Africa’s most robust and developed economy is on the cusp of an economic revival after the long-awaited change of guard at the top.
South Africa’s economy has struggled against downgrades by the ratings agencies and a flight of foreign investors in several difficult years that have left the country with miniscule growth.
The big obstacle to change was President Jacob Zuma whose unpopularity and poor management of the economy, amid clouds of corruption allegations, threatened to bury the once all powerful African National Congress (ANC). In the good times, a decade ago, when the economy was growing at a healthy 5%, the leaders of the ANC boasted they would rule until Jesus came back. The penny slowly dropped for the party faithful that if economic times got steadily harder, feeding a rising opposition, the party may struggle to rule until the end of the next elections in 2019.
Pressure for change came from even the most die-hard ANC members for Zuma to resign. He refused; the party bigwigs gave him a deadline and at the eleventh hour, just before midnight on February 14, he did so live on TV. In many ways, he had little choice; his party comrades were plotting to throw him out through a humiliating vote of no confidence in Parliament, in Cape Town, also live on TV. He would also have lost his pension, security and benefits in the process.
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For a former head of intelligence, Zuma appeared strangely out of touch with what people were thinking.
“What have I done?” was his reaction to the decision by the ANC to recall him. A cursory flick through the business pages of the newspapers would have told him: Job losses and unemployment running at more than one in four; falling business confidence and tales of millions of taxpayers’ money slushing into private pockets rather than public projects.
Into the breach stepped Cyril Ramaphosa, the former deputy president who was sworn in as the country’s new leader, in Cape Town on February 15, with a promise to clean up and pep up the economy. He is seen as the business friendly president and a pragmatic negotiator with vast experience from the picket line to the boardroom.
“Issues to do with corruption, issues of how we can straighten out our state-owned enterprises and how we deal with ‘state capture’ are issues that are on our radar screen,” says Ramaphosa as he was elected as president, unopposed, in Parliament.
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Many of the business leaders I have spoken to, from Davos to Johannesburg, agree that if Ramaphosa turns his words into action they will invest with confidence.
“You are going to see millions of dollars flooding into this country in the next six months,” says Gary Booysen of Rand Swiss in Johannesburg.
The markets appeared to agree and surged with the rand. The currency reached highs not seen since May 2015, the last halcyon days of the economy. Three days of madness, in December 2015, put paid to that when Zuma sacked respected finance minister, Nhanlha Nene, replaced him with rookie Des Van Rooyen the next day and him, under duress, with former finance minister Pravin Gordhan the day after. The president sacked Gordhan in March 2017 and replaced him with another rookie Malusi Gigaba – the rand and confidence plunged, as did the ratings.
Ramaphosa – a multi-millionaire who has made his money from black empowerment and shrewd business decisions – wants a legacy of being the man who helped his country out of the mire. He has deep roots in the liberation movement and anyone who knows him will tell you he would want to be remembered as the best leader of his country since Nelson Mandela.
Anyone who has their money and pension tied up in South Africa will hope that he does so.

Zuma’s gone. Let’s go!

There are few words that can capture the inside of an African bar; that mix of noise, laughter, danger with the whiff of stale beer and the stench of smoke; the clatter of metal tables and chairs; a place where beer flows and tongues loosen faster than the frames of the fading pictures on the wall.
From Lusaka to Kigali and beyond, bar floors are scattered with the ashes of cigarettes and thousands of conversations – most forgotten – that launched scores of stories – most untrue – into African folklore.
The abdication of Robert Mugabe in November reminded me of one such tale told in a warm, smoky corner of an African bar.
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The priceless tale was of Mugabe’s visit to London in 1994 on a mission to encourage more foreign investment into his, then, robust economy.
On the day Mugabe and his team set out their stall in a presentation to narrow-eyed investors, in London, a hand went up at the back of the room.
“If I put my money into Zimbabwe will it be nationalized at a later date?”
