It was the strangest tournament that Warren Bond ever played in. He was in Egypt, playing for South Africa, against four of the world’s hockey nations. Their hosts had put them up in a military hotel; outside Bond’s window was a parked fighter jet. Every now and again a tank rumbled past. A police escort took them to the stadium.
Their matches were just as daunting. The stadium in Cairo was empty but for a small bunch of men in suits and ties including Hosni Mubarak, being a big hockey fan, says Bond.
When the final game came, Bond but his fellow South Africans could see nothing but angry soldiers.
“We got to the stadium thinking it was going to be completely empty but it was full. Every spectator was in military uniform. It was quite intimidating. They had been given instructions that whenever an Egyptian got the ball they went mad and the crowd would be silent when we had the ball. You couldn’t script it,” says Bond.
The silence was deafening as South Africa scored the winning goal. As the ball hit the net a sublime moment turned bizarre when Gregg Clark celebrated.
“I won’t show you what he did, but basically he ran along the sidelines abusing and shouting at all the spectators. We were shouting ‘Clarky they’re the army, they’re lethal, they’ve got guns. What the hell are you doing?’” he says.
Bond remembers Clark’s victory dance before the Egyptian army like it was yesterday. He last played for South Africa in 2003 where he clocked up 64 caps, five of them as captain.
Few hockey players these days can say they have beaten Australia twice and been to the Commonwealth Games, but Bond can. He was even supposed to have gone to the 2000 Sydney Olympics until the National Olympic Committee of South Africa pulled the side three months before the event, saying there were not enough players of color.
Then in March, he got the call. His country needed him again. He was called to play for the South African Masters side, a team for those that are 40 years and above. They needed him to brush the dust off his boots and play in the FIH Masters World Cup in The Hague, Netherlands.
“It used to be you would be called up to a squad, then you would go to national camp and at the end of it you would wait, praying for your name to called out by the selectors. If they did, you would go and play for South Africa. Now, your mates call you up and say ‘hey, you’ve been selected to play for South Africa for your age-group’. And you’re like ‘well how did I get selected?’ and they say ‘no we just decided that it would be cool if you joined the team,’” says Bond.
In the 10 year gap between internationals, Bond had not been idle. He has completed the Comrades Marathon twice, a grueling 89-kilometer road race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
South African hockey players have to work. It simply doesn’t pay. When he was in his heydays as an international player, Bond worked as a chartered accountant. He also founded Sport For All, a franchise operation which has 15 sports coaching businesses running in South African townships. On the business side he invested in Luminous, a banking innovations technology company which revolutionized online accounting with First National Bank (FNB).
“One of my partners got tired of capturing bank statements and recapturing the same data later on. We thought this made no sense, there had to be a smarter way, so why not get the banks to do this? We invested in it and landed up with FNB as a customer,” he says.
Bond also created an innovation matchmaking site, called Matchi. It helps connect entrepreneurs with banks.
“I’ve seen it. People can spend two years talking to the wrong people at a bank, spending millions and millions of rands.”
It’s a sign of his outdoor life that the idea was born nowhere near an office or a bank, but on a river to Mandalay in the jungles of Burma. Another entrepreneurial venture was born while hiking the Himalayas below Mount Everest.
“It’s minus 15 degrees outside and you have your piece of chipboard and your little mattress. You wake up and everything is frozen, it’s an amazing place for ideas.”
From the road to Mandalay to a small piece of astroturf in the Johannesburg winter where aging hockey stars play. Bond takes to hockey like a fish returning to water. For a moment it could be Cairo in 2000, instead it’ll be in The Hague in 2014 when he pops off a few skilful moves with his dusty old stick.
“I am not too worried about the fitness; I am a bit worried about converting it to the sprinting which is a different ball game,” he quips.
“It’s a bunch of mates you see once a year. What’s more you get to compete against some of the people you played against internationally, under more relaxed circumstances. It’s different at Masters. You are going there knowing you will have a few beers with them after them game. You couldn’t have too many of those when you were in the middle of a series against Australia,” says Bond.
His return to hockey will be less daunting. This time, Bond won’t be in the middle of stadium of mean sounding soldiers.

‘They’ve Got Guns,  What The Hell Are You Doing?’

Nick Durandt had humble beginnings and is now one of the top boxing trainers in Africa. His track record of producing a long list of world champions has earned him respect in the boxing fraternity and he is the most accomplished trainer in South Africa.
Durandt was born in Wolverhampton, England on Boxing Day and strongly believes that he was destined to be involved in the sport.
His family is traditionally athletic and while young, Durandt played football for the junior side of South Africa’s professional club, Wits University.  Now, he is determined to contribute to South African sport by training a long line of boxing champions.
“Boxing is my passion. I enjoy every moment of my time training my fighters in the gym. Every morning, whenever I wake up, I feel highly motivated to go to work because I really like what I am doing as a trainer and manager of fighters,” says Durandt.
Durandt’s father, Cliff, played for Wolverhampton Wanderers and Charlton Athletic before returning to his country of birth, South Africa. He was at Wolverhampton when the club won its last FA Cup and first division league title.
<div id="attachment_2928" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2928" class="size-medium wp-image-2928" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0000101682-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; 20 November 2009: Michael Schultz with coach Nick Durandt during his fight with Tineyi Maridzo from Zimbabwe at the Wembley Arena, Johannesburg. Schultz is rumoured to be the alleged hitman in the Brett Kebble murder case. Surprisingly, Schultz was knocked out by Maridzo in the first round. (Photo by Gallo Images/Foto24/Herman Verwey)</div>
“When I came to South Africa from England I was very young. My father played professionally in England and he made a huge impact as a player, he was a great soccer player. Top soccer administrators in South Africa, like Irvin Khoza, Kaizer Motaung and Jomo Sono, know my father very well. He was instrumental in the move of both Lucas Radebe and Phil Masinga when they left South Africa to play in England for Leeds United.”
“At Wits I played for the under-21s. It was during the time Eddie Lewis was still coaching and I did sit on the bench for the first team on three occasions. Anyway, I felt that boxing was my greatest passion that is why, even now, I am still involved in boxing,” he says.
Durandt has guided boxers such as Phillip Ndou, Hawk Makepula, Silence Mabuza and Cassius Baloyi from unknown fighters to superstars. He is proud when his fighters improve in the ring and their bank balances start to swell.
“I have had so many great moments with my different world champions. It is very important for fighters to look after their finances well so that even when their fighting career is over they can still live a good life.”
Moruti Mthalane, one of the best boxers in Durandt’s stable, reveals that the trainer is doing a fantastic job advising him how to invest his money wisely. Mthalane pulled out of a mandatory title defence against Thailand’s Amnat Ruenroeng and relinquished the International Boxing Federation (IBF) flyweight title in the process. He was offered R60,000 ($5,800) for the fight, which Durandt labeled a disgrace. Mthalane will instead trade blows in a fight in Durban for a guaranteed R1 million ($97,000).
“I have worked with Nick for a very long time now. He is a hard worker and I am really inspired by him. He encourages me to do what is right in the gym. He has been guiding me well financially. I feel I have a bright future, even when my boxing career comes to an end, because I have made some good investments,” says Mthalane.
Durandt feels that boxing should get as much television coverage as other prominent sports in South Africa. This will give aspiring boxers some role models to look up to.
“In order to build more and more superstars, the television coverage is very important. People need to see the fighters live when they fight. Can you imagine; I arrive at the OR Tambo International Airport with the world champion and the people don’t know him or don’t recognize him.”
“When Floyd Mayweather is fighting, the whole world watches him and that is good for the sport. We have talented boxers in South Africa so it is very important for them to get the necessary exposure on television so that people know who they are,” he says.
Durandt says one of his proudest moments was meeting the late former South African president Nelson Mandela. His gym is decorated with pictures of himself and Madiba. Mandela was a keen boxer and Durandt feels that great man’s legacy in boxing will inspire a lot of fighters.
“Nelson Mandela is the most important person I have ever met in my life. It was such an honor for me to meet him. The first time I met with Madiba I spent about four hours with him in his home in Houghton. We had lunch with him and after that we spoke about all types of things in life. He was a very special person. I remember on one other occasion I took my son to meet him and he paid special attention to him.”
Durandt is also a dedicated businessman. He owns two gyms in Melrose Arch and Norwood in Johannesburg. He also owns a tattoo shop.
“Boxing is my life but the tattoo parlor is my hobby.”
His entrepreneurial spirit started at the age of 14 when he owned a video shop in Johannesburg. At one stage he owned 10 clothing stores in the Johannesburg CBD and later sold them at a healthy profit to concentrate more on his boxing interests.
“I am a businessman and I always do my best to have a good balance of my business life and family life. The fact that I still have all my jewellery with me, I have not sold any, is an indication that I am doing well in business,” he says.
“My style of running the business is to get actively involved in it. I need to be hands on and know exactly what is going on. I am very committed to my businesses. I opened a tattoo shop just across the road from my other gym in Norwood because is closer. I identify the opportunity in the business that I have passion for.”
Durandt’s success has attracted sponsors from sportswear brand Kappa and betting company Supabets.
“In business I partner with people that I feel are at my standard or the same level. Kappa, for instance, are a powerful sporting brand. Look how well they are doing in Italy. I am aware that they are also sponsoring other soccer teams in the Premier Soccer League. As for Supa Bets, they are the best in Africa. They are the number one brand in the continent in their industry so it is very good for my business to associate with them. The most important thing is that I have a very good relationship with my partners. I can phone them anytime and they provide me with all I need from them.”
Durandt is a fighter by heart. Whether in business or at ringside, he will never pull any punches.

