With a diverse 20-year career in hospitality across multiple geographies including Africa, Amir Golbarg can tell you how locations you never knew existed can lend to rapturous storytelling, and he has many a tale to tell on the continent.



We are in a sleek boardroom with glass windows overlooking gleaming towers at the Dubai International Financial Centre; the searing August sun in Dubai beams on, never once letting you forget the vagaries of a Middle Eastern summer.



Yet, there is a force in this room, in this moment, who takes you at once to the snowy swathes of Switzerland, to the balmy beaches of Thailand and the airy islands of Bob Dylan’s Mozambique. It’s a wandering, itinerant few moments actually, that make up the first 10 minutes of a conversation with a man who is a hotelier but with a journey that has graced most corners of the map.



Originally from Iran, but now a Danish national, Amir Golbarg heads up the Middle East, Africa and India region for the Thailandbased Minor Hotels group. As Senior Vice President, he also oversees the Indian Ocean islands of the Seychelles and Mauritius. The geographical narrative does not end there.



His Persian family has been involved in politics for generations, he says. Golbarg thought that would be his calling too, but eventually, as he adds, he was “the one who broke free”.



“I realized early on, that ultimately, what I wanted to achieve was bigger,” says Golbarg, 41 now, who took the advice of an uncle and left for the cool climes of Switzerland to study hospitality management.



“I love dealing with people… and hospitality is in our culture, in our nature, hospitality is the spirit of serving… I was a Persian living across Europe. So being a nomad was kind of natural to me. I felt like the world is my oyster. The one thing my uncle taught me was that hospitality is the one industry where you can be, from the North Pole to the South Pole, as there’s always some kind of guest house or accommodation [serving people].”



A stint in the United States followed, and in 2008, Golbarg moved to Dubai, just before the unceremonious unraveling of the global financial crisis. The city was still – literally – on its way up with a steely resolve, and there were enough hotel projects to keep everyone busy.



“I got a taste of the glitter, the glamor and the glory,” says Golbarg fondly of a city he now calls home, despite his life on the road. When he first arrived, he was with the Jumeirah hotel group and subsequently moved on assignment to the Maldives.



In 2012, he joined Minor Hotels, part of Minor International that’s listed on the Thailand stock exchange.



“What drew me to Minor is it’s not just a hotel company, it’s an entrepreneurs’ company, we are all entrepreneurs in this space. Bill Heinecke, the founder-chairman, built it from the ground up, based in Thailand, and they are one of the biggest operators and owners of hotels, retail and F&amp;B in Southeast Asia.”



Minor Hotels’ portfolio currently totals 558 hotels in 58 countries and includes the Anantara and Avani brands, among many others. Golbarg oversees a total of 38 properties in operation across 10 countries and six brands, in addition to driving the development of the strong pipeline of properties within the regions across multiple brands.



“We’re not your typical hotel company, he says. “We’re not just a brand that puts flags on buildings.”



Back in the Middle East, Golbarg’s journey evolved into expanding the company’s footprint, also going into Africa, focusing on India and “really broadening the context”.



Wearing multiple hats, he now also homes in on his previous experience working on asset management, investments, mergers and acquisitions, and therefore, looking at hospitality from all those perspectives.



“We run a full-360 geography of a business. And that’s the beauty of hospitality. You touch so many lives. You touch so many industries, from agriculture to trade. The whole ecosystem of hospitality is so vast, and we like to touch every one of them. That’s what makes Minor unique. We look at it not just as a hotel and filling beds, but as a business that can change lives and economies… Because if you build the right economy, that becomes sustainable to build everything else.”



Presence in the UAE



In Dubai, over the last two years, the company launched its upscale four-star Avani property, the NH Collection brand and the luxury Anantara on The Palm Jumeirah.



“Our offerings here go from the extended-stay suites all the way to luxury. We have pretty much most of the brands covered in Dubai.”



Golbarg heaps lavish praise on the pro-business, pro-progress culture of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The emirate of Dubai itself attracted over 17 million international tourists in 2023. The figures for this year are higher. “The UAE has the highest number of our brands of any destination globally,” he says.



Abu Dhabi, the country’s capital city, is also home to Minor’s Greek-inspired, 22-key, boutique, “adults’ only” Anantara Santorini retreat, which opened this year.



“What I respect about the UAE is they take everyone on board, they involve all parties. And that, for me, is a big element, which I always encourage other governments to do. Dubai Tourism has worked with us hand-in-hand on everything that they roll out. I always say, in the best sense of the word, that they use us, which they should do. Every government should use us. Of course, we have the Rolodex, we have the loyalty platforms, we have the international know-how and exposure, and we have a ton to give back, because, ultimately, we’re on the same boat. If you bring the airline, the travel, the hotels and the ministry, together, we can’t go wrong,” says Golbarg.



There are more upcoming or new projects for Minor Hotels globally. “We’re looking at a property in Morocco. At the moment, suddenly, the demand has risen. There’s a big one coming up in Jaipur in Q4 that has already been booked up for weddings… We’re also invested heavily in Thailand, it’s our mothership.”



African odyssey



Golbarg’s portfolio also takes him frequently into the African continent; the group has an office in Johannesburg, South Africa. “Our journey in sub-Saharan Africa started with purely acquisitions. We started with a joint venture in 2012, with a lodge brand called Elewana. We have 16 lodges, primarily across East Africa; in Tanzania and Kenya.”



The company also has an Avani hotel in landlocked Lesotho in southern Africa. “It’s the steadiest performer in our portfolio,” says Golbarg. “We’re the Burj Al Arab of Lesotho. What we have is doing fantastically well.”



The story in Botswana and Namibia is no different. And his own personal favorite haven in Africa? The Anantara in Medjumbe in Mozambique.



“It’s the most untapped part of the Indian Ocean; the coral reef is stunning.” Yet another location, the barrier island of Bazaruto in Mozambique – known for its prawns and picture-perfect beaches – comes with its own special tale.



“The history we have there is actually a funny story. Part of our acquisition was a small island called Santa Carolina, which was where [American singer-songwriter] Bob Dylan’s famous song, Mozambique, was [created]. The piano he used for the song was there. We brought it along to the Bazaruto property, and we have preserved it. This location was the place-to-be back in the 1960s and 1970s; the hotspot everybody would come to in Mozambique,” says Golbarg.



Coming up in South Africa, in the business district of Sandton, in Johannesburg, is a NH Collection hotel, a fully-renovated and refurbished version of the hitherto Hilton property. It will be Minor’s first hotel in Johannesburg.



“We’re looking to expand in Africa. I think for us, what is interesting now is we want to look at the key hubs, so Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi etc. But we’re seeing a major interest now in the smaller, unique Anantara offerings, those that are resort-style. There’s a demand in that space. We have our first tented camp opening early next year in a place called Kafue, which is a beautiful, unexplored area in Zambia&#8230; we’re also looking at potentially bringing the Anantara brand to Rwanda.”



Golbarg adds that he may be treading with caution in Africa’s regulatory environment but it has been “high risk, high reward”.



Statista predicts the revenue from Africa’s hospitality market by 2027 to be about $14 billion. Is it believable?



“You know, around 64% of our total income for the regions [I oversee] comes out of Africa,” Golbarg attests.



Conservation and green energy



Among other priorities, conservation is also a big area of focus for Minor. “It has been a part of our DNA. We started our journey with elephants in Thailand; we invested in a major development to support the mahouts and elephants in the Golden Triangle. And we own the assets there. And it really helped give a second life to these animals.”



Renewable energy is another big drawcard, including Minor’s investments in hydro-power and solar farms.



“Sustainability is bigger than just being plastic-free, and my commitment is that in Africa, everything we build and everything we acquire has to be from the continent. There’s nothing worse than coming to a hotel, and the shampoo and dispensers etc are from somewhere else. So, the Anantara brand, historically, we always say it’s indigenous, sustainable luxury. Even if you look at our Jaipur property in India, I was adamant that all the stones and art we use are from Rajasthan.”



And his take on the interface of new technology such as artificial intelligence?



“AI is a great tool to minimize your backoffice tasks, but it cannot replace your front-office. Because as much as everybody talks about contactless solutions and personal check-ins, guests don’t actually want that. They still need the human interface,” he says.



As trends go, Golbarg speaks about the group’s increased investments in branded residences, resort-style living and “experiential luxury”.



“People associate Africa with certain things. The goal for us is to make sure that we extend that so it does not become just a ‘bucket list’ item, but a journey of a lifetime. Because Africa shouldn’t be a ‘bucket list’, it’s not enough, there’s more than just a bucket to fill!”