It was not the question Mugabe had traveled thousands of miles to hear, even though it was a portent of the troubles to come in Zimbabwe.
The tale I heard, in the African bar, was that Zimbabwe and Mugabe had the last laugh on their former colonial masters. The Queen invited Mugabe and his ministers to Buckingham Palace for a state banquet in their honor.
It was a glittering evening beneath the chandeliers with the cutlery glinting in the lights of the night. Each plate had half a dozen knives and forks on each side.
This caused considerable consternation for the former vice president, the late Simon Muzenda, who frowned down at the line of implements on either side of his plate. Now Muzenda was a good guerrilla fighter who distinguished himself in the liberation war in Zimbabwe. Yet, the man himself would have admitted he was not a great sophisticate when it came to state banquets in palaces.
“What do I do?” says Muzenda in his mother tongue of chiShona.
Mugabe replied patiently that Muzenda was to start on the outside and work his way in with every course that the waiters delivered. Then Mugabe, ever the pragmatist, turned to Her Majesty and said it was customary for his comrades to say a prayer, in chiShona, before a meal; she gave the royal assent. Mugabe clasped his hands and said something, roughly translated, like this.
“We thank you God for our safe journey and the food on the table. We also pray to God that Muzenda uses the right fork at the right moment!”
The Zimbabwe contingent collapsed into laughter; the Queen looked on bemused.
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Poor Muzenda would also have been the first to admit he maybe lacked a little education. His training consisted of a short period studying carpentry at a mission school in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
The latter gave rise to another tale in an African bar.
In the mid-1990s Mugabe was speaking at a dinner in South Africa when he paid tribute to the education the country had lent himself and his vice-presidents Joshua Nkomo and Muzenda. Mugabe listed the degrees that Nkomo had earned at South African universities.
“My other vice-president Muzenda has also had some training here,” says Mugabe, to a few snickers from his aides.
So, both tales great fodder for a night out in an African bar. True? Why should they be when so many spurious tales are born among beer suds and the cackle of the African night.
One sunny afternoon I was hanging out with the presidential spokesman George Charamba in Harare. In those more principled days of the Mugabe regime the charming Charamba played it fairly straight.
“You have got your story,” was his usual retort when you had your facts straight.
I put the Muzenda stories to him and on this occasion he was more emphatic.
“You write those and you will be on the fastest plane out of here,” smiled Charamba.
It was true. So, not all bar tales in Africa are to be thrown away with the dregs of the night before.

The Night Mugabe Prayed Before The Queen

Anyone who ever stood up for principle and paid for it in pain will mourn the passing of Morgan Tsvangirai, the man who never wanted to be president but wore himself out trying on behalf of his suffering people.
Tsvangirai, who succumbed to colon cancer in a Johannesburg hospital on February 14, never wanted the power that many leaders in Africa crave. His heart was in his humble rural roots in Buhera in eastern Zimbabwe – where he was born the eldest of nine children to a miner – and in the trade union movement. Tsvangirai followed his father down the mine and when independence came, in 1980, he joined the ruling party, Zanu-PF, and rose swiftly through the ranks becoming a staunch supporter of President Robert Mugabe. History is littered with such ironies.
It was as head of the mighty Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions that Tsvangirai enjoyed his annus mirabilis at the head of hundreds of thousands of workers. With his trademark cowboy hat, he could hold a crowd with fiery oratory and hold a strike in place against the odds. With a handful of faxes he could close the country down, which he did in 1997 and 1998 with mass stay-aways as economic hard times and President Mugabe’s indifference hurt the people.
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It was this skill that led him up the greasy pole of politics; yet, even in his pomp you could tell that he didn’t want to.
One hot afternoon, in 1998, amid a spate of strikes, my TV crew and I received a frantic call from Tsvangirai’s office for us to come and save him. By this time, he had raised the ire of thugs loyal to Zanu-PF, calling themselves war veterans, who stormed his office and tried to throw him out of a third-floor window. Tsvangirai asked his secretary to call us instead of the police because, sadly, in the politically charged atmosphere, he didn’t trust them.