I Don’t  Pull Punches

The KK 11, Zambia’s team of yesteryear, was so aptly named after our great leader, the father of our nation, Kenneth Kaunda. The name came with great power and strength. It was almost like a weapon we could use when we ran into battle on the pitch.
The first time I heard of the KK 11 was on the radio. I remember it like it was yesterday. In 1974, on an evening when Zambia was playing in its first Africa Cup of Nations final, the high pitched voice of commentator Dennis Liwewe streamed through the wireless safely secured in the corner of the house. I followed the match between the KK 11 and the Leopards of Zaire intensely. Liwewe shouted the names that still ring in my mind today as two great sides battled for the honor to be African kings in the finals in Egypt. I still remember the stadium name being belted out in loud voice, ‘El Nasser in Cairo!’
My memory of this day is still clear as Mulamba Ndaye scored for Zaire, followed by Brighton Sinyangwe and Simon Kaodi Kaushi equalizing for Zambia to take the match to a replay.
There were other great names. Names that have remained etched in our history, such as Dick Chama, Dickson Makwaza, Edwin Mbaso, Boniface Simutowe, Jani Simlambo, Bernard Chanda, Brighton Sinyangwe and Emmanuel Mwape.
That team covered every blade of grass as they battled from box to box, ran from man to man and dug deep into their energy reserves in search of victory. Their determination forced the match into a 2-2 draw against a highly rated and favored Zaire side. This forced a replay which saw Zaire winning and qualifying for the 1974 World Cup in Germany. Nevertheless, that Zambian team epitomized pride and commitment. They were a collective force, a powerful team full of big names that made them a powerhouse.
A few years later, I was privileged to watch them at Dag Hammarskjöld stadium in Ndola. They were playing Zaire again, this time in a qualifier. It was the first match I watched live in a stadium and the epic battle remains one of the most unforgettable events in my life. I was with my late dad and my late elder brother, Benjamin, when Zambia savoured a 2-1 victory, courtesy of goals by Richard Stephenson and Peter Mhango.
We were able to see many matches because my dad was a member of the executive committee of the Football Association of Zambia. He used to take us to a lot of stadiums while we were growing up and we could play football all day in local grounds.
From merely following the team in the newspapers and watching them in training, I came to admire and respect this mighty group of men. Imagine then how I felt as a 19-year-old when I was first called up to join the KK 11 in 1982. I was immensely proud to wear the Zambian shirt and have the chance to feature in tense battles before capacity crowds, playing alongside the greats of my time.
President Kaunda came to almost all the games. I was in awe the first time I met him. I remember his trademark white handkerchief, his presence, his height and his strong handshake. He would come to the stadium in his impressive motorcade just as the game was about to start. We would line up and shake his hand, which motivated us to go out and do our best. Then he would ask the referees for the match ball and he would charismatically and stylishly kick the ball around with his right leg, much to the delight of the crowd.
When I first heard that we were going to State House for a luncheon I was totally mesmerized. Me, a 20-year-old from Mufulira, going to State House? It was 1984 and we had just returned from Uganda after winning the East and Central Africa Challenge Cup. The KK 11 was invited to dine with the president. I remember using the cutlery and crockery with state insignia emblazoned on them. We all looked forward to that and it inspired us to keep winning.
It was the first of many dinners and luncheons hosted by Kaunda. But, what was most memorable of Kaunda was not the state banquets, it was that he attended the matches, he ate with us and in those interactions, he shared a lot with us. In his humility he inspired us and his call to the team was to play with dignity and honor and for the people.
Kaunda always told us that we had to go out on the pitch to die a little for mother Zambia. He galvanized us and garnered a lot of support for the team.
That culture of hard work, sacrifice and dedication to duty has carried on with the Chipolopolo; we never forget what is now our tradition.
This new generation also had an encounter with Kaunda when in 2012, during the greatest moment of Zambian football, President Michael Sata sent him to join the team in Gabon for the final of the Africa Cup of Nations which we won.
It was meaningful for Kaunda to have been there on that great night in Libreville. He was emotional and he used his traditional white handkerchief to wipe away his tears of joy. The culmination of his dedication to football came full circle on this historical day.
The new generation of players coming through the ranks will find the same values, messages and encouragement as they go on to play for Chipolopolo. Kaunda left an indelible mark in our footballing history. He taught us about pride and nationalism, he taught us to be humble yet proud, he taught us One Nation, One Zambia. We will be eternally grateful for his part in our footballing history.

The President That  Taught Us To Die A Little

Middle age is usually considered to be a life stage where you experience an empty nest as children leave home. For many people in their fifties, this has not been the reality; a growing number of returnees dubbed the ‘boomerang generation’ are postponing the traditional expectations of leaving home and returning to their childhood bedrooms.
Parental empty nests are filling up with one or more young adults whose expensive education, so far, has not equipped them to assume the expected next step; that is moving into their own home and finding jobs that provide enough for them to support themselves.
The boomerang generation is largely returning home as a matter of necessity. In the current economic climate, most have little choice but to turn to family or friends for somewhere to live cheaply. The job market is bleak, with unemployment on the rise, low salaries for entry-level jobs and the cost of accommodation increasing every month. These factors make it difficult for young people to be able to rent, let alone buy their own property after they graduate.
It is also true that, these days, parents have become more indulgent. Many have provided a nice lifestyle for their children, who are now used to a certain quality of life, a pampered existence which they cannot maintain without claiming it at home. Returning to their parent’s home thus provides an appealing and viable alternative that usually comes free or at least heavily subsidized, with a room, meals, utilities and transportation provided.
Naturally many young people would rather keep their options open and are not willing to compromise and accept the first job that lands on their laps.
There are however significant financial implications for parents who themselves have retired or are approaching retirement. The limited funds they have accumulated to be able to enjoy a comfortable retirement after several years of sacrifice for their children are now being spent on grown-up children.
There is the very real possibility that one or more of your children may return home for a while, so as you make projections as to the level of income you may require to sustain your retirement, keep this in mind; this will inevitably raise your monthly costs or could even delay your retirement plans. In your forties or fifties, it is likely that you simultaneously have to bear the costs of caring for aging parents, continue to support your children and fund your own retirement.
It is tempting to put aside your own retirement needs for your adult children. To be able to help your family, you first need to have some level of financial security. Although you may feel cash-strapped after paying off your mortgage, raising and educating children, and perhaps shouldering some of the costs of care for your parents, be careful not to jeopardize your retirement savings; try to continue to budget, save and keep any debt under control so that you can retain your independence in your retirement years.
If you have boomerang children, have a conversation to lay out terms or a broad understanding with clear parameters set. Encourage them to contribute in some way towards the upkeep of the house; this might include contributing towards weekly groceries and cable TV if they are employed. If you can afford it, set this money aside for them as a small nest egg for when they eventually leave home. If they are not earning, they should contribute in non-monetary ways.
Encourage your children to have a clear financial plan to help them develop sound financial habits that will last them a lifetime. They should try to make specific progress towards budgeting, controlling their debt and saving. Even while they are still under your wing, they can learn some strong lessons about the real world as they navigate the transition from young adulthood to financial independence.