Untitled design (27)

CEO Strategies: The International Hotelier With A Bob Dylan Story In Mozambique

Three former Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S) bankers were arrested in London on Thursday on US charges of involvement in a fraud involving $2 billion in loans to state-owned companies in Mozambique, US prosecutors said.



Andrew Pearse, 49, Surjan Singh, 44, and Detelina Subeva, 37, were charged in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, with conspiring to violate US anti-bribery law and to commit money laundering and securities fraud. They have been released on bail in London while the United States seeks extradition.



Former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang, 63, was arrested in South Africa this week as part of the same case.



A fifth man, Jean Boustani, was arrested on Wednesday at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. Boustani is a Lebanese citizen who worked for an Abu Dhabi-based contractor to the Mozambican companies, according to the indictment.



Lawyers for the defendants could not be reached for comment.



“The indictment alleges that the former employees worked to defeat the bank’s internal controls, acted out of a motive of personal profit, and sought to hide these activities from the bank,” Credit Suisse said in a statement, adding that the bank would continue to cooperate with authorities.



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">$2 BILLION IN LOANS</h5>



According to the indictment, between 2013 and 2016 three Mozambican state-owned companies borrowed more than $2 billion through loans guaranteed by the government and arranged by Credit Suisse and another investment bank, which was not named in the document.



Apart from Credit Suisse, the Russian lender VTB (VTBR.MM) also arranged financing for Mozambique’s state-owned companies. Both Credit Suisse and VTB also arranged a eurobond MZ139100344= for Mozambique’s government, which is earmarked for restructuring.



VTB and the Mozambican government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



Mozambique &#8211; one of the most indebted countries in the world &#8211; admitted in 2016 to undisclosed lending, prompting the International Monetary Fund and foreign donors to cut off support, triggering a currency collapse and a default on its sovereign debt. It is still struggling to overcome the resulting debt crisis.



According to the indictment, the three state-owned companies were created to undertake maritime projects, but were really “fronts” for Chang, Boustani and the three bankers to enrich themselves.



Prosecutors said at least $200 million was diverted to the defendants and other Mozambican government officials. They said the defendants concealed the misuse of the funds and misled investors in the United States and elsewhere about Mozambique’s creditworthiness.



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">US TAKES THE LEAD</h5>



The companies missed more than $700 million in loan payments after defaulting in 2016 and 2017, the indictment said.



Debt cancellation activists welcomed the arrests, but criticized British authorities for not taking a leading role.



“It is scandalous that it has required action from the US authorities for this investigation and arrests to be made in London,” said Tim Jones, a policy officer at the British-based Jubilee Debt Campaign.



“It was the London branches of Credit Suisse and VTB which lent the $2 billion, yet there has been a shocking lack of action taken by UK authorities in holding them to account.”



Britain’s finance industry watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), started looking at Credit Suisse’s involvement in Mozambique in 2016. The FCA declined to comment on the latest events.



Jones also urged Credit Suisse to face up to its own responsibility.



Oil prices decline on swelling oversupply, volatile markets



According to the indictment, Pearse was the head of Credit Suisse’s Global Financing Group until around September 2013, but had started working for the shipbuilding firm Privinvest Group around April that year. Subsidiaries of Privinvest have been named as primary suppliers to the Mozambican firms.



Singh worked for Credit Suisse as a managing director in the Global Financing Group until February 2017, while Subeva was a vice president in the same department until August 2013. -Reuters



-Brendan Pierson and Karin Strohecker

‘It’s Better  To Live In Hell Than A South African Prison’

Ex-Credit Suisse bankers arrested on US charges over Mozambique loans

It was heartening news that gave me hope; an end to a maelstrom of misery that has plagued the land and broken the lives of countless Africans.
I was staggered and relieved to hear that Mozambique has cleared its last landmine after 22 years of hard work by mine lifters – many of whom paid with their lives.
They used to call it the ‘red mist’ in the minefields of Mozambique; the air thick with blood of a brave man who had tried to remove a mine and failed.
Landmines are an evil that the world should be rid of. I saw them all in years reporting from Angola and Mozambique and hated every one: anti-tank mines, black widows, shoeboxes, cake tins, whatever you wanted to call them; they blew people to smithereens and maimed many more. Claymores worked on a tripwire that triggered a flying sheet of shrapnel that cuts you off at the knees. They were one of the biggest problems in the former battlefields of Africa. Troops would set them up around their camps at night to catch raiders; in the morning they would pack up and leave the tripwires, unmarked, for an unfortunate person to stumble to their death years later.
The sickest of them all were the Chinese mass-produced butterfly mines: tiny plastic explosives with wings. Planes used to drop them by the ton and they would flutter down in to bushes and grass. They were made in pretty colors to attract children. When a child grasped at them, the tiny mines would blow off an arm at the shoulder. They were designed to maim, rather than kill, on the grounds that the injured would be a burden on the economy of your enemy.
In the dark days of the civil war in Angola, in 1994, I saw the work of the little plastic mines. One late summer’s day, on the Ilha de Luanda, I took a walk along the spit of sandy beaches just off the coast of the capital. It used to be a tourist trap, but in war the Red Cross had set up huge tents to house hundreds upon hundreds of children without limbs.
As I walked to the tent, a multitude of children hobbled towards me. All were on crutches, one or two looked in pain, all of them tried to smile; strangers were rare in war torn Angola. Some were missing an arm, others a leg, one or two were missing both legs. They crowded around me, clamoring to clutch my hands. One or two brushed their cheeks gently over the back of my hand.
“Amigo (friend in Portuguese),” they said quietly.
I am not sentimental and when I am doing stories I have an objective, professional, detachment; on this day I couldn’t stop myself turning and shedding tears. Those children will be men now; in the dead of night, I often wonder how many had enough strength left to overcome the cruel start to their young lives.
This is just one reason why I celebrate the clearance of these evil devices from the red soil of Africa. I spent many days walking, one foot in front of the other, on the thin path through a minefield. They are dark and depressing places where you can often see the rotting remains of those who stepped astray and perished. Once, in Mozambique, engineers detonated an anti-tank mine, not too far from my left ear, knocking me flat – it hasn’t been the same since, a memory of those terrible places.
On that same tour of duty, we cleared an arms cache and a pile of landmines in a field near Chimoio in the border country in western Mozambique – once one of the most heavily mined strips of land in the world. The mine lifters blew it sky high bringing a shower of red hot fragments down on our heads, sending us diving for cover – they never show that in the movies.
As we drove off the farmer ran to our truck in tears. They were tears of joy; after decades of war he had his field back so he could plant again. In my mind’s eye I see him tilling his land at sunset. It soothes my soul.