Luckily, as we arrived, the thugs fled. As we calmed Tsvangirai down, I asked him why he didn’t go ahead and run for president as he had the power of the workers at his elbow.
“No, Chris, if you run for president even your grandchildren will be persecuted,” said Tsvangirai.
And so it turned out. Activists shepherded Tsvangirai into forming the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), setting into motion years of vilification, intimidation and abuse that left him battered and bloody in mind and body. Tsvangirai tried to keep his feet on the ground through his stable home life. In the early days he used to hold press conferences in his front garden where his charming wife, Susan, who died tragically in a car accident in 2009, used to bring us tea with a smile.
Yet, worse times came after tea. Tsvangirai, egged on by the west, became the world’s champion against the growing horror of Mugabe and paid for it by being arrested, beaten and charged with treason. Even the Mugabe-leaning judges in Harare dismissed the trumped-up charges.
Undoubtedly Tsvangirai won the presidential elections against Mugabe in 2008, but the conniving election authorities refused to release the results. Thus stolen election led to a power-sharing agreement, the following year, under which Tsvangirai became a pretty much powerless deputy president. He was never to reach the top spot not that, deep down, it really bothered him.
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Those who had stood against the bullies and suffered may prefer to remember Tsvangirai by another tale related by one of my colleagues in Zimbabwe.
A top level delegation of MDC officials had gone to see their political counterparts in Zambia. Zanu-PF apparatchiks in Harare lent on the Zambian government to deport them and the MDC group ended up stranded and angry under a tree, with phones with flat batteries, on the Zimbabwe side of the Chirundu border. Tsvangirai’s colleagues attacked their leader under the branches of the tree.
“What is the point of this political movement?” says one.
Tsvangirai seized the moment and ordered his empty-pocketed colleagues to sing as they marched to a village a few kilometers away. A few hours later, villagers were surprised to see Tsvangirai, in full voice, walking into their village at the head of a phalanx of suited comrades. A cell phone in the village summoned transport and they drove home in good spirits.
A fleeting taste of the leadership that Zimbabwe was destined to never see.

Morgan Tsvangirai: The quiet man forced into the wrong job

It is almost 20 years to the day since I flew high above Africa, with a TV crew jammed into a bumpy light plane. It was a white-knuckle ride through clouds into the jaws of a military coup.
We woke on that October morning, in 1997, in Harare, to news of a military coup in neighboring Zambia. Given that Zambians are not exactly warlike people, this breakfast declaration by a group calling itself the National Redemption Council was startling. It was going to put in place a military junta to carry out live executions of traitors on TV.
The frontman was a Captain Solo – in real life Captain Steven Lungu of the Zambian army – who gave President Frederick Chiluba three hours to surrender, threatening bloody revenge to anyone who stood in his way.
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All commercial flights to Zambia were cancelled in the chaos. For me, it meant the first trauma of the day; we had to charter a flight from the aptly named Bush Pilots in Harare – the only people crazy enough to fly into a coup. The pilot was a young guy who looked like he should have been at school rather than flying a plane.
As we bumped through the clouds he wriggled in his seat and to my surprise brought out a box of cigarettes and lit one. On his first puff, the message came through the radio that the authorities had shut down the airport at Lusaka.
“I’ll have to drop you off in the bush near the border,” says the young man in the matter-of-fact voice of a taxi driver. I thought he was joking until we touched down in the middle of nowhere with game grazing nearby. The crew offloaded its ton of cameras, lights and microphones – there was no lightweight digital technology in those days.
I set off across the baked earth to a farmhouse a couple of kilometers away. I shouted until the farmer came out and asked if he could lend us his truck. I jumped on the back and minutes later I was riding to the rescue and waving through the heat’s haze, with a big smile on my face, to the crew standing like specks on the horizon.
