have made it in the industry on the basis of joint ventures with emerging contractors. This, he believes, could be the solution to combat fronting and therefore, gradually eliminate domination of the industry by white males.
His other concern is that fronting denies true black-owned companies the opportunity to develop, adding that already established black-owned companies should be supported.
“We are hopeful that the recent announcement of R800 billion ($96 billion) infrastructure development by Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Finance, will bring more work and we will be able to rehire.”
For Moloi to succeed as an entrepreneur, he credits his personal philosophy of patience and being thick-skinned. “Don’t be afraid to fail, and before pursuing a business idea set goals and do your homework.”

Following The Yellow Brick Road

About 20 months ago, when Harvard-educated but little-known Inati Ntshanga was thrust into the position of CEO of South Africa’s state-owned regional airline, very few noticed.
One of the main reasons, of course, was that 18-year-old South African Express (SAX) had always been in the shadow of its bigger and much older brother, South African Airways (SAA), which has been a dominant force in the continental airspace for more than 75 years. So much so that SAX’s resilience has gone largely unnoticed, notwithstanding the fact that in its short life, not only has the airline survived several one-time competitors that have since gone under, it is now also debt free.
<h3>Now SAX wants to conquer Africa.</h3>
Whereas SAA has gone, cap-in-hand, to the South African government to beg for R6 billion to fund operational costs, its growth strategy and fleet renewal, SAX will be using its own balance sheet to raise the R4.5 billion it intends to spend on 15 new aircraft for its new growth plan. Seven of the aircraft have been delivered, while the rest will arrive between now and 2015 to coincide with the end of current leases of the “oldish” aircraft that the airline still has on the tarmac.
Most of SAX’s old fleet was acquired when jet fuel was in the $20-$30/barrel price range, airline industry analyst Linden Birns points out.
“With fuel today soaring above the $130/barrel mark, the economic model for these planes no longer holds any validity. Not only are they unable to generate sufficiently low seat-mile costs—the standard measure of the cost of production in the airline industry—but they are also rapidly losing their residual book value as demand for these aircraft in other markets has fallen off a cliff.”
In addition to several domestic routes—Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, George, East London, Kimberley, Pietermaritzburg, Upington and Phalaborwa—SAX also flies to neighboring Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“All of them are profitable,” according to Ntshanga. He is now adding Malawi, Ghana and Uganda to the list and is in negotiations with several other African countries that subscribe to the idea of “open skies”.
While the continent has been slow to embrace open skies—an international policy concept calling for an easing of restrictions, for the liberalization of rules and regulations and for minimal government intervention in the airline industry—Ntshanga says those who have already done so are seeing the economic benefits.
He points to the latest International Air Transport Association (IATA) report, which analyzed the relationship between a country’s level of connectivity to the global air transport network and its level of productivity and economic growth, across 48 developing and developed countries during a 10 year period.
Not only is aviation a major industry in its own right, employing large numbers of highly skilled workers, the report said it is also an essential input into the rapidly growing global economy. The study found that greater connections to the global air transport network can boost the productivity and growth of economies by providing better access to markets; enhance links within and between businesses; and provide greater access to resources and international capital markets.
Noting how air traffic demand increased as economies grew, the report concluded that global economic growth has been a key driver of growth in air traffic demand.
<h3>This has not been confined to</h3>
North America, Europe, South-East Asia, Australia, Latin America and India, Birns points out: “If you want [further] proof of this, just look at
how the size of the South African domestic market grew with the advent of our low-cost airlines, kulula.com, 1Time and Mango, in the 2000s to see how the liberalized regulatory environment gave rise to mushrooming growth.”
&nbsp;
<h3>THE PROBLEMS OF THE AFRICAN AIRLINE INDUSTRY</h3>
The rest of the African continent, though, is uniquely different, something Ntshanga is ready to concede upfront, if not to acknowledge that his ambition could even be thwarted by it.
SAX’s home base, South Africa, and the other countries the airline has been flying to until now adhere to high safety standards. The same can’t be said about many of the other countries on the continent, where carriers are notorious for their tendency to skimp on safety. The most recent IATA statistics reveal that in 2010 Africa had 7.41 accidents per million flights, the worst among the world’s regions and 12 times worse than the global average of 0.61.