Beware The Boomerang Generation

The pursuit of Al-Shabaab militants by soldiers of the African Union and the Kenyan Defence Forces opened the country to a string of systematic retaliatory attacks that saw major tourist markets shy away.
The latest attack was the twin bombings in Nairobi’s sprawling Gikomba market in May that claimed the lives of 10 innocent Kenyans and left 70 others injured. This happened while Britain, France and Australia were busy evacuating their citizens from the coastal city of Mombasa. With every attack confirming just how porous Kenya’s security apparatus is, travel alerts are swiftly triggered.
The number of tourists from January to December in 2013 closed at 1.49 million – a 15.8% drop in comparison to the 1.7 million arrivals the year before. This further dims the hopes of ever attaining the Kenyan tourism ministry’s target of attracting 3 million visitors to Kenya’s parks, beaches and conservancies each year.
The tourism window earned east Africa’s biggest economy just over $1 billion in revenue during that period. Kenya can ill afford that figure dropping. And while the dwindling numbers are worrisome, the administration in Nairobi maintains it will not relent on its campaign against extremists.
Kenya’s main tourist source markets, including Britain, the United States, Italy, India and Germany, exhibited the biggest decline in numbers in 2013, however a quick glance at the arrival numbers from Africa shows signs of a market that has been long ignored and whose potential is yet to be fully realized. Uganda maintains its number one slot as an African source market for Kenya, bringing in 47,398 visitors in 2013 alone, followed by South Africa and Tanzania.
The introduction of a 16% value added tax levy on parks and conservancy fees in September by the Kenya Revenue Authority caused another bout of panic in an already fragile industry.
Fears were rife that the change would lead to a hike in the cost of hotel bookings and travel expenses; further discouraging European and western tourists that are still licking their wounds from the Eurozone crisis. It was not long before tourists voted with their feet, cementing many analysts’ assertions that the move to slap the industry with the extra levy was proof of the government’s doublespeak.
The lack of government involvement in the marketing of this vital sector is often a hot topic at many tourism workshops. Having just returned from a tourism indaba in South Africa, Minaz Manji, the managing director of Twiga Tours, who has operated in the East African tourism space for the past three decades, reckons that governments are doing very little to promote the tourism resource at their disposal.
In the 2014/15 budget estimates, the Kenyan government set aside $22.9 million for the tourism docket with $14.8 million going into recurrent projects and the balance for development. It is this figure that infuriates Manji and many other players in this space.
“How many billboards or TV adverts can you put in Europe or Asia when you only have $8 million for a whole year. Is this government serious?” asks Manji.
The obsession with the bush and the beach by East Africa’s tourism bodies, including the Kenya Tourism Board, has also come under sharp criticism. Players in the sector point to destinations like the Kremlin in Moscow. It attracts a million visitors every three months to sample its history, perhaps proof that diversifying tourism in Africa should quickly gain traction.
In recent months, international hotel chains like Hemingways, Best Western Premier and Villa Rosa Kempinski have set up shop in Nairobi while the New York Stock Exchange-listed hotel chain, Wyndham, plan to enter the Kenyan market at the end of the year. These developments have left 6 million spaces for Kenya’s tourism industry to fill, creating a lot of room to attract investors.
There are no quick solutions in the quest to save Kenya’s tourism sector, but there are low hanging fruits that would set it on the right track in the short term. Kenya needs to amend taxation laws to make it favorable for operators, increase funding for the promotion of tourism and look at developing joint regional marketing of the East African region to make it an attractive destination once again. All of this, however, can only be possible if Kenya successfully tackles the escalating terror threat.

Tempt Tourists Back

The officer stared at me through the glass window as I tried to explain why I didn’t have a visa. I was unaware that the 90-day visa waiver to Tanzania excluded business travel. It was hot, humid and I was soaked from the rain. The only thing between me and paradise was him.
“Mam, would you please step inside the office.”
I knew exactly what was happening; I had seen this before in a Quentin Tarantino movie. I was being detained.
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It was only a few hours before that I had boarded a boat from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. For four hours I sat on the rocking boat, watched City Lights &#8211; the silent black and white movie with Charlie Chaplin &#8211; spoke to the German businessman next to me and brushed up on my Swahili.
Now I was here, sitting across the table from three officers, wondering if I’ll fly back to South Africa in handcuffs.
I don’t remember how it happened but instead of paying a $300 fine, I got off with a friendly warning and great travel advice.
As soon as I reached Kisiwa House, a bed and breakfast in Stone Town, I dropped my bags and called a tour guide. We weaved through the narrow cobble-stone streets, dodging the children playing and people riding scooters and bicycles. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the doors.
The closer I got to them, the finely chiseled flowers, scales, ropes and chains became clearer. The Arabic style doors, often found with transcriptions, are square at the top while the Indian doors have round tops.
Stone Town, named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000, is rich in history. The Persian Baths, Tippu Tip’s House and House of Wonders are popular tourist attractions. There’s a stone sculpture next to Christ Church, which used to be the center of the slave market. The tour guide said the altar inside the church used to be a whipping post to test the slaves’ strength.
After a long day of sightseeing, the tour ended at the waterfront. I picked a spot close to the sea and watched children flip, roll, tumble and dive into the water. In the distance, the fishermen sailed to shore to set up for the evening Forodhani market.
The rain didn’t keep anyone from coming to indulge in the local cuisine which included piles of lobster, fish, octopus and calamari. The food is cooked over a fire and eaten with coconut bread.
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I had an interesting conversation with a fisherman about life at sea. He was part of a team of 10 who worked day and night shifts, so they always had fish. Although he enjoyed his easy life, he longed to experience life outside Zanzibar.
The next morning I was woken by roosters crowing, motorbikes riding and the call to prayer from the Mosques. After breakfast, I set out to Prison Island, a smaller islet off the coast of Zanzibar, by boat. As the waves pounded against the small wooden boat, the two-man crew struggled to steady it. When I looked around and saw only blue I began to understand just how vast and powerful the ocean is. It was thrilling, yet scary.
Then out in the distance I saw the white sandy beach of Prison islet. Although it never housed the incarcerated, its low walls would have made for an easy escape. The island has two main attractions: clear waters for snorkeling and giant tortoise. There were tortoises that were over 150 years old and some weighed up to 200 kilograms.
A few hours later, I was back on the mainland wandering through the stores along Kenyatta Road. While staring at a painting of the Masai, done in the Tanzanian Tingatinga style, I was distracted by a lady yelling at her child.
“Iwe, Musabata!” I smiled. It was a phrase I was all too familiar with, growing up in a Shona-speaking household. It means, “You, don’t touch that.”
I walked over to her, as she scolded her child and struck up a conversation. She left Zimbabwe six years ago hoping to provide a better life for her children. She was a teacher at one of the local schools and hoped to one day return to Zimbabwe.
On my last night on the island, I met some tourists for sundowners at Africa House, a restaurant on the beach with an amazing view of the ocean. Everyone gazed at the sun, in its red, yellow and orange glory, as it dipped beyond the horizon. It was as if they were seeing it for the first time. I sank in my seat and watched a solitary boat sail the vast sea. Perhaps this is what JRR Tolkien saw when he said, “Not all who wander are lost”. Just then Paradise by Coldplay began to play. I smiled, how fitting.