Half an hour later we were cursing, sweating, and humping the kit through the crowded immigration hall at Chirundu. Then, the remaining 120km on foot? We had no choice but to stand on that towering steel semi-circle that is the Birchenough Bridge and hitchhike. Luckily three heavy lorries, in convoy, from South Africa stopped and took us on board one in each of the three cabs. By the time we got to Lusaka, the coup was over. It turned out to be more comic opera than dogs of war.
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It all started over a drink in the small hours in a Lusaka barracks. Captain Lungu and fellow officer Captain Jack Chiti sat complaining about the government and their grievances with the army. Just before dawn, in that way drunken people can do, they agreed to overthrow the government. The two captains went into the barracks, woke their men and told them to fire up the armoured vehicles. Most of them thought it was an exercise; but as they smashed through the gates of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) most of the soldiers saw the coup attempt for what it was and pressed on. No doubt, a number saw themselves as ministers and generals under the new regime. Within the hour they had taken over the ZNBC and Captain Solo began broadcasting threats.
The crackdown was swift. Loyal government soldiers, armed to the teeth, invaded ZNBC and sent the coup plotters scattering. The biggest problem, one of the soldiers told me afterwards, was winkling out the once brave, now terrified, soldiers of the coup. Apparently, many of them hid in cupboards at the ZNBC and it took a long time to find them.
As for Captain Lungu, soldiers slapped him out of the broadcasting station with his hands up. He ended up in that position so familiar to coup plotters; pinned to the ground with an army boot on his throat. The Zambian Information Service gleefully gave us the pictures of this.
The trial took years. The court sentenced Captain Lungu to death in 2003; he appealed and was handed 20 years in prison. Former President Rupiah Banda granted him pardon in 2010 and he eked out an impoverished life until he died two years later, aged 50, of TB. Captain Chiti was also freed and died of cancer, in August 2004, in a Lusaka hospital.
Both men suffered sad, lonely ends in return for their few hours of power; a short-lived, bungled and, thankfully bloodless, coup that is a mere footnote in Zambia’s history.

The Hell Ride To A Comical Coup

Warren Buffett may not know the way to Midland Road, Worcester, yet be sure he has looked very closely at the cost of making the ocean of spicy, black liquid that emerges from it to add millions to his balance sheet every year.
You can’t help thinking of Buffett’s long-term investment homilies as you walk through the Victorian red-brick portals of the Lea &amp; Perrins building. It is as steeped in history as it is in the pungent odour of churning vinegar and spices.
For this is a factory that is 120 years old; it grew from a family business that took root in this city 180 years ago. It survived two world wars and heaven knows how many recessions. Even a fire, in 1964, merely disrupted production for a few days. It also survived corporate takeovers; it sold out to HP Sauce in 1930 and became part of the Heinz stable, in 2005, through an $885 million acquisition from the French food outfit Groupe Danone. It is now owned by the world’s fifth largest food company Kraft Heinz, following a merger in 2015 – creating a food giant that made $26.5 billion in sales in 2016, according to company figures.
The Oracle of Omaha, through his holding company Berkshire Hathaway, owns 19.5% of Kraft Heinz – that is 325,634,818 shares, worth around $31 billion, his single largest holding.
Midland Road also makes Amoy Chinese sauce, another Kraft Heinz product in the competitive and crowded sauce market.
For Lea &amp; Perrins, that market is that bit tougher because, despite the fact the sauce is made from a secret recipe, there are plenty of imposters. At least one, made far from Worcestershire, carries the name, but tastes like spiced caramel with bits in it.
“It is not a protected name. We are not like Champagne. We just have to hope people recognize our quality,” says Nigel Dickie, the London-based spokesman for Kraft Heinz, in Worcester.