Good Riddance  To The Mines Of Death

The São José-Paquete de Africa had been at sea for over three weeks when, just off Cape Town’s treacherous coastline, it was overcome by a bellowing storm. As gusty winds yanked at its sails, storey-high waves pushed the vessel closer to shore.
Captain Manuel João from Portugal refused to give in, after all was just a few sea miles away from Table Bay. The plan was to anchor there, stock up on food, water and other supplies, and sail on to Brazil to offload his precious cargo: 500 men, women and children from southeast Africa, packed like sardines in the dank belly of his ship. After delivering his load, João would return to Mozambique for a fresh shipment.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3998" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Ballast_Sao-Jose-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Mother Nature decided otherwise. On December 27, 1794, the São José smashed against razor-sharp rocks, 100 meters off present-day Clifton, an affluent suburb of Cape Town. The vessel disintegrated into matchwood and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic – taking 212 slaves with it. Those who survived were captured and sold into bondage in the Cape, possibly to recoup the damages.
The São José was soon to be forgotten, until sports divers stumbled upon her remains in the 1980s – after which the ship ended up in the archives as the Van Schuylenberg. This Dutch merchant vessel had gone down off the Cape coast in the 1750s.
In 2011, South African marine archaeologist, Jaco Boshoff, came across an account by João, in which he described how the ship had left Lisbon on April 27, 1794, to purchase slaves from Mozambique. On the 24th day of the voyage to Table Bay, for an interim supply stop before crossing the Atlantic, the ship was overcome by bad weather and sank.
More information has since emerged from the archives in Portugal and Mozambique, as well as the bottom of the Atlantic, which suggested that the wreck off Clifton was everything except a Dutch merchant vessel. So, in 2014, the partners of the Slave Wrecks Projects – which includes Iziko Museums of South Africa, the South African Heritage Resources Agency, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC – began unearthing what was left of the wreckage.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3997" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/shutterstock_237236926-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“We found iron ballast blocks, which were often used to stabilize slave ships. Human cargo tends to move around and is therefore more unstable than dead weight, hence the blocks,” says Paul Tichmann, curator of the Iziko Slave Lodge, a museum in Cape Town.
He adds that Portuguese archival documents confirmed that the São José had loaded iron ballast before departing for Mozambique.
“We also found slave shackles, copper nails, and sheathing,” he says. “Tests have indicated that these date back to the 1790s. The timber remains we have found, was proven to be a type of Mozambican hardwood, also dating back to that particular time.”
Unearthing whatever was left of the São José was not easy.
“It is a very difficult area for diving. The waters are very turbulent, with strong currents. One of the divers described it as working in a washing machine. There were times, they could only dive three days per month,” says Tichmann.
The discovery of the ship – which was announced in June – has been hailed as an extraordinary find, making headlines around the world. It is one the few transatlantic slave ship wrecks ever recovered.
The São José’s significance goes beyond that, says Patrick Harries, who has been studying the role of the Cape of Good Hope in the transatlantic slave trade for decades. The wreck, he says, has once again proven that the Cape – generally known as a refreshment stop for ordinary merchant ships – was an important service spot for slave vessels en route to the Americas.
“It served as such from the mid-1700s to 1834, when the trading and owning of slaves was abolished in all British territories,” he says, adding that slave ships anchoring in Table Bay were transporting slaves who had embarked in Mozambique, southern Tanzania, and Madagascar.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3996" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/no.-no.-Slave-Certificate-1829-202x300.jpg" alt="" width="202" height="300" />
“Many were brought to the coast after being captured in the deep interior, for instance where Zambia and Malawi are now,” Harries says.
“They were then loaded onto ships in Mozambique, which would then sail to Table Bay to refuel prior to sailing on to their final destination. Close to half a million slaves were taken from southeast Africa.”
While supplying slave ships with wood, food and water, thus making a profit out of the transatlantic trade, Cape Town also absorbed some of these slaves.
“Generally speaking, a ship owner would sell 10 percent of his slaves in Table Bay to pay for the fuel and supplies,” Harries says. “They would end up working on farms.”
While the Dutch shipped East Africans into the Cape, they didn’t play much of a role in the transatlantic slave trade. The trade in humans from southeast Africa to the New World started under the French in the 1770s.
“The French had been using African slave labour since the early 1700s to keep the sugar plantations on Reunion Island and Mauritius going. They started transporting East Africans across the Atlantic upon realizing that they were worth more in Saint-Domingue than in Reunion,” says Harries.
Situated in the Caribbean, Saint-Domingue used to be the sugar capital of the world.
“Sugar was the petrol of those days, making it the jewel of the French empire,” says Harries.
The tide turned in 1791, when slaves in Saint-Domingue staged an uprising and took control, renaming the region Haiti. This put an end to the French East African slave trade.
Like their French counterparts, Portuguese and Brazilian slave ships stopped in Table Bay for supplies before crossing the Atlantic.
“Particularly the months between October and March, known as the slave season, were busy. There could be as many as three ships in Table Bay, each carrying 300 to 400 slaves,” says Harries.
Cape Town continued to service slave ships until December 1, 1834, the year the trading and owning of slaves was outlawed. This prohibited any slave ship from anchoring in Table Bay and put an end to the Cape’s transatlantic slavery role. This didn’t end the influx of cheap African labor into the Cape.
“In 1834, the Brits had granted themselves the right to hunt down any slave ship within their waters. The slaves on board these captured vessels were brought to British controlled territories, the Cape included. Here, these so-called ‘Prize Negroes’ were sold on as apprentices, for up to 14 years,” says Tichmann.
The ‘Prize Negroes’ were often worse off than slaves.
“Apprentices were a prized and expensive commodity. Those who bought apprentices felt they had to get the most out of them as long as they could legally have them. Conditions were therefore very harsh. They would not get paid. It was another form of slavery, really. This happened until the 1880s if I am not mistaken,” says Tichmann.
Records show that 3,000 to 4,000 ‘Prize Negroes’ were imported into the Cape, on top of the previously mentioned 63,000 African, Asian and Indian slaves.
Both Tichmann and Harries hope that the São José discovery will trigger a greater level of awareness around Cape Town’s role in the slave trade.
“South Africa always thought it was safe from that particular history, but in fact, the transatlantic trade in Africans is very much part of it,” Harries says. “It is important that people in the Western Cape acknowledge this. A large part of its population, after all, are descendents from these African slaves. Their ancestors survived a month in a slave ship, and experienced the most awful conditions imaginable. We need to remember,” says Harries.

A Ghost Ship That tells a tale of misery

The ruling Frelimo party, which has run Mozambique since 1975, is likely to struggle to hang on to its overwhelming majority, according to sources in Maputo, against opposition parties Renamo and Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). There is also a strong chance that Renamo, the former rebel forces long in Frelimo’s shadow, will drop to third place in the voting.
“I think this election could be tight and Frelimo is unlikely to win a two thirds majority,” says a senior advisor to the government, who wished to remain anonymous.
“Unless there is a miracle, I think Renamo will drop to third place behind MDM. People in this country do not want war and they were not happy with the semi-civil war that Renamo tried to start last year.”
The man who will take the reins of Mozambique is Filipe Nyussi, the anointed successor of President Armando Guebuza, who was nominated by the ruling part in March. He is the son of former guerrilla fighters and is also expected to carry on the free market of the Guebuza years. Nyussi has little experience in business, but is known for his efficiency in running CFM, the state-owned railways and ports.
Political analysts in South Africa agree the elections will run smoothly and victory is certain for the ruling party.
“Mozambicans are willing to participate in the democratic elections, there’s no place for the rebels. When Nyussi gave a public lecture at UNISA (in Pretoria) he came across as somebody who could take the growing country’s economy to another level. He definitely stands head and shoulders above the rest,” says Shadrack Gutto, UNISA professor and political analyst.
In the first week of September, Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama, returned to Maputo for talks with president Guebuza. This was their first meeting after Dhlakama went into hiding at the end of 2013 after a political dispute.
“I am afraid that if Renamo doesn’t change leadership they will definitely fail in these elections. I think it is frustrations, I have seen the party doing desperate things such as going back to the bush. But they have recently committed to put the arms down and go to the polls. On the other hand, Frelimo has been holding regular elections. No doubt, Nyussi is the party choice and there’s confidence that he will grow the economy,” says Tawana Kupe, a professor at Wits University in Johannesburg.
Dhlakama, who has run in every presidential race since 1994, saw his support wane to 16% in 2009 polls.
The World Bank forecasts the Mozambican economy will grow by 8.1% this year and up to 8.6% in 2015.
In August, president Guebuza launched the 175MW gas plant at Ressano Garcia. It was a joint venture between Electricidade de Mocambique (EDM) and Sasol, a South African energy company with a 49% stake.
“Mozambique is set to become a global top ten gas player in the near future, if all the exploration and proven reserve results are taken into account… From an investment perspective, there have already been interests both from countries in the East as well as South Africa as off takers to products,” says Johan Muller, an energy analyst at Frost &amp; Sullivan.
A peaceful election could help usher in a new era of prosperity in what was once one of the poorest countries in the world.