Wander lost  In Zanzibar

The say, never put all your eggs in one basket. Tim Tebeila never does. This mining magnate is well on his way as a multimillionaire thanks to the many baskets of Sekoko Holdings.
The new egg is Mint Electronics, which is set to launch South Africa’s first smartphone and tablet, called Mint.
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It’s a new and bold venture for one of the determined veterans of the post-1994 South African economy. His dream is simply to build a new Anglo American and it hasn’t been easy.
Tebeila started off with Sekoko Resources, mining coal, iron ore and platinum. He then started Tebcon Developers, which is now managed by his wife, building hospitals, schools and houses in townships across the country.
Tebeila is born of struggle, the third of seven children to a laborer in the remote village of Sekhukhune, in the Limpopo province. He walked barefoot through the mountains to school, 15 kilometers each way. He sold apples on the streets for a living.
Post 1994, he was an insurance broker before becoming an entrepreneur. In 2013, he founded one of South Africa’s first fully licensed black-owned insurance companies, Reliance Life.
Then came electronics. Earlier this year, Tebeila announced the launch of Mint Electronics. It is a subsidiary of Sekoko Holdings which acquired a 75% stake of CZ Electronics, a factory in Boksburg, 52 kilometers east of Johannesburg.
CZ Electronics, established in 2002, used to make equipment in South Africa for France’s Alcatel Lucent on behalf of Telkom and other clients. The company builds circuit boards for television brands like Sinotec.
Tebeila says Android 5-inch smartphones and 10.1-inch tablets will be designed, developed and manufactured in South Africa for the mass market. He claims this will be the first tablet with a USB port.
“The smartphones and tablets will be sold through major retailers, operator stores and our branded shops. The branded shops will launch in all major malls,” says Segran Pillay, chief executive of CZ Electronics.
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Tebeila adds that the tablets will be available in both the seven-inch and the 10-inch screen sizes.
“My target with this tablet is that every school learner in South Africa should have one,” he says.
Tebeila hopes the devices will be on shelves in about 11 Mint Electronics branded stores and in other existing mobile shops.
With manufacturing already underway in Boksburg, Tebeila plans to franchise Mint Electronics by the end of 2015. The businessman hopes to roll out manufacturing plants and sell across the continent.
But this man is known for wanting to turn Sekoko Resources into Anglo American. It was difficult.
Tebeila didn’t want to buy other companies, but he wanted to get the mining rights and develop this company on his own. He was turned down 10 times, but never gave up.
It was a dream almost stillborn. Mining rights proved a nightmare.
When he eventually got them, he needed R1.5 million ($145,000) for exploration and struck on the idea of gathering money from people who lived in the villages near where he grew up.
An old blind woman was one of the first to shuffle into Tebeila’s offices on a winter’s day, handing over R15,000 ($1,450) in cash – her life savings.
When all the money was put together, he paid R600,000 ($58,000) to a firm of geological consultants and R900,000 ($87,000) to drillers to explore for coal at Soutpansberg.
A few weeks later, he found out that the consulting firm, which had been riven by strife, had dissolved almost overnight and the geologist had fled to Australia with the exploration report.
He had lost money, paperwork and information which had consumed his meagre capital. But because he was hands-on during the exploration, he knew the laboratory that was used by the consultants and the people who worked there. The lab was able to salvage two pages of the exploration data for Tebeila. It contained all the drilling information. And other experts were able to finish the rest.
Coal mining was to be the foundation for his $28-million fortune.
In April 2005, the government granted Tebeila a license for Soutpansberg, which was estimated to hold 200 million tons of metallurgical coal under 11 farms, covering 8,000 hectares, near Musina on his home soil of Limpopo.
“Coal of Africa made me an offer to purchase 74% of the assets for R70 million ($6.7 million). They also pledged to spend R100 million ($9.6 million) to take the project to a bankable feasibility study,” says Tebeila.
This was the biggest deal he ever had closed on a cellphone while driving. Two years later, they offered him R20 million ($1.9 million) for the remaining 26% and gave him the capital to finance the Waterberg Colliery. It will mine up to 15 million tons of coal a year by 2019.
Sekoko Resources will supply Eskom with about 10 million tons of coal from Waterburg.
Eskom is building Kusile and Medupi power stations in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces, while producing around 35,000MW of electricity, twice that of Nigeria, to ease the power shortages in South Africa.
“By September, we will be done with signing the agreement that will allow us to start with operations early next year. Our feasibility study has also allowed us to create an environment for our export market. Part of the coal will be going to export and part of it will go to Eskom,” he says.
Tebeila says plans are still on track for Sekoko Resources to reach a turnover of R10 billion ($1 billion) a year by 2019.
This turned his life around to what Sekoko Resources is today.
But like many other multimillionaire entrepreneurs, philanthropy is close to his heart. Tebeila gives away portions of his fortune through a foundation in his name. His latest charity project, coinciding with the winter season in South Africa, is giving tracksuits to school children.
“If you don’t give, you won’t make more money. Africans must give more,” Tebeila says.
While driving in the back of a car to see the newly acquired CZ Electronics and Mint Electronics factory in Boksburg, Tebeila turns to me sharing another dream of building a bakery.
“I like bread,” he says.
And therein lies the whim of an entrepreneur. The man who is always on the move, who sees opportunities when others do not, or in Tebeila’s case, pick up another egg and put it in another basket.

The Multi-Millionaire  In The Mirror

Emmanuel Katongole is a brisk, no nonsense, entrepreneur with a powerful desk and a sharp suit. If you look closely, beneath his distinguished grey hair, you can see the traces of pain that steeled one of Uganda’s leading entrepreneurs.
Katongole watched his three elder sisters die for want of medical care. It is no coincidence that he has dedicated his life, as an entrepreneur, to making pills to fight two of Africa’s great killers: malaria and HIV/Aids.
“My elder sister got pregnant at 15 and died while giving birth, she bled to death because she couldn’t go to hospital. The other two died of HIV/Aids, leaving me alone. This is not only hearing of it, I saw it. So many other families have gone through this,” says Katongole.
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“It was an influence in this kind of business. I think about them often and now we see our medicines being made and thousands upon thousands surviving. That gives you a good feeling.”
To say Katongole grew up the hard way is an understatement. He was born in 1962 in the rural Mityana district in the hills of Uganda and spent most of his childhood herding goats and fighting off hyenas.
“We grew up right from childhood being independent and had to work to survive. That has grown with me,” he says.
Neither his father, nor his mother, could read nor write; his father worked as a laborer, his mother sold roasted maize by the side of the road. In 1965, Katongole senior moved the family to Kampala, in search of a better life, when he secured a job working as a night porter at the Palace of Kabaka – the seat of the King of Buganda. One day Katongole senior went to work, never to return.
“It is believed that he was caught in the gunfire that resulted from the soured relations between the Buganda kingdom and the central government at the time. We never saw him again,” says Katongole.
It meant more hardship for the family. Veronica Katongole had to make the tough decision to withdraw her three daughters from education so she could afford to pay for her son to go through school. Young Katongole did not wear shoes, ride in a vehicle nor switch on a light bulb until he won a scholarship to Namilyango College near Kampala. The hard work paid off and Katongole graduated from Makerere University – known in Kampala as the ivory tower – in statistics and applied economics. He got a job and began looking for areas of business not yet saturated. As it turned out, 1987 was a good year for entrepreneurs in Kampala. The Ugandan government was easing state controls and liberalizing the foreign exchange market.
Katongole saw that 1.5 million, out of 30 million, Ugandans were HIV positive. On top of this, malaria killed 300 people a day; the equivalent of an Airbus A340 crashing seven days a week, he says. In 1997, Katongole and five partners put in $5,000 each to found Quality Chemicals on a patch of dusty land on the poor fringes of Kampala. The first year was lean; the company turned over less than a million dollars.
“The turning point came in 2001. This is when the world became very tough about intellectual property and patents. When the World Trade Organization came in, we saw this as an opportunity. Uganda was among 16 of the poorest of the poor nations made exempt. Patented medicines were expensive &#8211; do you allow poor people to die because of patents?”
It cleared the way for Quality Chemicals to manufacture six million pills a day to tackle both deadly diseases. The coup was a joint venture, in 2005, with Indian pharmaceutical giant, Cipla, which was looking for a foothold in the continent. This poured capital and expertise into the company and by 2013 turnover was $65 million; this year, the accountants project $76 million. In November, Cipla spent $15 million on increasing its stake to 51%. Katongole and his fellow five founders retain 23%.
It is a late autumn morning in the outskirts of Kampala and Quality Chemicals is humming. Outside there are goats grazing in the sun, it is nearly noon and more than 30 degrees Celsius; inside it is cool and busy. Hundreds of people in white coats are hard at work making the handfuls of pills that can be the difference between life and death for a village full of people.
The company exports to Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Sudan. It is far from an easy business.
“The infrastructure problems of the country notwithstanding, we have problem with access to markets. You know, we have got a lot of donor products coming in and these hinder the development potential of our market. There are also subsidies given by other countries which hurt our market. Then there is the power shortage. It is not so much of a big problem since we bought our own generator,” says Katongole.
“We could do better, but if you compare what is happening globally, there has been a concerted effort by the state to sustain the economy. Inflation has been between 8 and 12 percent for many years; that is not bad for African countries. If you look at the exchange rate, it is largely under control, fluctuations here and there, but not bad. Interest rates, of 20 to 24 percent, are relatively stable, but they are high. Banks are helpful, but the economy is relatively small.”
Despite this, Quality Chemicals is thinking big.
“Our dream is to be the number one company in our field in Africa. For now, the problem of malaria and aids is still big – we are also looking at making pills to tackle cancer and hypertension. These are the serious diseases we are thinking about.”
The next thought will be the completion of a second factory that will increase the workforce to 700.
“I tell you I always believe that every generation has its revolution and the revolution of our generation is entrepreneurship. A lot can be done. Well-handled entrepreneurship can do so much,” says Katongole.
This confident man has one tinge of regret; that he never had the chance to offer his hard working mother more of the fruits of his success. Veronica Katongole died of skin cancer in 2002. Among her last wishes were for her son to build an iron sheet roofed house for her – the family had grown up under mud and wattle. The second was that she wanted her funeral to be led by a Catholic priest.
The first request was built in Katongole’s first year of work; the second was led by the Archbishop of Kampala.
In a tribute to his mother, Katongole has launched bottled water, called Vero after her, where the proceeds go to charity, in her honor. Proof, that the legacy of an entrepreneur can be far more than money.
<h4>In The Business Of Caring</h4>
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In Uganda entrepreneurs are known for the money they have made but their reputations are often tainted with rumors of dishonest practices and dealings that helped pave their path to success. This is not the case when you mention Emmanuel Katongole in Uganda’s business community.
Katongole is widely recognized for his social entrepreneurship, philanthropy and unrelenting spirit. For someone who had to team up with his illiterate mother to sell local liquor to earn school fees, it is inspirational to now see him as a member of the Initiative for Global Development (IGD), a group that aims to reduce poverty worldwide and consists of successful business leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States (US).
Katongole is part of the esteemed company of former secretaries of state of the United States Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, who co-chair the governing council of IGD.
Back in 1997, Katongole, along with five colleagues, founded Quality Chemicals. It grew to become the only company in sub-Saharan Africa that manufactures triple-combination antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Today, the company manufactures and sells antiretroviral and antimalarial drugs. Given the crippling effects of malaria and HIV/Aids on the continent, Katongole has made a significant contribution towards reversing the effects of these diseases.
There have been accusations of him being too close to the Ugandan government and subsequently using his close connections to get ahead in business. Others, however, argue that the scourge of HIV/Aids and malaria has long been a major priority for the Ugandan government and any major player within that sphere would require a collaborative relationship with them.
Besides Quality Chemicals, Katongole founded Vero Mineral Water, in memory of his late mother, Veronica.
The business commits 10% of its proceeds towards social development causes such as education. For Katongole, entrepreneurship should solve society’s most pressing challenges and his businesses are testimony to this.
His background is one of extreme poverty and disease. He used this as inspiration to build an enterprise that not only creates wealth but confronts the twin evils of poverty and disease within its community. Katongole is the district governor of the Rotary Club in Tanzania and Uganda, which provides humanitarian services in that region of Africa.
“I think he has done a lot for Rotary and that is a good thing,” says Ugandan business mogul Patrick Bitature.
He adds that although Katongole has achieved a lot as an entrepreneur, he is bound to achieve a lot more in future.
“He is going places,” says Bitature.
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The Pain And Drive That Turned $5,000 Into $65 Million A Year