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Lea &amp; Perrins enjoys a bit of snob value with its royal warrant, granted by Edward VII in 1904, to supply the regal household.
<div id="attachment_34583" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34583" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34583" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Lea-Perrins-Nigel-Dickie-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="375" />Nigel Dickie at the factory gates. (Photo by John Bray)</div>
It was a foothold in the market created by two entrepreneur chemists, who saw an opportunity, thanks to a stroke of luck, and made a fortune from it.
The two, John Lea and William Perrins, owned a chemist’s shop in Broad Street – the street where I bought my first beer – in the heart of Worcester. They were trying to make a sauce with onions, garlic, tamarinds, vinegar, anchovies and spices in a barrel; concluded that it tasted foul and cast it into a dark corner of their cellar. Nearly two years later, during a clear out, Lea and Perrins came across the barrel and tasted the contents. They found that maturation, unbeknown to either of them, had woven magic. The sauce was spicy and beautiful.
The two didn’t waste any time. They set up a makeshift operation at the back of the chemist shop and by 1837 it was selling fast; by 1843, it was selling 14,500 bottles a year.
It didn’t let its humble origins, in a humble county, hold it back: its spicy richness splashed across the food of the rich in New York steakhouses; into the cocktails of Manhattan and on the battlefields of Africa.
There is evidence that the handful of defenders of Rorke’s Drift, in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, splashed the sauce on their food as they steeled for the fight of their lives against 4,000 equally brave Zulu warriors.
“While here we lived like fighting cocks as we managed to get potatoes now and then and occasionally a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce, without which you could not distinguish the ration beef from leather,” wrote one red-coated soldier at Rorke’s Drift before the famous battle in the heat of January 1879.
Nearly 140 years later, around 40 employees in Worcester make the dark sauce that tastes much the same as it did on the eve of battle against the Zulus.
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They turn out a staggering 26 million bottles every year. That’s almost enough to give the entire population of Mozambique one each. A mere eight million are sold in the United Kingdom and the rest are exported to 130 countries.
Of these, 100,000 bottles are sent to South Africa; another 400,000 to the Middle East from where, the manufacturers believe, many of these are re-exported to Africa.
It’s a massive job that belies the low key, yet industrious, operation in Worcester. Everyone in the factory has work clothes on; you expect to see suites of offices, filled with suits, until you remember the head office is in Chicago.
Most of the noise comes from huge plastic barrels full of onions and garlic. They swirl for weeks as part of the nearly two-year maturation process – about 30,000 liters of the stuff is on the go on this day. These days, huge paddles do the stirring; in the old days, there were workers called barrel rockers, whose job it was to turn wooden barrels every few hours.
Workers mix in anchovies, tamarind, molasses, salt and sugar. Then it is pasteurized to make sure the sauce never goes off whatever steamy clime it ends up in.
One of the men in charge of the process is Joe Neary, a racing man from Liverpool, who married a Worcester woman and runs a few livestock on his smallholding near the city. He came to work at Lea &amp; Perrins, 25 years ago, from the Guinness factory in Runcorn and believes the sauce ages like wine.
“The taste improves with age over about seven years. What I do is buy a six pack and every time I take one out I buy a new one to put at the back,” he says.
<div id="attachment_34584" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34584" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-34584" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Lea-Perrins-Joe-Neary-e1512031326158-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Joe Neary inside the Lea &amp; Perrins factory. (Photo by John Bray)</div>
There is something worse that has longevity too – the unholy odour. Now, I love the smell of malt vinegar, but even I was knocked back at the door. I can shut my eyes and suffer it now. It is a pungent, sickly, sweet stench, that is hard to describe and even harder to get rid of.
“I used to go out at lunchtime to put a bet on the horses. The bookie used to tell me that until late afternoon the punters would come in, sniff the air, and say: ‘I see Joe has been in!’” chuckles Neary.