Other common complaints usually cited by established airlines’ indifference to Africa are:
&#8211;              too few airports;
&#8211;              inadequate investment in infrastructure;
&#8211;              inconsistent government policies and laws.
Birns explains some of them, and their impact: “The artificial barriers to market access, known as the Bilateral Air Transport Agreements, which are applied in Africa, should be reviewed and liberalized. These agreements currently prescribe which airlines may operate on given routes, the number of flights each airline is permitted to operate on the route, and in some cases, even stipulate the maximum weekly or monthly capacity each designated airline may put into the market. The net effect is that airfares on intra-African routes remain artificially high. And with the global and regional economies under pressure, fewer people can afford to fly. If free or freer competition was permitted, fares would come down and the market would grow exponentially.”
&nbsp;
<h3>THIS IS AFRICA’S NEXT BEST AIRLINE</h3>
“But the challenges do not mean it can’t be done,” Ntshanga says. He has confidence that he’s doing the right thing and is poised to strike gold.
The reason for his calm confidence, and some would say rather rapid expansion?
“Africa is, in fact, low hanging fruit for us… Our market research says we’ll be profitable within two months—and that’s even before those markets reach maturity.” Besides, the economist-by-training reckons, Africa is poised for unprecedented levels of growth, even though that’s admittedly off a low base.
Birns says SAX’s Africa route expansion strategy is “a good one in principle”, but to be sustainable it requires focus on markets with sufficient demand for business and tourism traffic.
That word—focus—is what Ntshanga says SAX swears by. “We have a very good, tried and tested model,” he says.
SAX doesn’t have its own distribution and handling systems but uses SAA’s for a fee. A lot of other services, including ground handling, are outsourced, leaving the airline with a staff complement of only 1 100.
While others still prefer jets, Ntshanga says SAX is opting for 50- to 100-seater aircraft that use turbo propellers but consume relatively less fuel, are as quiet as jets, are just as fast, and are more comfortable. Add to that the fact that the destinations the airline flies to are within a three-hour distance to and from South Africa.
“The lure of money, which often looks like easy money,” is one cause, Ntshanga believes, why other airlines fail. “You won’t catch us flying long routes, or very busy routes where we are a small boy playing with the big boys. We focus, we don’t straddle,” he says.
Birns believes SAX “never competed directly” with Nationwide, Velvet Sky, Sun Air, Flitestar or Phoenix—all of which went under—but was competing against SAA and Comair (the BA and Kulula operations) and 1Time. “It’s precisely because the high-density mainline routes are so fiercely fought over that SAX deliberately operates on different gauges and networks to the others.”
Birns thinks Velvet Sky went out of business “largely due to its failure to have sufficient economies of scale to offer a comprehensive domestic and regional service. Nationwide failed, not because of the engine incident and subsequent grounding—these were factors, but not catalysts of the failure—but because once it resumed operations, the shareholders and management failed to appreciate that they needed to invest heavily in restoring brand credibility and market confidence. They assumed, wrongly, that they could simply pick up where they’d left off and all would continue as if the crisis hadn’t happened.
“SAX is feeling the same economic pressures as every other airline around the world, ie. rampant fuel prices and soaring user charges, levies and taxes. We would be naïve to think these won’t negatively impact SAX’s bottom line. And like every other airline, SAX will want to invest in the latest available technology to help it keep those additional costs in check,” he says.
With humility, but also with authority, Ntshanga goes back a couple of years, before he was appointed CEO. Then, he was part of a crack team that achieved an important strategic tilt—developing and implementing strategies that led to the doubling of revenue and saw SAX become solvent for the first time since the airline’s inception 18 years ago. And that’s when everyone got up and noticed.
Ntshanga believes it’s a matter of time before others see that SAX is no longer the Cinderella operation that was established back in 1993 by black investors Thebe Investments (51%) and a Canadian consortium (49%), only to be sold to the government a few years down the line because it wasn’t doing that well.
Back in the day, SAX would fly to Bloemfontein twice a day. Today it flies there 10 times a day as well as to destinations across Africa dozens of times every month.
“This is Africa’s next best airline,” Ntshanga says.