When you walk in a maize field in Solwezi, Zambia, it’s difficult to tell where the wilderness ends and the crops begin; you could get lost in the canopy of weeds choking the corn. Lifetimes are spent bending and sweating to coax the crops from this dusty land. There is not much maize to show for it. The farmers of Solwezi often struggle.
A man who walks through these fields every day wants to change all this. Guy Hammond is an unusual face to find in Solwezi. What’s more unusual is Hammond is here to tell farmers to forget plough and fertilizer; a bit like telling a bird to forget the sky.
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Hammond fits the part of a farmer from Africa. His khaki shirt is a shade lighter than his pants. White socks peek from his worn black leather boots. His skin is as tanned as the leather.
It’s even stranger to hear how he landed up in Zambia. Hammond is part of Africa’s wandering tribe of Zimbabwean farmers. He grew tobacco in Zimbabwe until he lost his farm to the government in 2002. Forced out, he moved to the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo for First Quantum Minerals as a shift supervisor. His path led him to Solwezi, one of the fastest growing towns in Africa, once a tiny village on the northern borders of Zambia and 16 kilometers from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Now Hammond works for Kansanshi mine, run by First Quantum Minerals, teaching farmers to abandon the way of farming he was taught as a child. It’s called conservation farming and Hammond wants to change the ways Zambians farm.
“We are now going into our fifth season. The program has taken local average yields from just over one ton per hectare to four tons per hectare. But some of the best farmers on our scheme have consistent yields of about eight tons per hectare,” says Hammond.
It’s an eye-opening experience to walk through crops surrounded by knee-high grass, an acacia tree and an anthill the size of a house. The two fields side by side tell a story.  On the one side Hammond has a conservation crop; the other he’s planted with fertilizer.  The conservation side is as big as the anthill whereas the fertilizer isn’t.
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“In the nineties, Brian Oldreive, a farmer in Zimbabwe, came to believe that modern farming was the root of the problem. He was working on a farm that was failing. Crop yields were poor. No one could work out why the soil was losing its qualities. But the family was buying more and more fertilizer and spending millions on expensive machinery,” he says.
Oldreive, being a religious man, turned failing land into bountiful fields like something out of the bible. What’s more he did it without fertilizer or a plough. Instead, he covered the seeds with mulch made from dried grass and waited for the rains; the way God intended, says Hammond.
“I knew of Oldreive when I was farming as he was writing a lot of [then] controversial articles in the various agriculture magazines about this new method of farming. Everybody thought he was mad. I never learned conservation farming as a child in Zimbabwe. I only learned it in 2009 when I attended Brian’s conservation farming course in Harare after having farmed conventionally for 14 years. I was converted in three days,” says Hammond.
“Oldreive looked back in history and found that modern farming as we know it is a man-made disaster. He found that the plough was the chief culprit. The plough basically inverts the soil, all the organisms that work in the soil on the top, which are anabolic and does all your compost decay and eating of the leaves, and then you are burying them and killing them. And those organisms that are under the soil are being exposed to sunlight and oxygen,” he says.
Oldreive doubled his yield and cut his production costs by 66%. Now this has been brought to Solwezi, says Hammond.
“Conservation farming has taken off like a rocket. People are taking a look at their friend’s crops on the program and asking ‘how the hell did your get your crops so beautiful?’ We now have 1,800 farmers on the program,” says Bruce Lewis, the head of CSR at Kansanshi.
Hammond also wants Zambian farmers to abandon slash and burn farming, which is burning fields to clear crops for the next year’s growth. It damages the soil and worsens global warming.
“Every year, one billion hectares of Africa goes up in smoke. We are also contributing in our own way in Africa to global warming. It’s not just China and industrialized nations that smog our atmosphere, it’s actually the peasant who has been doing what he has been doing for thousands of years,” says Hammond.
Traditionally, across Africa, inputs are notoriously late. The Zambian government delivered its fertilizer to farmers in February, 90 days late. For a farmer this spells disaster.
“Maize is a 110-day crop so you’ve missed a whole season by delivering fertilizer in February; it’s a waste of money. The whole idea is to teach farmers to farm without using farming inputs. That’s the most expensive thing and the thing that cuts the most profit out… With conservation farming, the only input cost is the seed itself… This is why these schemes fail. With all the best intentions, it’s just poor delivery that costs the government millions,” says Hammond.
It’s not only fertilizer and farming machinery companies that will take a knock if conservation farming picks up, companies involved in supplying insecticides will also suffer. Conservation farming naturally kills bugs by rotating the yearly crop.
“You are breaking the life cycle of any insect. By rotating the crop that insect doesn’t have time to breed. You are also increasing your soil content because different plants have different soil contents. Maize needs a lot of zinc; soy beans don’t require any. You are regenerating your soil. You’ll need less and less fertilizer and insecticides by creating natural compost.”
When the world’s population hits nine billion in 2050, there will more people eating food than can be grown, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The agriculture industry has many mouths to feed and a mountain of problems to climb. These are the issues that have made the rest of the world turn to Africa, a continent rich with untouched arable land but producing merely 2% of the world’s food.
“Africa is basically the last natural resource that hasn’t been fully developed for agriculture and urbanization in the world. China has already destroyed 27% of their arable land with industrial waste. Their population is expanding and they have no land. So they are climbing into Africa, lapping up every piece of arable land for their population. It’s not just China, it’s also the Islamic belt and yet Africans, sitting on all these resources, are the poorest people in the world with the most land. We can’t even feed ourselves,” says Hammond.
Hammond may be far from home but it hasn’t left him. Among the maize, he admits to testing a yield of tobacco. He even built a smoke house next to the anthill. The problem is Zambia isn’t a tobacco country but could soon be a nation of better maize growers.