As for Worcester itself – population around 100,000 – the sweet sound of industry, of which Lea &amp; Perrins is a vestige, has long gone. When Worcester City played its last ever football game at its doomed St George’s Lane ground in April 2013 – before developers covered it with houses – the club put a bottle of Lea &amp; Perrins on the center spot before the game. It was a sad, unconscious nod to industrial decline; the sauce is one of the last manufactured products of the city.
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I grew up around Worcester; my family has lived in Worcestershire for nearly 400 years. It was where I kicked my first ball, earned my first penny, had my first kiss and wrote my first story. In the 21st century, my city looks down-at-heel.
Journalist Mike Grundy, Worcester-born-and-bred, has chronicled the county for 60 years and believes the hi-tech industries that have come in place of heavy industry have not yet caught up when it comes to employment.
Grundy also believes the city missed a trick in the destructive years between the 1930s and 1960s when town planners pulled down scores of picturesque black-and-white Tudor houses around the cathedral. They had become slums, but foresight could have saved them.
“We could have been a real medieval tourist town like York,” laments Grundy.
“Maybe we need a Donald Trump character to make us great again,” he chuckles.
Trump probably doesn’t know the way to Worcester either, but at least Buffett is keeping his millions in Lea &amp; Perrins alive and, like the sauce itself, he is in it for the long run.

The Bottling Outpost Of The Buffett Billions

It should have been the greatest day of his young life, instead it could have seen his last kick in international football and it hurts.
Nigeria was losing 2-0 at home to South Africa, with 33 minutes left, on November 19, 2014, in the Africa Cup of Nations at the Akwa Ibom Stadium. Off the bench came a young Sone Aluko, bristling with pace. In less than half an hour, he scored two goals; the second, deep into injury time, a rasping long range scorcher into the bottom corner.
Aluko was enjoying the best of times; he was a regular for his English Premier League club, Hull City, in the season it took its first crack at European football. Within six months of that performance Hull City went down, following a 0-0 draw against Manchester United; with them went Aluko’s World Cup hopes for Russia 2018.
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) wants all its internationals to play top-flight football. Overnight Aluko found himself in wilderness.
There was hope, in 2016, as Hull City went back up to the Premier League, but Aluko, a key player in the promotion drive, was released by the club days after sealing promotion. He moved, on a free transfer, to London club Fulham. Despite a dashing season on the wing for Fulham, in which he scored goals and racked up 10 assists, the club fell at the play-offs and remain rooted in England’s second tier – the Championship.
A move to Reading, also mired in the Championship, means, Aluko stays chained to the second tier. He believes many Nigerians want him in the squad and feels the coach and the Nigeria Football Federation should reconsider.
“They need to review that rule – you can play if you are in the top league in Greece or Belgium but if you play in the Championship, a better quality league, you can’t play. It doesn’t make any sense,” says Aluko, across the table of a London restaurant.
“If I get promoted with Reading it could make me an outside bet, but people in Nigeria are saying I should be in the squad. I have not ruled it out, I could go, and they could make an exception for me. I want to go to the World Cup, everyone does. It is all a player dreams about.”
Think again, says Amaju Pinnick the President of the NFF.
“The NFF is not responsible for making the selection of who joins the team. That is the decision of the coach. I know the story of Sone but unfortunately we have just qualified and we want to focus on the good news moving forward, so the coach will not be available for comment,” he says.
“It is the coach that selects, not the federation, even though they have some sway in the decision but ultimately it is the call of the coach. But, yes, Sunday Oliseh who was the previous coach said he likes to pick players from the top division and I think most coaches in Nigeria want players who are playing at the highest level and the very best in the world rather than those playing in the lower divisions. Most European coaches like Gernot Rohr will not admit it but I think that is the case. An additional criterion, which Rohr has also added which you can see by his selection, is that he is trying to lower the average age of the players to 23 years, except for the likes of John Mikel Obi, Leon Balogun and the goalkeeper… So on these two key criteria, Aluko unfortunately falls outside. He is not in the top division and he also happens to be 28 years. I would pick him in a heartbeat, but unfortunately I am not the coach,” says Colin Udoh, a sports journalist in Nigeria.