Old Foes To Take A Beating

A large advertising hoarding at Maputo Airport claims Mozambique has the best prawns; one of the most hackneyed boasts in Africa. Mozambique has a deep, sheltering, offshore ridge stretching along the floor of the Indian Ocean. In these fertile waters prawns thrive in the warm flow of the gulfstream to become big, juicy, and world famous.
Under the sea bed in these same blue waters is another natural resource that could make Mozambique more famous than it is for prawns.
Twenty-two years after the guns of a bitter civil war fell silent over this poor and weary land, Mozambique is on the cusp of an energy boom. In a generation, this boom could transform the country into a rich player in the lucrative business of supplying an energy hungry world.
Energy appears to be a field where African prosperity could lie. It is a sign of the times that when FORBES published its list of the world’s top 10 oil and gas finds in 2013 – six of them were in Africa &#8211; a remarkable number in year of scarce finds, called lackluster by the industry; in a year when exploration giant, Tullow, drilled 20 holes only to find them dry.
The biggest find of 2013 was 80 kilometers off the shores of Mozambique. Italian energy company, ENI, struck gas more than six kilometers under the sea in the Agulhas field. The company says it has between five to seven trillion cubic feet of gas (tcf), worth the equivalent of 700 million barrels of oil (BOE). That’s about two years’ worth of Nigeria’s oil production.
This rich find is merely the tip of the iceberg. Industry estimates say Mozambique has the world’s fourth largest gas reserves after Russia, Iran and Qatar. This year, the energy giants from Texas, Anadarko and partner ENI, will decide whether to build one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facilities in the world, off the coast of Mozambique. The complex would pave the way to tapping deep off-shore gas fields that could rival Australia and Qatar as the largest liquefied natural gas reserves in the world.
Mozambique’s hopes will enrich an economy rated by the United Nations as the fourth poorest in the world, with most of its more than 23 million people living on less than a dollar a day.
It is likely to prove a long and expensive road to prosperity. Mozambique has a huge skills and infrastructure gap coupled with meager state coffers. One look at the potholed roads of the capital, which turn into a river of mud in heavy rain, will tell you how far Mozambique has to go. An encounter with corrupt policemen on the street will tell you why hard work and enterprise could also struggle.
These are among the many obstacles to vast and unimagined wealth lying under the sea. The most promising discovery is in the massive Rovuma Basin, which is 30,000 square kilometers – about the same size as Lesotho. Since 2010, there have been 10 offshore discoveries in the basin promising 190 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas. The industry believes a supply and demand gap for natural gas will open up by 2020, sending prices soaring. If Mozambique can get its industry together by then it will be able to compete, albeit from a low base, with the big world players like Russia, Australia and Canada.
A senior government advisor in Maputo told me that Mozambique aims to be shipping gas to Thailand, South Korea, Japan, South America and the United States by 2019. The infrastructure bill for this dream is likely to be immense. One of the reasons why investors often fight shy of gas, unlike coal and oil, is because it is difficult to move it to market.
It is a sobering thought that investors have sunk more than $1 billion into extracting Mozambique’s gas with very little to show for it – it is going to take many billions more in foreign investment. This, at a time when the new Basel III banking rules are tightening around the world and it is getting tougher every year to summon up interest in this kind of 20-year, high-risk, infrastructure.
The next step on the road to gathering this foreign investment is the fifth round of licensing bids, expected this year, most of which will be for the Rovuma Basin. Exploration data is doing the rounds among interested investors, but a few are also looking at their watches.
“This is all taking too long for us,” one investor told me in Maputo.
One reason why it is taking so long is that Mozambique has little experience in running an energy industry and wants to make sure the national exchequer gets its fair share. Mozambique has studied how other African nations have been by-passed by their resources booms and is tightening legislation.
The fear in Maputo is: most of the revenue will flow overseas; the equipment will be bought in from elsewhere, as will highly paid expatriates, leaving the people of Mozambique as bystanders in a land where their government owns all the mineral rights.
“We are striving to make the market more stable and predictable for investors… If you align your project with Mozambique’s priorities, you will have a strong chance of success,” says Leopoldo de Amaral, the manager of natural resources for the Maputo legal company Sal and Caldeira Advogados, told the MMEC conference on mining and energy in Mozambique in March.
These priorities will be laid out in the amendments to the Petroleum Bill, on its final passage through parliament, which will lay down new rules for foreign investors. The bill is expected to be published in the next few months, before parliament dissolves ahead of elections on October 15, and has a tough job ahead of it. The plan is to maximize revenue for Mozambique and provide certainty and clarity for investors, without jeopardizing competitiveness.
Under the bill, crude oil will be subject to 10% production tax and for natural gas, 6%. It stipulates that 5% to 20% of the capital of foreign companies be placed on the Mozambique Stock Exchange, within five years, for sale to locals.
Furthermore, investors must inform the state of discoveries within 24 hours and remit the proceeds of exports back to Mozambique within 90 days. Ample discretionary power is given to the minister, giving he or she a say over the transfer of mining rights and the right of the state to participate in projects. This is unlikely to impress foreign investors.
Another worry for foreign investors is a hefty capital gains tax of 32% that came into force on January 1. The rules stipulate that the tax will be levied on the sale of equity in any operations in Mozambique, no matter where in the world transactions take place.
On top of this, foreign companies will have to set aside a hefty budget for training. The bill says foreign companies, operators and subcontractors alike, must train workers from Mozambique: 5% for big companies; 8% for medium-sized companies and 10% for small companies.
Mozambique also plans to take advantage of the end of a 10-year agreement with energy giant Sasol, to supply cheap piped gas to South Africa in order to encourage the building of infrastructure. Under the agreement, Mozambique was selling around $700 million of gas to Sasol at around one fifth of the price. According to the watchdog, Centre Integridade de Publica de Mozambique, the country was making as little as $10 million out of the deal.
With the expiry of the deal in March, Mozambique will be able to reap more from its gas and there will be more space on the pipeline to do so. Sasol is going to spend $190 million on the 865 kilometer pipeline, from Pande to Secunda, in South Africa, to increase its capacity by up to 30%. The energy giant is also going to spend $135 million on a new processing plant to be opened in 2015. Sasol is having to revise its prices now that the sweetheart deal from Mozambique is over and is already suffering a volley of criticism from customers.
The very fact that one of the biggest energy players in Africa is prepared to put its millions into Mozambique bodes well for investor confidence. Despite this, many investors are likely to look at the country’s new rules and scratch, if not shake, their heads.
Mozambique, rated as the fourth poorest nation on earth, has a long, long, way to go before it can become a player in the world energy market and become more famous for power than prawns.

Prawn To Be King

The new BMW X5 M50d awaits at the carpark of Richards Bay Airport in South Africa. I am to drive it to Mozambique, and it’s an estimated three-and-half-hour’s road-trip to the nearest border. I have always flown to Mozambique. Let the fun and games of driving begin.
This beauty on wheels has a lively, modern diesel engine with road prowess. My suitcases are loaded into the spacious boot. After hours of driving, I arrive at the Kosi Bay Border post. I point north, and the vehicle is about to embark on a journey out of its norm, away from the city streets.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6156" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-056-MOTORING-BMW-X5-MK-002-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
The off-road journey, though not on the toughest terrain, is quite sandy. The distance of 21 kilometers seems short on paper, but given the roads, it will take a while. I navigate deep into Mozambique, passing small villages along the way.
Only a few hours ago, the BMW X5 M50d had passed the test of being driven on the tar and gravel roads of northern KwaZulu-Natal with flying colors.
It had displayed magnificent road attitude and handled the open road like a big sedan. The vehicle sticks to the road like a dog to a bone.
It is a driver-oriented vehicle that instils confidence in the driver with its well-mannered suspension.
Driven by the 3.0-liter tri-turbocharged engine that pumps out 280kW of power, this X5 loves the road. Just push your foot against the the accelerator and see.
&nbsp;