Waiting For The Rains And God

It took the prestigious, New York City-based Columbia University two years to snag Wale Tinubu as keynote speaker at their annual Africa Economic Forum. Not surprising, Tinubu maintains an extremely busy schedule running Oando Plc, the first Nigerian company to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as well as the Nigerian Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization of $1.4 billion and more than a thousand staff.
The forum, in its eleventh year, was held at the Ivy League school’s sprawling campus on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It highlighted the rise of Africa and provided perspective from various industry titans from the continent. Tinubu, the group chief executive officer of Oando, the sub-Saharan African indigenous integrated energy group, joined Raila Odinga, the renowned politician and former prime minister of Kenya, Rosalind Kainyah, the managing director of Kina Advisory Limited and Emmanuel Nnadozie, the executive secretary of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) to discuss the continent’s economic rise.
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It has been more than two years since the African oil magnate featured on the cover of FORBES AFRICA. Back in November 2011, Tinubu ended his first interview with the magazine, saying &#8220;Africa is a challenging continent; you fight for water, you fight for food, you fight for shelter. We compete by nature, so it&#8217;s always difficult but we don&#8217;t always know it is difficult because we have a spirit of survival. Here at Oando, we deliver on the tough things.&#8221;
Fast-forward to 2014, it seems that Tinubu still has that philosophy.
Standing in the lofty hallways of the university, dressed in denim jeans, crisp white shirt, dark-colored suede blazer and his signature horn-rimmed glasses, one could have easily mistaken Tinubu for a professor; fashionably modern but unassuming even though he sits at the helm of a $1.7-billion energy conglomerate.
During the chat with FORBES AFRICA, Tinubu discusses his company’s acquisition of the Nigerian upstream oil and gas business of ConocoPhillips, an American multinational energy corporation, in a $1.7 billion transaction.
“We were looking to acquire a company that was three times our size. We had to do several rounds of fundraising, which we successfully did. We did a rights of issue first, then we did a private placement, and then we organized a corporate facility. We had about five or six work series running simultaneously in an environment where we were deemed not to be able to do the transaction because anybody wanting to do a $1.5 billion or $1.7 billion transaction in such a short space of time is unheard of. Finance is still a challenge; it’s always been a challenge in Africa.”
The London-trained attorney-turned oil baron is known for being innovative in identifying funding opportunities from across the globe as well as from different classes of institutions. In 2012, Oando’s upstream business, Oando Energy Resources, became the first Nigerian indigenous company to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $184 million.
His company started off as a trading company in oil and gas. It then went into downstream marketing, where they filed registration and diversified into gas, built three different gas fire systems, 130 kilometers of pipelines went into the services industry and now they are finally in the upstream sector.
“Our ultimate goal was to diversify our business to the upstream — exploration and production of oil and gas — because there is a substantial amount of profitability that exists and there’s an incredible value that we can add towards our indigenous participation in our oil industry.”
Tinubu explains that Nigeria is producing around 2.3 million barrels of oil a month but should be producing 4 million barrels. He also says that 65% of the reserves are on land but most of the focus is offshore because of the better return it offers.
“It is not unrealistic for us to build a $10 billion exploration and production indigenous company. When we started 20 years ago, we had no money. Today, we are probably an enterprise of $3.5 to 4 billion and by the time we complete this acquisition we will be around $6 billion and that is with zero equity.”
This is the result of delivering on the tough things.

The Nigerian  Oil Baron  Buying Up America

Peter Mutharika may have won and Joyce Banda may have been booted, but it was a confusing election in Malawi.
The former British colony that was governed by the late dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda for 33 years held its first tripartite polls on May 20.
Incumbent president Banda, Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and Atupele Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) were the leading candidates.
<div id="attachment_2889" style="width: 212px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2889" class="size-medium wp-image-2889" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Par7896107-202x300.jpg" alt="" width="202" height="300" />Malawi&#8217;s new President Arthur Peter Mutharika waves at people who gathered to witness his official inauguration as President at the Kamuzu stadium in Blantyre on June 2, 2014. Malawi, traditionally dependent on Western aid donors, will look for &#8220;new friends&#8221; in countries such as China and Russia, newly elected President Peter Mutharika said at his inauguration today. AFP PHOTO / AMOS GUMULIRA</div>
More than a week later, Mutharika was announced as the country’s new leader amid allegations of rigging and manipulation.
Some of the anomalies are striking, such as a 38,000-strong constituency producing more than 184,000 ballots.
The results showed Banda beaten into third place by Chakwera.
Banda ordered the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to stop the tallying of votes saying the electoral process had been marred but her call was reversed by the high court.
Tapera Kapuya, a political analyst with the African Democracy Forum, says there is a need to bolster independent institutions.
“There is a need to strengthen institutional capacity of electoral bodies to independently conduct and manage democratic elections,” Kapuya tells CNBC Africa.com.
“What we are seeing in Malawi is unfortunate given the advances the country has made in its democratic development. This election, if not managed properly, might see the country regress into conflict.”
Mutharika is the younger brother of president Bingu wa Mutharika who died in office in 2012.
The 74-year-old law professor takes the leadership of Malawi facing treason charges for attempting to conceal his brother’s death in an alleged bid to prevent Banda &#8211; then vice-president &#8211; from assuming power.
As a former foreign minister and his brother’s right-hand man, he was also a leading member of an administration widely blamed for bringing the small southern African country’s economy to its knees through years of mismanagement.
Dewa Mavhinga, a senior researcher at the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, says the country’s young democracy is facing a major test after previously demonstrating such maturity.
“The good thing about the Malawi elections is that the pre-election and voting period were fairly peaceful and without violence or other human rights abuses. Vote counting and the post-election period is now a litmus test of the maturity of Malawi’s democracy,” he says.
Mutharika reportedly agreed to a vote recount after heated exchanges with the MEC. He argued that the security of the ballot boxes was questionable.
According to the MEC’s Emmanuel Chimkwita-Phiri, 42 stations were to be audited and manual counting was conducted.
The votes may have been cast but the battle for democracy lies ahead.

Freedom Or Fraud?