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Outrageous fortune has left this attacking winger facing every gifted athlete’s nightmare – the prospect of being a nearly man.
Aluko was born to Nigerian emigres Daniel and Sileola Aluko in Hounslow, near London. His father went back to Lagos after a year where he became a senator and ended up a director at energy company Chevron. His mother stuck it out in England, where she qualified as a nurse, before launching her own health services company near where the family eventually settled in Kings Norton, in Birmingham.
It appeared that everything the young Aluko touched – be it tennis ball or a football – turned to gold. At the age of eight he was scoring goals for fun for Kings Heath Concorde in the Birmingham South League. This drew scouts from Birmingham City who signed him up on the spot. By the time he was 11 he also had ambitions to be tennis pro as he played for Warwickshire along with future Wimbledon star Dan Evans.  He seemed an all-rounder born to shine.
But professional football proved a struggle for Aluko, for all his courage, control and pace, because of a string of setbacks and bizarre ill luck.
Aluko was living his dream as a bright young 16-year-old warming up on the touchline, in the colors of Birmingham City, before 37,000 fans at Arsenal’s Highbury home. He was about to go on as a substitute, against Kolo Touré, Cesc Fabregas and Robert Pirès, to become one of the youngest players in Premier League history.
“I was still warming up when Kenny Cunningham got sent off, so I never came on,” he says with a smile.
Aluko had to wait until he was 18 to make his debut for Birmingham City’s first team, in a 2-1 win over Hereford United; a week later he went on a loan to Aberdeen that proved a purple patch. Three happy years, a taste of European football and 100 first team games.
“I had my first flat in Aberdeen and heard the fans sing my name for the first time,” he says. He also made it into the England under -19 team alongside some talented players: Andy Carroll, Danny Welbeck and Theo Walcott. He had a spell at Glasgow Rangers, in Scotland, before finally making it into the Premier League with Hull City.
Again, cruel fate took a hand. Seven games into the Premier League he was jogging across the pitch in a warm-up, before a game against Sunderland, when his Achilles snapped. He was stuck on the treatment bed and in the gym until January.
“It was a frustrating first year,” he says.
By then, on the international front, he had long made the switch from England to the land of his African ancestors.
“We grew up on Nigerian food and in my house the music was always Michael Jackson and Fela Kuti,”says Aluko.
“It was like a build-up, newspaper articles asking would I play for Nigeria. They contacted me through an official at the NFF and he asked me if I would be interested. Then I spoke to my family about it; then I thought about Jay-Jay Okocha and [Nwankwo] Kanu in the World Cup in 1998. That generation was the golden generation; my dream as a kid was to play for the Super Eagles. When I was at Hull, I almost took the number 44 jersey because [Okocha] wore it, but I decided at the last minute to plough my own furrow.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2017/08/08/day-football-crossed-business/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Day Football Crossed To Business </a>
The winger never looked back and was always cheered by supporters wherever the Super Eagles played.
“Everywhere, from Malawi to Congo-Brazzaville, there were always 500 Nigerians at the airport to greet us, even at one o’clock in the morning!” says Aluko.
<div id="attachment_34552" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34552" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34552" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Sonny-Aluko-Ambassadors-Cup-e1511944310894-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="332" />Sonny Aluko takes a selfie with the players at the Ambassador&#8217;s Cup, which he sponsors. (Photo supplied)</div>
The latter country also gave Aluko a taste of the ugly side of African football.
“After 85 minutes we scored our second goal to go 2-0 up. The crowd started throwing stones onto the pitch, the linesman ran across the pitch, police came in with tear gas that left our eyes and nose running. We played the last five minutes in an empty stadium.”