Heels On  Wheels

The genius son of Mafalala has gone; the fast and deft feet that learned the game on the rugged streets of Maputo, in Mozambique, have been laid to rest. They called him the Black Panther and the Black Pearl; whatever they called him, he left defenders speechless in his wake.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2417" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC00368-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" />
On the streets of Mafalala, as rough as a flying tackle, Eusébio learned the football that was to take him from poverty to stardom with a ball made out of newspaper wrapped with rags. Mafalala was a tough training ground of cuts, bruises, grit and stones; where, to this day, barefoot youngsters trap and pass. I have stood on that makeshift, sandy pitch in the twilight of another warm Maputo day, listening to the shouts of the young and hopeful. If you close your eyes, you can see the young Eusébio and Mario Coluna—two world class players who emerged from Mafalala—passing to each other and laughing their heads off. Maybe, I am merely a football romantic.
Eusébio’s mother’s house is a free kick’s distance away. The street that runs by it, is named after the man.
With his skill on the ball and explosive pace, Eusébio shone over football in his hometown like the sun. He signed for Sporting Clube de Lourenco Marques at 15 and soon caught the eye of scouts.
Legend has it that a chance encounter in a barber’s shop, in Lisbon, sealed Eusébio’s chance of a glittering career. In the barber’s chair was a scout, for Brazilian team Sao Paulo, who had just returned from Mozambique where he had been bowled over by the skilful young Eusébio. Listening to the scout’s story was legendary Benfica coach, Bela Guttman, who flew straight to Mozambique and persuaded the young man to sign for around $10,000. Eusébio’s mother put the money in the bank and said she wouldn’t touch it until her son had made it as a professional. Imagine that, in this age of avaricious football agents.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2416" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC00357-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" />
There was controversy in Portugal before Eusébio kicked a ball. Sporting Clube de Lourenco Marques was a feeder club to Sporting Lisbon, who didn’t take too kindly to rival Benfica snatching a young star from under their noses. Sporting appealed Eusébio’s registration in a wrangle that lasted five months. Eusébio was cloistered by Benfica in a fishing village in the Algarve until it was all over.
Eusébio scored a hat-trick on his debut for Benfica; two weeks later, he scored a hat-trick in a friendly against Santos, which had Pele in the side, in Paris. Few, including Pele, had seen anything like him. He was a new breed of striker: fast, robust, good in the air, a master at free kicks with a fearsome shot; a forerunner of the great nimble goal scorers of the modern era like Maradona and Lionel Messi.
In an illustrious career, that exceeded all expectations, Eusébio scored 473 goals in 440 games in 15 years at Benfica. For Portugal, he played 64 times, scoring 41 goals. His finest hour was during the World Cup in England in 1966 where Eusébio scored nine goals in six games, winning the golden boot, and could very easily have won the tournament for Portugal. The 1966 Portugal side was considered the greatest ever and was captained by Coluna, the other sensation from Maputo. The Portuguese journalists christened the midfield colossus Coluna the “Sacred Monster” because he was both terrifying and beautiful.
The night before the semi-final, in which Portugal was to play England at Goodison Park in Liverpool, the English Football Association switched the game to
Wembley, in London. It meant the Portuguese traveled down from Liverpool by train, overnight, arriving sleepless and in poor shape.
Even then, Portugal lost narrowly 2-1 with Eusébio scoring the goal. You could not imagine this kind of conniving
gamesmanship in the game of today. No surprise that, in Portugal, this semi-final is known as the ‘Jogo das lagrimas’—the game of tears.
Eusébio also stamped his name on the European Cup and scored twice in a 5-3 win over Real Madrid in the final in 1962. After the match, the 19-year-old swapped shirts with his boyhood hero Ferenc Puskás.
In that game, Eusébio displayed his trademark politeness. Benfica were awarded a penalty and captain Coluna prepared to take it.
“Senor Coluna, may I take the penalty?” Eusébio asked.
The one man from Mafalala passed the ball to the other; Eusébio scored and the cup was secured.
In 1968, Benfica lost 3-1 to Manchester United at Wembley. Many remember the game for a superb solo goal by George Best; many more will remember it for the moment Eusébio stood and applauded United goalkeeper, Alex Stepney, for
saving one of his bullet shots.
That was the gentleman and sportsman Eusébio was—a humane and gentle spirit who lit up the game and did Africa proud.
In Mozambique, Eusébio was revered during his many visits, but never tempted to return home. Among some in
Mozambique there is a tinge of regret that the great man never brought his energy and skill back to the land of his birth. Coluna did; when his playing days were over he came back to coach the unfashionable Text Chimoio to the national championship followed by many years of work in the
administration of the game in Mozambique. Coluna, who played nearly 700 times for Benfica and 57 times for Portugal, is retired in the quiet suburbs of Maputo, a long ball away from Mafalala where it all began.
Maybe, Eusébio gave his all to the game in the name of Africa and that was enough for one life.

Homage To The Black Panther  And Sacred Monster

A shortage of cables was one of the gaps Salimo Abdula saw in the market in post-independence Mozambique and it made him one of the country’s richest men. Nearly thirty years later, he drives a white Jaguar, as well as a Ferrari, through the streets where he once rattled unnoticed.
Not bad for a man who grew up shooting snakes with his catapult in the bush near where he was born in Quelimane, in northern Mozambique on June 18, 1963. He remembers independence night on June 25 1975, with that warm, open, smile born of a small town.
“I remember people happy in the house; people saying we are now free. My mother was cooking and all of us went to the soccer stadium at midnight to see the raising of the new flag,” says Adbula.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2375" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_8858-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
Independent Mozambique proved hard for Abdula. He spent his teenage years serving drinks and sandwiches at the cinema, where his father worked, and playing basketball in the evening; all to earn a crust for his younger brothers. In these tough early days, he tried his hand as an entrepreneur on the streets of Quelimane.
“I remember I had saved some money. A friend of mine wanted to sell dry fish to customers in another province. I had 30,000 meticals and he asked to borrow and pay me back. I am still waiting. This was my first lesson in life. I was too young.”
Harder times were ahead as the glow of independence faded. In 1977, the civil war broke out and in 1979 Abdula was called up to the army. Luckily for him, an injury saw him discharged and he went to study at a commercial school in Beira.
Abdula carried a lot on his young shoulders; he had to support eight people, as well as study. This led him into part time work in a lighting shop in Beria called A Illuminante. It taught Adbula the electrical supplies business. Study did not go so well, as the now provincial government wanted Abdula and his fellow students to opt for the new Marxist-Leninist economics. Abdula wasn’t so keen, so, in 1981, he looked south to Maputo for a new college.
“People would say to me, ‘If you go to Maputo you will get lost because they have more buildings than trees,’” says Abdula.
Getting there wasn’t easy in a country in the grip of civil war. Adbula spend days talking his way into  one of the last seats in a Russian Antonov military transport plane for a cold and noisy two hour flight to Maputo.
“I remember a Russian guy and a Mozambique guy going around asking people for money and putting it in their shirts. I had small money and held it tight. They said to me, its ok, it’s enough, you don’t need to pay. At take-off, the Mozambique guy said we are not going to Maputo but to Nacala for a military mission. I believed it, but thankfully we got to Maputo instead.”
On the ground, it was no easier. Abdula had to walk the streets to find Eduardo Mondlane University because he had no idea where it was.  At night, he climbed the stairs, to a friend’s 18th floor flat, to rest his head.
It took a week for Abdula to apply to the university, before officials sent him back to Beira, then from pillar-to-post back to Maputo where he found he was too late to enrol. It took piles of forms and persistence to get into Eduardo Mondlane Commercial Institute of Mozambique to study IT.
In the third and final year of study, Abdula got the fright of his life.
“People used to say once you have finished you have to go Russia to work for intelligence for the military. It was a rumor, but I was scared.”
Amid the fear Adbula took a phone call from a former colleague at the lighting shop in Beira.
“She told me, Salimo, the store is abandoned, the guys have fled to Portugal we have no management. We have 30 days and if no one takes over the government will auction it.”
Abdula was a mere 20-year-old basketball-playing student. He was being asked to save the jobs of 77 workers, who had not been paid for months, with the paltry coffers of a paralyzed company.
“I bought a ticket to Beria and flew on Friday and called the lady for a meeting. Then, I spoke to her colleagues; everyone was worried. I said to them, ‘I have no experience, I have no money—what should I do?’”
Abdula wrote a letter to the government to say he would take over the salaries and debt; the government agreed.
“The government wanted to get rid of the problem, I bought the problem&#8230; my friends said to me: ‘what are you doing are you crazy, you don’t know anything about running a company.’”
The debts ran into millions and Abdula signed and started to pay.
“Then I came back to the office, almost to cry. We had no equipment; we had one very old car, a Peugeot, that we had to push start.”
The only answer was swift income. The blessing of Beira was that it was the only place in Mozambique that made cables—for which, demand far exceeded supply.
Abdula had used his Maputo network to contact CFM, the government-run ports and railways and a big cable customer, to discuss supplying thousands of meters of cables. He bought enough copper to make 100,000 meters of cable and the business turned out to be an entrepreneur’s dream.
Customers in Maputo agreed to pay Abdula in advance; the factory in Beira wanted only 50% of the payment up front. It meant solid cash flow for Abdula, plus profits of 2,000%, as hotels, shops and offices couldn’t get enough of the scarce cables. He paid off his debts in two years with the help of leg work.
“I used to wrap the cables around myself and deliver them on a motorcycle in Maputo,” he laughs.
Expansion followed and in 1996 Abdula bought the cable factory for $500,000. Today, the building alone is worth $5 million.
In the same year, came another decision that was to transform his business; the decision to marry his wife Maria, a businesswoman to the core who acquired the nickname in Maputo business circles of Marechal—Portuguese for general.
“She is the iron lady,” says Abdula.
In 1997, the couple began building Intelec Holdings, 75% of which is owned by the cable-selling Electrosul and 25% by shareholders. It has a turnover of $170 million and is the 17th largest company in Mozambique.
Abdula also spent a term in parliament. He was elected in the country’s first elections in 1994, serving as member for his home town of Quelimane. He admits it helped him to network.
“He is quite a good lobbyist and likes to mix business with a bit of politics,” says Maputo-based journalist and publisher, Fernando Lima.
Abdula won’t say how much money he has, but says his net worth is healthy. His country’s economy is not.
“I believe doing business and the government working in the private sector has improved a lot. Bureaucracy is still there… Infrastructure is a problem, roads and electricity are improving, but we have a long way to go,” he says.
“I don’t think any government has the capacity to revert back to control. The private sector today has its own capacity to penetrate and dictate the rules of the economy. No African country can be an island. Mozambique is a good example; it shows growth of the economy of 7 and 8 percent because of the private sector. I am one of the fighters for the private sector to lead the economy.”
When Abdula celebrated his birthday this year it was at a lavish event in Maputo with his mother, eight brothers and 600 VIPS. It was a proud and emotional moment for the family that showed how far a small-town family had come.
“Luck we have to look for, the bad luck is always with us. That is my principle,” says Abdula.
Homespun philosophy from a man who rose from a rattling motorbike to a sleek Ferrari in just under 30 years.