Gert Grobler should have retired a while ago. He is over the age, and served with distinction as South Africa’s ambassador in Spain and then Japan, prestigious appointments. Trading Tokyo’s opulence for the tarnish of Antananarivo is not considered an attractive offer.
But when Grobler was due to retire, the powers that be asked him to stay on to resolve the problematic politics of Madagascar.
“What could I do? They asked me to help,” he says, when I ask how the glitzy residence in Tokyo compares with the poverty of ‘Tana, as Madagascar’s capital is known.
Madagascan politics are fraught. The incumbent president was there because of a coup, unrecognized by South Africa, who hosted the ‘real’ president, Marc Ravalomanana, at considerable expense to taxpayers for four years.
South Africa has major mining and tourism interests in the large island state of Madagascar, a state which has been loyal to France, has been riddled with corruption, and has been run by proxy presidents whose strings are pulled by puppet masters in the five major families.
As it turned out, the elections held this January &#8211; after banning both the incumbent president and the real president from standing &#8211; resulted in the election of President Hery Rajaonarimampianina, not exactly South Africa’s choice.
It was a relatively free and fair election, so South Africa supported the outcome and Grobler had to try to exert South Africa’s influence, against fierce French rivalry.
Many ambassadors are lazy, and as many are useless. Grobler works hard. So it came about that Rajaonarimampianina, on his visit to South Africa in May for President Jacob Zuma’s inauguration, enjoyed a slew of high-level important meetings, from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to a private lunch at Werksmans Attorneys, a lunch I chaired.
The new president outlined his tasks, explained his attitude to the return of former President Ravalomanana, and came across as a good guy intent on ridding his country of corruption, being his own man not answerable to the five families, and having a serious grasp of his island’s finances, treasury, business opportunities and threats.
A short, friendly man, he speaks fluent French and Malagasy and is eloquent in English, only resorting to an interpreter once or twice.
He plays tennis and follows soccer, has five children, been married twice, and was the Minister of Finance under the coup administration.
“Madagascar is the land of opportunity,” he says at the lunch. A cliché, yet I believe him.
“We are creating an environment that is good for investment. On the energy front there is huge potential for solar energy, but we need capital and a return on investment.”
Asked questions on air travel, the cost of which is a sore point for tourists, he says, “We have open skies and I invite your South African companies to come to develop tourism.”
His biggest challenge?
“To eradicate the extreme poverty in Madagascar. That’s number one. Then to bring jobs is a first aim, and to create different services in education.”
Poverty, jobs, education. Good priorities.
In the interview, he suggests investment in agriculture is tops in business opportunities, then mining, tourism and renewable energy.
“We have ports, roads, airports, so you can move freely in Madagascar, but infrastructure is still a problem.”
Pretty new in the job, is he a new broom sweeping clean?
“We are in the beginning of my mandate,” he admits disarmingly. “This transition is important. A new president brings a new framework and authority to fight corruption and it is important to set up a new kind of democracy in Madagascar.”
Presumably one that doesn’t rely on patronage from the five almost-royal families or from big business or the military?
The big question is what will he do about the exiled former president, Ravalomanana?
“His return will be better if it can happen in a peaceful and fair environment. I am not sure if it is there [yet]. This is not the time for it but I am sure it can happen.”
“Ravalomanana is a patriotic person and wants the best for the country. He has a problem with justice and we have to find a solution to that before he returns.”
After being ousted in a coup, Ravalomanana was tried in absentia for ordering his troops to fire on protestors. The court sentenced him, also in absentia, in what the whole world saw as a kangaroo court decision. But the decision is still binding, although the new president probably has some legal leeway to have it rescinded.
“If I say he must stay for a while in South Africa it is a transitional thing. He also has real tax he must pay from the past and to be fair to the citizens it is the rule of law, everyone has to pay his duty. He has a debt in that and he has to pay or at least he has to come to a negotiation to settle this debt.
“The Malagasy courts are sovereign over the criminal charges. He has accepted the decisions of the court of a formal government. If he wants to be amnestied he must apply.”
But what about France’s influence?
“France is our historical partner. France has its place. But I’m not sure it has an influence on my politics. The voice of France is always listened to. But the world is now globalized.”
One of Rajaonarimampianina’s major priorities is to curb the illegal export of rosewood.
“That was my first challenge. To fight for the authority of the state and fight the illegal traffic of rosewood, gold, indigenous animals, turtles and all the endemics.”
Rajaonarimampianina has a Master’s in Economics from the University of Quebec and a Diploma of Certified Accounting. He was on the Board of Accounting of Canada. He started his own accounting firm in ‘Tana in 1995, and was then proposed in 2009 by the private sector to serve their interests as Finance Minister in the coup government.
Being president is a step up but one that Rajaonarimampianina relishes.
“I do it with pride, joy and conviction.”
The new president is a far cry from the person he replaced. Coup leader Andry Rajoelina was popularly known as a failed disc jockey, doing the bidding of a puppet master of one of the five families.
Rajaonarimampianina brings technical knowledge, university degrees in finance and a more appealing personality to the job.
It will be difficult to drag the island up from the depths to which it has descended. He may just be the man to do it. Certainly everyone in Africa wishes him and his country the very best.
As for Gert, he’ll still be there for a while.
“You get old, but you try to help where you can,” he says.

The Accountant Turned President

Terrorism in Africa did not begin on September 11, 2001. It began in Sudan in the 1990s, where Osama bin Laden operated and where an attack against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was organized.
Three years later, in 1998, Al Qaeda cells blew up the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
In retaliation for these attacks, the United States (US), in addition to an attack in Afghanistan, bombed a chemical plant in Sudan, claiming that it was producing elements for chemical weapons for Al Qaeda.
From the time of these attacks, US policy in Somalia became preoccupied with searching for, capturing, and killing the perpetrators of those attacks who were believed to have taken refuge there.
<div id="attachment_2882" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2882" class="size-medium wp-image-2882" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Par7496840-300x221.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="221" />A picture taken from a video distributed to Nigerian journalists in the country&#8217;s north in recent days through intermediaries and obtained by AFP on March 5, 2013 reportedly shows Abubakar Shekau (C), the suspected leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, flanked by six armed and hooded fighters in an undisclosed place. The suspected leader of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram denies any ceasefire deal with the government in a video obtained today. Abubakar Shekau makes no mention of kidnappings in the video, including last month&#8217;s abduction of seven members of a French family. Boko Haram was blamed for the kidnapping that occurred just over the Nigerian border in Cameroon. RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE &#8211; MANDATORY CREDIT &#8220;AFP PHOTO / BOKO HARAM&#8221; &#8211; NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS &#8211; DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS</div>
The seeds of later US policy and all that has followed in Somalia were planted then.
Yet the vast majority of conflict and terrorist activity in Africa is not linked to international sponsorship or any vast conspiracy against the West.
The Lords Resistance Army in Uganda, the various militia in eastern Congo, the militants in the Niger Delta, the extremist sects in Kenya, Nigeria, and elsewhere are the principal security threats to the African population.
Africa is no more immune to the threats from terrorism than any other continent.
Its combination of relatively weak states, ethnic and religious diversity and sometimes discrimination, its poverty, and in many places its ungoverned space all lend Africa a significant susceptibility to the growth of radical and sometimes internationally connected movements that employ terrorism.
Some of these are aimed specifically at African governments, for example, the radical Islamic Boko Haram in Nigeria or the Mombasa Republican Council in Kenya.
These groups pose serious security challenges to key countries and potentially even a threat to the continent’s new success.
The biggest story in Africa south of the Sahara over the past few years hasn’t been plague, famine or war but the emergence of the world’s poorest continent as one of its fastest growing – thanks to factors that include fresh investment, economic reform, the spread of new technology, higher prices for commodity exports and generally greater political stability.
Nigeria and Kenya, the most important economies in West and East Africa respectively, are pillars of the change in Africa as well as having the largest and most easily accessible markets for foreigners.
Both now face growing battles with Islamist groups; Kenya throwing troops into neighboring Somalia in pursuit of Al-Shabaab fighters, Nigeria struggling with bombings and shootings by its home-grown Boko Haram sect.
Kenyan forces pushed into southern Somalia to drive back Al Qaeda-linked militants, blamed by Nairobi for a string of border incursions and kidnappings, including the abductions of foreign tourists from coastal resorts which have damaged one of Kenya’s most important industries.
Al-Shabaab has in return called for all-out war on Kenya and ‘huge blasts’ by its unknown number of supporters there. Grenade attacks, that have seen many killed and several wounded, jangled nerves in Nairobi, where more than 200 people died in an Al Qaeda bombing of the US embassy in 1998.
Killings by Nigeria’s Boko Haram sect &#8211; whose name means Western education is sinful &#8211; had been largely confined to a remote corner of the semi-desert northeast and ignored by much of the country until bombings struck the capital Abuja, killing hundreds. A suicide car bombing on the United Nations headquarters in August killed 24 people.
Boko Haram is now by far the biggest security headache for President Goodluck Jonathan in Africa’s most populous nation – which, if estimates of population and the Muslim-Christian balance are to be believed, might have more Muslims than any country in the Middle East.
While Islam in Africa has traditionally co-existed comfortably with other religions, more heavily populated Muslim regions are often relatively marginalized economically and politically. This leaves plenty of ground for radicalism to sprout.
Getting sucked into a foreign war against a Somali enemy, which drove out Ethiopia’s far more experienced army in 2009, is just what Kenya doesn’t need at a time when it is already in the doldrums due to drought, soaring inflation and a plummeting currency.
It is not only the cost in lives and money that count.
Counterinsurgency wars – even in regions distant from the main centers of business – can harm foreign investor sentiment starting to warm to Africa. They drain resources that might better be used improving infrastructure or education and lead to a greater role for security establishments at the heart of power and policy making, rarely a recipe for success in post-independence Africa.
Beyond the biggest countries, poorer neighbors may be at greater risk. A flood of weapons across the Sahara desert from Libya’s civil war – as well as hundreds of thousands of now unemployed former migrant workers – could further destabilize West Africa’s Sahel countries, already prey to kidnappings and attacks by Al Qaeda’s regional offshoot.
The challenge in combating terrorism in Africa is balancing a legitimate program of security improvements with a continuing and sustained attack on poor governance, poverty, and deprivation of human rights.
Getting the balance right is particularly acute because the democracies in Africa are fragile, and any crackdown on terrorist activity has to be carried out with great sensitivity to the historic grievances of marginalized groups, the incipient struggle for human rights, and the relatively weak civilian oversight of the military and security institutions.
Overall, optimism remains strong. Businesses compare Africa with China and India in past decades and eye a market of a billion consumers with money to spend on more than just basic survival.
Whether or not the threat of Islamist militant groups can be contained to the margins, the extra strain could certainly be felt in a continent where many have only recently seen good reason to believe in a better future.