Every Cloud Has A Golden Lining

Thabo Molefe, famously known as ‘Tbo Touch’ in entertainment circles, is not your typical, hunky, media personality. In all frankness, mention of his name rarely inspires dreamy emotional reactions from adoring fans. And even though he does his fair share of kissing babies and dishing out top-notch prizes on his many media platforms; the lion’s share of the coverage is about his “annoying” American accent, tabloid titbits of his personal life and how he is supposedly the world’s biggest name-dropper; hell-bent on importing American culture to Africa.
As someone who is no stranger to his drive-time show on South African Metro FM, and the many television shows he has hosted; I was not surprised or put off by the strong American influence which marks his speech and content. With Touch, it is definitely all about hip hop, basketball and “swag”.
“What a lot of people do not know is that my family has a very strong exile background,” he says. “My connection to the US is enforced by the fact that I was raised there, schooled there and I even lost blood there,” he continues, explaining that his father, Vernon Molefe, was assassinated there because of his political activism.
“My father had a project which saw him working with South African struggle icons. Through the Nelson Mandela Education Fund, he facilitated troubled South African kids to be taken to the States to be educated , away from the horrors of the apartheid uprisings. So one can say that I feel indebted to his cause,” Touch elaborates. He says his father was shot seven times in 1992, and that his murder remains unsolved to this day.
“I was taken in by Bishop Noel Jones who became my guardian, as a way of paying homage to my late father,” he says.
The month of July is of significance to Touch. This month brings to a climax his plans of returning to permanently live in the United States, and as he puts it—this time he’s going there to make huge investments, and not to look for hand-outs, like before.
“I feel that I have come full circle as Tbo Touch. In as much as I am grateful for the opportunities that I have been given by the national broadcaster (SABC) since my return to the country seven years ago; I feel it is time to take my radio show, The Touch Down 3-to-6, to New York, where it will be broadcast live on a daily basis for the next three years. This has never been done on African radio before, and what it basically means is that instead of calling up big name artists like Jay Z or Mary J. Blige and speaking to them telephonically, I will have them live in studio interacting with our South African listeners,” he says with palpable excitement.
“This has taken many months to set up. My team and I have been at pains to get the national broadcaster’s buy-in, but now I can announce that it is all systems go. We have set up our own studios in New York, and we have engineers on-site working around the clock to make sure that the show runs seamlessly. The radio show will also feed content to other programs as well. Top American broadcaster Ryan Seacrest has been doing it for years; I feel it is now my turn to do it for South Africa.
“No one can debate the fact that New York is the hub of the entertainment, and more specifically, music industry, so really one has not achieved global recognition until you have a New York footprint.”
While this is clearly great news for him as a broadcaster, Touch says he won’t be the only one benefitting from this new arrangement.
“One of the main reasons I am this excited about the venture is because the show, even though broadcast from New York daily, will continue to play African music.” For many decades, Africans have been flooded with American music and culture, so it is about time someone takes ours to them.
“I am hoping this will give local artists another avenue to be exposed and “picked up” by the real captains of the music industry—the kind of artists that practically live on the Forbes’ richest lists. And I am hoping this will be an opportunity where collaborations and meaningful partnerships between those artists and African artists can be fostered,” he says.
Music and radio are not the only elements central to Touch’s relocation; television station SABC1 has also commissioned him as an NBA Basketball sport correspondent, which means he will be courtside every week, linking fans to the game and its icons.
“The culture of basketball and the NBA has been continually growing around the continent since the late 90s, sadly though we could only watch re-runs and old games, but now we will stream it to the continent with no serious delays. As a game that I personally love as well, I am also very excited that I will be experiencing it up close and sharing that experience with the sport’s many African fans,” says Touch.
Not only does Touch seem to have the entertainment side of things well-covered. He is also gearing up to become a businessman in the hospitality industry, which may come as a surprise to many.
“My relocation will also coincide with the launch of a restaurant franchise I am opening up in Manhattan with my business partner Jeff Christie. The restaurant will have a special twist—its main commodity will be trading in wine from South Africa, and we will also have a live-streaming camera linked-up to another franchise in Cape Town, so that patrons on either side can have a kind of shared experience,” he explains.
“The restaurant’s music catalogue will also consist entirely of South African and African music. So I am working very closely with the South African Department of Tourism on this project, as I believe that the restaurant will have an impact on more people wanting the actual South African experience,” Touch says. He needed to raise $450,000 to get the business on its legs, which he did subsequent to getting many doors slammed in his face.
Asking him whether he will consider living in South Africa again, seems a bit foolhardy at this stage for a man with his kind of plans, but alas it has to be asked. “My concert production company, called Touch Lives, will continue to be based in Johannesburg. Touch Lives hosts four major concerts every year, and I will be here for each one. I also have a two-year-old son who will continue to be based here, even though his mother and I have come to an agreement that he will spend some time with me in New York. In many ways South Africa is still my home,” he concludes.

Tag: July 2012

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