The Cables That Connect A Rattling Motorbike With A Sleek Ferrari

It is one of the great stories of African mining—a small nation scrapping, against the odds, for its place at the table. Mozambique is forging ahead with its nascent coal mining industry, yet it is haunted by problems. It needs patience, nerve, a mountain of foreign investment and more railways.
Experts say Mozambique could mine up to 100 million tons (mt) of coal in the next five years—enough to make it a serious player in the world market.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2063" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_9112-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
The heart of this fledgling coal industry is the Moatize basin—in a remote north western pocket of the country, bordered by Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi—one of Africa’s last great untapped coal reserves with tens of billions of tons of coal. It holds export quality coal and some of the finest coking coal in Africa.
Moatize is far from the nearest port; the only way to export coal efficiently is via the rickety 600km Sena line to Beira—a line that flooded in February rains and was threatened by armed Renamo rebels in June. Otherwise, coal has to move on trucks along crumbling and congested roads. This has hobbled Mozambique’s coal exports.
The good news is that Vale, the Brazilian resources giant, says a new railway to the deep water port of Nacala, on the north coast, will be complete by 2015. The line will run through Malawi and speed coal on its way to the power stations of China, Korea and Japan.
Ricardo Saad, the CEO of Vale Mozambique, said the joint venture—owned 60% by Vale and 40% by Mozambique’s freight company, CFM—will transport 9.7mt in its first year, ramping up to 16.9mt in 2016 and 22mt in 2017. For coal exporters, it will be manna from heaven and could help the fledgling coal industry in Malawi.
“I believe we have overcome the main concerns locally and it is encouraging because the government is supporting the implementation we have here in Mozambique… The country can become a major player in the African coal business,” says Saad.
Not so encouraging is that a large Chinese investment appears to be passing Mozambique by. When I was in Maputo, in July, I heard from a source close to the government that the Chinese had abandoned a $12 billion investment in ports rails and roads, promised in 2010, despite President Armando Guebuza’s attempts to revive the deal during his seven day visit to China in May. In return, Mozambique was to supply coal and help set up a Chinese-run processing plant. To get an idea of the scale of this investment, the World Economic Forum believes it’ll cost around $93 billion per year until 2020, to fix the entire continent’s infrastructure problems.
“One reason is, there is an oversupply of coal at the moment so China doesn’t have to worry about securing supply from Mozambique, we just got the impression that the deal was not for now,” says the source.
There’s better news for Africa’s fifth largest coal exporter next door. It appears India is likely to buy more steam coal from South Africa this year as it attempts to prop up its flagging national grid. The coal-fired power stations that line its coast are designed to cope with the low quality coal mined in South Africa’s northern Mpumalanga coalfields. India burns more than 530mt of coal a year and yet, according to government figures, falls 9% short of peak electricity demand.
The High Commissioner for India to South Africa, Virendra Gupta, said at a press briefing in Johannesburg, in June, that he expected his country to import between 20 and 25mt from South Africa in 2013. He said the imports from South Africa fell slightly last year, but uncertainty over supply from Indonesia means they are almost certain to rise.
Gupta believes that companies from his country will be looking to secure supply for its hungry power stations. In 2011, India set up a branch of the state mining company, MMTC, in Johannesburg.
“The companies in India will be in a scramble over the next two to three years to buy into South African mines, but you have to remember that after agreements have been signed it takes four to five years before you see regular deliveries of coal,” says Gupta.
The next few years could be very interesting and lucrative for the coal producers of Africa.

Where There Is An Export Dollar There Is A Way

Luis Nhaca is as much a diplomat as a doorman. His is the first face you see as you arrive at the collonaded entrance to the Polana Hotel in Mozambique. For three decades, he has marshaled the guests, and their luggage, through the portals of one of Africa’s most famous hotels. Many of those who passed through gave a badge as a memento. Nhaca has 396 of them on his coat to show for years of diplomatic service on the door. His favorite is from his beloved football club in Portugal, Benfica—handed to him by club chairman Luís Felipe Vieira. Benfica has always kept close links with a country that produced many of its legends including: Mário Coluna; Eusébio and Vicente. All three Africans, from Mozambique, played in the 1966 World Cup in one of the greatest ever Portuguese teams.
Their careers were over, but not forgotten by Nhaca, when he started work at the Polana in 1979, aged 12, in the laundry room. Nhaca learned the ropes from his father, Simeão, who had worked at the hotel for decades, on his way to becoming the face of the Polana.
Down the years, Nhaca has greeted them all: Jimmy Carter; Bill Clinton; Thabo Mbeki; Kenneth Kaunda and Robert Mugabe. His favorite guest was Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil.
“Not only was he always very friendly to me, when he used to dispatch his ministers to Mozambique, he used to instruct them to greet me on his behalf,” says Nhaca speaking in Portuguese through a translator, on the busy steps of the Polana.
By far, the visitor Nhaca misses most is the late Samora Machel, the charismatic first president of independent Mozambique; a man-of-the-people, if ever there was one.
“When he died, it left us with a scar,” says Nhaca.
Legend has it, Machel used to stroll between the marble pillars and under the sparkling chandeliers, in his green cap and army fatigues, greeting everyone from the cleaners to the concierge. Nhaca says Machel always insisted the hotel workers ate when he did at state banquets.
“Machel used to love Mozambican music. He used to sponsor a choir at the Polana and when he came here for dinner, he would ask them to sing for him by the pool. He would get very emotional and would get up and start dancing—his security men would surround him to shield him for fear he would hurt himself or fall in the pool!” says Nhaca with a smile.
The Polana may have been full of good cheer in the Machel years, but the business wasn’t. Independence, in 1975, saw the hotel run by the staff and used as a hostel for foreign workers. Supplies and spare parts were scarce and often staff would strip hardware from one floor to patch up a room on another.
The manager of the Polana, Miguel Afonso dos Santos, who left a five-star hotel in Lisbon to take up the job in Maputo, says in the lean days there were squares of newspaper, instead of toilet paper, in the bathrooms.
“The hotel had its ups and downs, but never stopped operating. When I said I was taking the job almost everyone I spoke to in Lisbon had a good memory to share with me. They would tell me that their grandparents were married in the hotel or their parents spent their honeymoon here,” says dos Santos.
The reality of running 142 rooms on a 10-acre site, so vast that it needs to employ 18 security guards as well as 400 workers, is not so romantic. When the Polana needs food or fittings, it has to import from South Africa, by road; shampoo or linen comes from Portugal by ship, taking up to five months.
“It is a problem because these days people want things now. We always have to keep one step ahead&#8230; I want to buy everything from Mozambique because it would take less time and make more sense. It is much better than it used to be, you can get a lot of things now from the local market, but I don’t know when the day will be when we can buy everything here. I have no idea,” says dos Santos.
Overall, dos Santos appears proud of a hotel that, despite being far from cheap, appears to have given the recession the slip. He says, this year, it is running at a capacity of 75% with plans to build 14 villas, in the expanse at the back that overlooks the sea, for long-stay guests. More than one in five of the guests are businesspeople from Portugal and South Africa. The hotel attracts its fair share of rich pop stars and playboys, but most come for business in a country riding a resource boom. On any given day, you can see the big deals being done in the restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean.
A $25 million facelift, completed in 2011, shows the proprietors, an arm of the Nairobi-based, Serena Hotels, owned by the Aga Khan, are looking to the future for a building steeped in the past. It modernized the classic architectural lines drawn up by the Polana’s creator, Herbert Baker, nearly a century ago. The English architect also designed the Union Buildings and Pretoria Station, in South Africa.
“This is a demanding job, this is not just another hotel. I am responsible for a big brand. We host people like Ban Ki-moon—it is our responsibly to keep the mirror of the nation shining. When people come here from nations around the world they want to talk to me about what is happening in this country. I am almost a diplomat,” says dos Santos.
The man on the door agrees.