Be Afraid

Good things happen. Bad things happen. Ugly stuff also happens. That’s life. Life inside Nigeria today has become a sour mix of the bad and ugly overshadowing the good.
The mind-boggling scale of the latest ugly incident was a daring assault on the conscience and sensibilities of Africa’s largest nation by population. It was a bold question mark on the quality of governance in Nigeria. In the dead of night, on April 14, 276 teenage girls were abducted from their boarding school, the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria.
As of going to press, well over a month after the abductions, most of the girls were yet to regain their freedom. About 40 have reportedly escaped.
The anti-establishment Islamist Boko Haram sect claimed responsibility for the dastardly act. In a video released to the media, the leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, vowed to sell the girls in the market and marry them off if his cohorts are not released from prison.
For days after the girls’ disappearance, Nigeria’s civil society, military and political elites were engulfed in a blame game. Propaganda was the order of the day, as it took nearly three weeks after the abductions before President Goodluck Jonathan issued a statement. The Nigerian leader’s credibility has suffered massive global and domestic erosion, says Opeyemi Agbaje, a public affairs commentator.
“His administration was left looking callous, insensitive and detached from reality.”
The outrage and protests from all corners of the world have been overwhelming for the Nigerian authorities.
“Facts are that regardless of afterthoughts that we are now being served by federal government, the institutional response to the fate of the girls was indifference,” says Oby Ezekwesili, a former vice president of the World Bank’s Africa division and former education minister in Nigeria.
Ezekwesili has been the most vocal member of the political cognoscenti leading the protests from the frontlines.
“It was only after our social media campaign migrated to street marches &#8211; Chibok women on April 29 and #BringBackOurGirls on the 30th – that we saw motion. Our pressure on the federal government to act… seems to irritate government,” Ezekwesili says.
Nigeria was the top item on global news bulletins for most of April and May – sharing the top spot with the coverage of the South Korean ferry mishap and the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms were abuzz with the #BringBackOurGirls and #ChibokGirls campaigns. The hash tags recorded over one million retweets within a couple of days in May.
On the ground, Bring Back Our Girls solidarity rallies were held in cities across the world, calling on the Nigerian authorities to fish out the girls from the Sambisa forests where they were purportedly being held captive by the militants.
A game reserve once renowned for its wildlife, the 60,000 square kilometer Sambisa forest, straddles parts of north-eastern Nigeria, bordering Chad and Niger. Sambisa village itself is flanked on the east by Gwozo town &#8211; another notorious hide out for Boko Haram insurgents &#8211; and the Mandara Mountains which form a natural barrier between Nigeria and Cameroon.
The online and offline protests galvanized international interest in Nigeria, transforming what was a local war against terror into a global crusade. Amnesty International and UNICEF backed the campaigns. Presidents, politicians, statesmen (and women) and celebrities including United States (US) first lady Michelle Obama and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while musicians Wyclef Jean and Chris Brown also added their voice to the campaign. Actors Sean Penn, Ashton Kutcher, Justin Timberlake and Bradley Cooper also threw their weight behind the campaign with the hashtag: #RealMenDontBuyGirls.
The tragedy of Chibok has been a public relations nightmare for Africa’s recently crowned largest economy. It was a bad time to be dealing with a militant gang with possible links to Al Qaeda-friendly groups in Mali, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Abuja had been eagerly preparing to host the world’s most influential business and political leaders at the 24th World Economic Forum on Africa in May. The forum was meant to be Nigeria’s coming out party. It was however overshadowed by the global angst.
“This is not the time for us to fight or play blame games, because this is really what the terrorists want, they want us to be divided… but if we stand together and fight this together, then terror will lose… world leaders have shown through their massive attendance at this forum that they we will not allow terrorists to dictate our agenda,” finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told reporters on the sidelines of the forum.
Government instructed schools as well as public and private offices in Abuja to close shop during the forum. Foreigners attending therefore saw a different country. They saw a near empty, sober Abuja devoid of its usual political tension, cosmopolitan communities and light traffic.
“Hosting the forum was part of a campaign to open the Nigerian economy to investors… By shutting down Abuja, the president has succeeded in telling the global community that Nigeria is not a good place to do business; that government can cripple their investments at will and without any care in this world,” Kenneth Ugbechie, publisher of the Nigeria Political Economist magazine wrote.
The United Nations (UN), African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have condemned the Chibok incident, urging Nigerian authorities to rescue the girls alive. Analysts say that the government must also begin to revamp the local and national ecosystem responsible for breeding insurgency – the dire social and economic conditions prevalent in most parts of northern Nigeria. Leading nations including the US, Britain, France and China have also offered to help the Nigerian government with security intelligence and technological support.
Beyond the urge to keep impressing upon international investors to look beyond Nigeria’s economic and political pains, it is clear that insurgent activities have had a negative impact on the country’s image and reputation. Amnesty International say that Boko Haram is responsible for more than 1,500 deaths in Nigeria this year alone.
The UN estimates that 300,000 people have been displaced by the militant group’s activities since May, 2009 when the extremist beast first bared its fangs.
<h4>Politics of Doubt and Disbelief</h4>
Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo believes that ambivalence and the political shenanigans of the Nigerian state is responsible for the inability of the authorities to react with alacrity to the kidnapping of the Chibok girls. In a television appearance, he said President Goodluck Jonathan had not truly believed that the girls had been abducted, hence his hesitation to order a rescue operation. 
“The president did not believe that those girls were abducted for almost 18 days,” Obasanjo said. 
“If the president got the information within 12 hours of the act and he reacted immediately, I believe those girls would have been rescued within 24 hours, maximum 48 hours. The president had doubts; ‘Is this true or is it a ploy by some people who don’t want me to be president again?’ I don’t believe he has performed to the expectations of many Nigerians, not just me.”

The Shame Of The Bad And Ugly

By mid-June, as FORBES AFRICA went to press, there was no sign of an end to the longest mining strike in South African history. For five months, Lonim, Implats and Angloplats – which produces 40% of the world’s platinum – lay idle at a cost of more than $2 billion to the economy.
New mining minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi tried to heal the rift in his first few days in office, but fresh talks fizzled out inside two weeks.
May proved a month of tragedy, farce and scorn in the platinum belt of South Africa. Tragedy as 4,000 hungry women and children of miners turned up for 500 food parcels; farce because of Lonmin’s clumsy attempt to end the strike and scorn from most of the miners.
Lonmin issued an ultimatum for miners to report for duty on May 14 and offered to charter buses. Instead, more than 4,000 Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) members gathered at the nearby Wonderkop Stadium, carrying traditional weapons.
Lonmin claims a few slipped past the strikers to work, but police say there were none.
Regardless, Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa gave assurances to the traditional weapon wielding miners that their jobs were safe in the protracted strike. He accused Lonmin management of undermining the union by talking directly to employees.
“We have the law on our side. The employers have breached the recognition agreement signed between them and Amcu, the majority union in the platinum sector… Don’t allow them to instigate you to the point you do unlawful things,” Mathunjwa warned.
He rubbished allegations his members were responsible for the attacks on the non-striking miners around Rustenburg. Four people died, several others suffered stab wounds.
Mathunjwa further warned that the police deployment to the platinum belt could lead to another Marikana massacre. In August 2012, at least 34 Amcu protesters were shot dead by police in Marikana.
“If the strike is protected and lawful, why is the government deploying police. To do what?” asks Mathunjwa.
“We are so close to Canaan, there’s no way we are returning to Egypt,” says Jimmy Gama, the union’s national treasurer.
A few kilometers from the stadium, where Mathunjwa left in a fleet of luxury vehicles, the central business district of Marikana painted a gloomy and desperate picture. Many businesses have closed since the miners downed tools on January 23.
On May 19, Lonmin management called journalists to their headquarters in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, they looked and sounded desperate.
“We are asking who is benefitting from the strike. Are the rising incidents of violence not making the strike dysfunctional?” says Lonmin CEO, Ben Magara.
On May 20, platinum bosses and the union met again at the Labor Court in Johannesburg, stripped to the waist and ready to fight each other over whether employers should directly communicate with their employees or not.
Despite the presiding judge, Hilary Rabkin-Naicker, managing to get the two parties back to the negotiating table, no agreement was reached after a week.
“Reaching an affordable and sustainable agreement with Amcu would be in all of our interests, and that remains our preference. We remain committed to on-going dialogue with Amcu and other stakeholders to find a way to end the strike. The companies welcome the intervention of the Labor Court,” says a statement from Lonmin management before the wage impasse.

Tag: July 2014

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