Millionaires’ Playground In A Palace By The Sea

Sue Viljoen and Buddy Vaughn make their way down to the fourth floor cabin. It’s early in the morning and the weather is warm, the ocean is crystal clear and just yesterday the couple saw hundreds of red starfish as their ship made its way along the east coast of Africa.
The ship anchors offshore. The two climb down the gangway and jump into a small 24-man orange rubber duck boat. Their destination Portuguese Island, off the Mozambican coast, 562km from their home in Johannesburg.
Viljoen sits down near the end of the rubber duck, by the motor. Vaughn, being slightly heavier, is told to sit at the front. Once everybody is seated the boat master shouts that they are taking off.
A huge swell catches the dingy as it speeds off. Vaughn turns around to Viljoen. She is drenched. Soon, they are all soaked. Here there are no busy harbors, nor busy roads, just untouched white sands.
The couple spends the rest of the morning watching the other passengers disembark.
“The best was watching the ladies getting off, in their dresses, soaked up to their knees with their things held above their heads. And it’s actually really funny,” [&#8230;] “I could go back right now—I would go back tomorrow and do it all again,” says Vaughn.
In Africa, going on a cruise ship offers more than the average holiday, it’s an adventure and this is one of many travelers’ tales of the 20 million people who cruise the world every year, says Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). This year CLIA expects $36 billion will be spent on cruises.
According to Allan Foggitt, head of marketing and sales for MSC Cruises South Africa and former owner of Starlight Cruises, business is on the up.
“For the last two or three years it has been recognized as the fastest growing sector of the travel industry.
“If one looks at our local cruise line industry, which we [MSC Cruise Liners] hold a monopoly, we expect a revenue of R450 million ($4.8 million) a year. Each vessel can accommodate around 2,150 passengers and over the period of the season we can expect to accommodate 130,000 to 135,000 passengers annually and about 98% to 99% of them would be South African residents,” says Foggitt.
MSC operates out of Durban, South Africa, and travels along the east coast of Southern Africa en route to Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius and Il Santo Marine. Cruise ships also travel from Cape Town up along the coast of Namibia.
Cruises around Africa are still seen as small change when compared to the international cruising industry. George Argyropoulos, who emigrated from Greece to South Africa to set up Cruises International, explains that 30,000 South Africans are willing to leave their shores and spend up to $30 million. This is nothing in comparison to the billions made in the industry overall but African business is competing with the likes of Israel, the Middle East (UAE), Belgium, Holland, and Portugal—a market almost six times that of local African cruises. The key to building the African market is acquiring a draw factor.
“When you compare it with a Mediterranean cruise; you start in Barcelona and then you’re in Monte Carlo, and the day after that you’re in Florence and the day after that you are in Rome. So why must I fly 17 hours to Africa for a cruise? To see what?” says Argyropoulos.
Competition is tough but the strong dollar helps the African cruise industry. It means airfares are cheap along with prices onboard ships.
“The vessels have gotten even more elaborate, so that in many cases the cruise ships themselves are the destination, literally offering what one would expect to find on a land-based resort,” says Foggitt.
Africa looks to Europe for its business. Europeans make up 85% of those who cruise around the west coast of Africa; on short trips around Southern Africa, they are almost entirely South African.
Investment in the cruise industry comes with a number of problems.
Argyropoulos says that Africans earn less money than Europeans and Americans, so the additional costs of flights and VISAs are expensive and time consuming.
There is also a lack of infrastructure in many ports on the continent, restricting the area where large liners can dock.
“If one looks at Europe you can literally be in a recognized famous city every day of your cruise.In the United States and the Caribbean you can be on a different island every day; you can be in Jamaica one day and then zip across to the belt of Mexico. There are so many different destinations, so many exciting well-established ports that have the infrastructure you would need in terms of buses,” says Foggitt.
“The other thing is distance. If one wants to get to Mauritius which [has] the infrastructure and the tourism background or even Réunion, with these destinations you are looking at cruises of a minimum of 10 and as many as 14 days to get to those destinations. That limits a lot of people in terms of leave,” he says.
Cruising can be dangerous too. There’s piracy off the coast of Somalia and cruise ships have been caught up in it. Anthony Sharp, CEO of Typhon, makes a living out of combating piracy by providing private convoy naval protection units. He says that buccaneering costs the global economy between $7-12 billion a year and costs up to $6.9 billion a year in Somalia alone.
Piracy is waning but it’s not going to go away says Timothy Walker, researcher of conflict management and peace-building at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa.
“The latest figures are that there are five vessels with 77 passengers being held captive. But there has been a reduction in the number of passengers and vessels and many of them would have been captive for a very long time and we are not sure if there will be any resolution. Negotiations are still being done,” says Walker.
“The majority of incidents this year have occurred around the Gulf of Guinea along the west coast of Africa. Generally most people credit private security companies onboard as deterrents they provide, and the rate of adoption of the best management practices recommended by the International Maritime Bureau,” he says.
To avoid the pirates Foggitt says MSC follows routes along the west coast of Africa rather than risk being attacked en route from the Mediterranean.
“Cruising in South African waters never goes far north and in these seas there has never been any pirate activity. With huge international effort the pirate situation is very much under control so if anything the danger area has been controlled,” says Foggitt.
Once the fear of uncharted waters and the lack of provident ports is overcome, Africa has untapped potential for the cruise liner industry. As the industry continues to grow more and more ships are being built, it’s a reality that people need somewhere to escape and they are willing to pay for it.

Riding The Rough Seas  Off Africa

Diplomatic channels between South Africa and Mozambique have come alive with activity over the vexed question of rhino poaching. The poachers use Mozambique as a springboard for their deadly sorties across the border into the Kruger National Park. South Africa’s flagship reserve, with an estimated 12,000 rhinos, is one of the world’s great sanctuaries for the endangered species.
High-level meetings are scheduled between the conservation authorities of the two countries, to inspect conditions along the boundary where the incursions happen. This is a marked difference from the arms-length exchanges, since the outbreak of poaching three years ago.
Mozambique and Vietnam—the biggest suppliers, to Asia, of the highly prized rhino-horn powder—received stern criticism at the March meeting of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), in Bangkok, Thailand. The South African delegation pleaded for international assistance, in a motion adopted by the global assembly of conservationists. CITES asked Mozambique to explain its efforts to curb the poaching. It instructed the country to tighten its anti-poaching laws and to step up its enforcement against the poachers and smugglers.
The urgent need for closer cooperation between the countries was noted in a report by Mavuso Msimang, the rhinoceros conservation issue manager of South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs. The brief is to solicit the widest possible range of views on how to conserve and manage the endangered species.
In 1996, Msimang, a notable anti-apartheid campaigner, became the first black chief executive of South African National Parks (SANParks), which is a custodian of the country’s national reserves. He became known as ‘Mr Fix-it’ for the roles he played in diverse areas of government after he left SANParks.
Msimang canvassed opinions of everybody connected to rhinos and their conservation. The report he handed over, late last year, to the department’s minister, Edna Molewa, had,  inexplicably, not been made public by the time of the CITES meeting, though parts of it had been disclosed in increments.
He proposes the need for tougher and better coordinated security action between government agencies, ranging from more highly trained and well-equipped game rangers to the armed forces and even SARS (South African Revenue Service). His most contentious recommendation was that legal trade in rhino be allowed on a well-regulated basis, as a way of undercutting the lucrative black market.
He says that there is no silver bullet. The antidote to poaching needs to consist of a wide-ranging set of measures. One of these would have to be engagement with Mozambique over poaching incursions by way of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which the two countries and Zimbabwe established by treaty in 2003. The transfrontier agreements also need to be upgraded to provide for anti-poaching operations.
The crisis has shattered the dream, which was born in the era of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano. It was a pact of supreme trust in which their two countries agreed to open their adjoining national parks, across national boundaries, to allow the animals wider roaming areas and to promote tourism. The arrangement was talked of as the world’s biggest animal kingdom and a jewel for global tourism.
Then the rhino poachers struck. In 2008, they killed what was then considered a worrisome 36 animals in the Kruger. Last year, the tally for the park stood at 425 of the 668 killed throughout the country. Within the first four months of this year, the national toll had exceeded 220.
Kruger’s rangers have received combat training and the police and army have been called in. Spotter planes have come into use, as have helicopters for rapid response. More and more, the fire-fights leave corpses behind. Within a short few years, this peace park, as transfrontier parks are called, has turned into a war zone.
David Mabunda, SANParks CEO, noted that 90% of the poachers come from Mozambique and that they were well-armed, with apparent military training.
“Many go back in body bags. Others get arrested. But they just keep coming,” he says.
South African public sentiment has started turning against the transfrontier scheme, especially as it involved dropping the old high-security fence that, during the border-war years, shielded the Kruger from Mozambique.
“There will be no other way [than putting up the fence] if the relentless incursions of poachers from Mozambique continue,” says Mabunda.
The fears for the scheme were evident from Werner Myburgh—CEO of the Peace Parks Foundation, that Afrikaner industrialist and conservationist Anton Rupert set up in 1997, with Mandela and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands as its patrons.
“It would spell the end of the scheme,” he says.
Big donors, among them the German and French governments, would lose faith and funding, for the Mozambican part of the project in particular, would dry up. Around 6,000 people from Mozambique’s adjacent Limpopo Park, a million hectare tract of land that the Chissano government turned into a reserve for the specific purpose of the transfrontier project, would have to be relocated. Last year, these villagers agreed, after years of excruciating negotiations, to move to host villages outside the park. This would serve anti-poaching operations by making it impossible for the poachers to use the villages as hiding places.
The fear is that reconstruction of the fence would create the impression that the reserve scheme is collapsing and that this would not only jeopardize the translocation, but cause more people to move into the park. This could worsen the poaching problem rather than resolve it.
Myburgh insists that it is, therefore, for the sake of the rhinos that the fence should stay down and that the transfrontier scheme should be pursued with greater vigor. The treaty provides for a joint security committee which, if functioning properly, should serve as a perfect agency for sharing information and running joint anti-poaching operations.

A Deadly War Shatters The Peace Park

It is a hot and noisy afternoon in a house in Maputo, Mozambique, where around 50 people are celebrating a birthday. Most have one thing in common: they hail from the islands of Cape Verde—a nation with a mere 500,000 people, fewer than Soweto in Johannesburg. They drink Grogue and Ponche the tipple of their ancestors. On the table is Queijo de Cabra (goat cheese) and doce de côco (coconut candy with sweet jelly).
Mozambique is home to around 1,500 people from Cape Verde. Many were born here after their parents fled hard times decades ago. In 2012, they have had something to shout about as their team qualified, against the odds, for the African Cup of Nations in South Africa in January.
<div id="attachment_1491" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1491" class="size-medium wp-image-1491" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000026743-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202" />The Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace. North West Province. South Africa.</div>
One of the party-goers, Maria da Conceição Silva, came to Mozambique with her parents in 1948 when a drought in Cape Verde forced thousands to flee the island. Today she is the vice-president of the Associação Cabo-verdianos em Moçambique.
“The plan is to fill two machibombos [buses] with Cape Verdeans and friends of Cape Verdeans, and drive to the financial capital of South Africa,” she says.
“I did believe this would come one day and that it could have happened before, had it not been for the fact that many of Cape Verdeans’ sons living in Portugal choose to play for the Portuguese national team,” says another ex-patriate from Cape Verde.
The archipelago, just off the coast of Ghana, is made up of 10 islands. Most people live in the capital city, Praia. Cape Verde was ranked second in the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, an indication that the islands are well-run; it is backed by high literacy levels of 70% across the population.
The national team is called the Tubaroes Azul—Blue Sharks—and is coached by Lúcio Antunes, an air traffic controller who has taken leave to coach the team. The team is ranked 51 on the FIFA rankings—above South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon and Morocco.
Ninety percent of the players play in the lower leagues of Europe. The star players are 22-year-old Ryan Mendes who is in the books of Lille OSC in France and veteran striker Lito, who is based at Portimonense, a second division side in Portugal.
In Cape Verde, football plays second fiddle to basketball. A mere handful of fans waited until the wee hours to welcome the team at Nelson Mandela International Airport, in Praia, after their victory in Cameroon.
Cape Verde is not the only surprise qualifier. Known more for their long-distance runners, the sleeping giants, Ethiopia, have made it back to the tournament after 30 years. Ethiopian Ambassador to South Africa, Yeshimebrat Mersha, believes the nation is on its way to reclaim their rightful place.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1489" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/dreamstime_m_15698047-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" />
“Ethiopia was one of the strongest football nations previously. We are really happy that we are back on track. This is the result of the development plans by the government and good organization by the football federation,” Mersha says.
“We have high expectations for the cup and are ready for the matches. The fans are eager to watch the matches and some of them will travel from Ethiopia to support the team.”
Africa’s second most-populous nation, with 85 million people, had become conspicuous by its absence. Ethiopia was a founding member of the Nations Cup when they were part of the group of nations that formed the Confederation of African football (CAF) in 1957 in Khartoum, Sudan.
The Walya Antelopes are coached by Sewnet Bishaw and have two powerful strikers. Former Orlando Pirates player Fikru Tefera is a bustling striker any defender will struggle to handle. The man to watch is Saladin Seid, who scored the first goal in the final qualifier match against Sudan. He is currently in the books of Wadi Degla in the Egyptian Premier League who paid $200,000 for him.
Neither of the nations is expected to win the tournament ahead of the likes of Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Ivory Coast and defending champions Zambia. It will not be too much of a surprise if they cause an upset or two. After all, they did not make it to the continent’s premier football competition by sheer luck alone. Be afraid, be very afraid.
<div id="attachment_1492" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1492" class="size-medium wp-image-1492" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/98632409-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" />Stadium</div>

Cape Where?

In Mozambique, there are few in football who do not know the name Shafee Sidat. He is the country’s most famous FIFA agent and, according to him, all Mozambican players want to be represented by his agency, Sports Africa. This season he will yet again be scouring the football fields of Africa for the deft touches of the lithe and swift legs of the next Didier Drogba.
Sidat represents 49 players worth $10 million: four Zimbabweans; two Zambians and six Brazilians. Among them, the most expensive Mozambican player, Simão Mathe, who transferred recently from Panathinaikos to Sandong Hueng, a club in the Chinese second division. Right now, Mathe is the agent’s goose laying the golden eggs.
“He left Mozambique for an extremely low value—$200,000. Currently he is quoted in the market at over $8 million. I had to wait three years for him to go up in value. He is my business card,” says Sidat.
Sidat’s love for football grew in the late 1980s. He played for Ferroviário de Maputo, and there was talk of a transfer to Sporting Clube de Portugal, one of the top three clubs in the Portuguese league. The uncertainty of a football career led him to settle for the security of an academic degree.
“I chose to attend the college of economics instead of going to Portugal,” he says.
Mozambique is hardly a happy hunting ground for football agents. It stands 107th in the FIFA rankings, which means hard work for Sidat.
“Even though some players show quality, they end up getting lost in the country’s statistical results,” he says.
The lack of training in the Mozambican clubs is another problem.
“Out of ten players going to the junior teams in European clubs, only two remain. We had more luck with Zambians than Mozambicans players, because Zambia is the African champion and has an English mindset. Zambian players are very professional,” says Sidat.
Brazilian players, with their Lusophone connection, are showing interest in playing for Mozambican clubs. Many see Mozambique as a bridge to the more lucrative market of South Africa and Sidat helps them cross it.
Portugal is the gateway to Europe for African players, says Sidat. Every time he tries to sell to European clubs, Sidat has to pay the player’s travel costs. All this investment is only refunded if the club buys.
According to the agent, under the transfer market lie dark realities. He says he knows cases of athletes who were abandoned in Europe, after being dropped by a team.
“I saw cases of FIFA colleagues, especially the Brazilians, who led a number of players to Europe. They lived in crowded apartments. Many of them were left stranded in these countries,” he says.
When buying players, Sidat watches videos from other agents.
“The images that come to us aren’t recorded by professional cameras. Agents sell the idea that the player we saw in the picture is who they are promoting, but sometimes it’s a different player,” he says.
In a game of heroes, Sidat has his. In his view, the best agent in the world is Portuguese agent, Jorge Mendes—a former footballer turned DJ and nightclub owner—represents several superstars including Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid manager, José Mourinho.
Sidat wants to follow the highly successful management model of Gestifute, the agency owned by Mendes. It is going to take a giant leap to make it from $10 million in Maputo to the $650 million of Mendes in Europe, but, if nothing else, the career of Sidat shows that if you don’t give up anything is possible.

Tag: Mozambique

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

CEO Strategies: The International Hotelier With A Bob Dylan Story In Mozambique

Ex-Credit Suisse bankers arrested on US charges over Mozambique loans

Good Riddance To The Mines Of Death

A Ghost Ship That tells a tale of misery

Old Foes To Take A Beating

Prawn To Be King

Heels On Wheels

Homage To The Black Panther And Sacred Monster

The Cables That Connect A Rattling Motorbike With A Sleek Ferrari

Where There Is An Export Dollar There Is A Way

Millionaires’ Playground In A Palace By The Sea

Riding The Rough Seas Off Africa

A Deadly War Shatters The Peace Park

Cape Where?

The 10 Million Dollar Man Wants More