Aluko survived that day and is putting money into grassroots football in Africa. For the last three years he has sponsored the Ambassador’s Cup, in Nigeria, contested by under-16 sides. He hopes the Nigerian coach and the NFF will be equally magnanimous.

The Grounded Super Eagle Who Wants To Fly To The Next World Cup

I can’t believe he is gone &#8211; albeit decades overdue &#8211; and I find it difficult to imagine Zimbabwe without him.
If ever there is a case study for the perils of clinging too long to power in Africa, Robert Gabriel Mugabe is it; a cautionary tale for every leader trying to die in office.
If he had stepped down after his second, or even third term &#8211; about 1995, I reckon &#8211; he would have been revered in the way a true leader should. There would have been museums and archives set up his honor, an annual Mugabe lecture by the finest brains on the planet. There would have been scholarships in his name and he would have been on advisory panels along with Jimmy Carter and the rest of the world’s sage elders. Like the late president of Botswana, Ketumile Masire, who got it right after two terms, Mugabe could have sat on his farm waiting for the wise and the good to beat a path to his door seeking counsel.
Instead Mugabe spent the most of the last two years being vilified, spat at, mocked and howled down by the mob. I saw him at the World Economic Forum in May, in Durban, and it made me sick to my guts; the poor man could hardly walk let alone keep his eyes open. I blame those around him too who kept him on the throne in the interests of their paycheques.
It was a sadder sight when I compared it to the first time I interviewed Mugabe, all clipped, groomed and sharp suited at State House in Harare, way back in April 1994 with the autumn sun glinting through the window and lawnmowers humming across the carpet of green grass outside. Those were halcyon days for Mugabe, respect among his educated people &#8211; with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa &#8211; was in abundance. Any criticism of the big man was met with reproving stares.
“That is our president,” people used to say.
On this warm autumn day Mugabe was at his schoolmasterly sharpest, always ready to take advantage of any gap in knowledge.
“Who told you that?” he used to say if you really caught him out, trying to dismiss you as if you were a sixth former. Remember, if he hadn’t bid for power, liberating his country,  he could have ended his working days as a colonial headmaster.
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As the years wore on I interviewed him many times and he rarely disappointed even if some of his quotes, even in the sharp days, were bizarre.
I remember a day at the Harare Book Fair, in 1995, when Mugabe went off on a rant against gays and lesbians displaying their books on the stalls. He called them the association of sodomists and sexual perverts. When he came out of the fair I asked him on camera what he had against gay people.
“I do not believe men should have children through wombs,” says Mugabe. It underlined the old man’s vehemence when he had a bee in his bonnet.
Once we dashed to an impromptu roadside speech by Mugabe to a large crowd of Zanu-PF Women&#8217;s League in Samora Machel, the main road through Harare. We arrived in a rush and my cameraman hastily set up his tripod and fiddled with the camera. All the while Mugabe was watching us out of the corner of his eye as he ranted on against gays in ChiShona, his mother tongue. As soon as the cameraman switched on and looked down the lens, Mugabe switched to English.
“Let them be gay in Europe, let them be gay in America, they will be sad people here,” says Mugabe with a dismissive wave of his arms. He knew that soundbite would fly around the world on the new wires; and it did.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/21/lessons-south-africas-jacob-zuma-robert-mugabes-misfortunes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons for South Africa&#8217;s Jacob Zuma in Robert Mugabe&#8217;s misfortunes</a>
This is one reason why Mugabe survived so long, he was a wily old fox (even the cleverest foxes couldn’t have dreamed up some of the big man’s dodges) who knew how to manipulate divide and rule. Woe betide anyone who upset him. He sent a couple of my colleagues to the torture chamber and one of them died very young as a result. More than a few of his opponents disappeared and tens of thousands were killed in Matabeleland in the Gukurahundi of the early 80s.
All of this he brushed off with his trademark arrogance. One summer night, I pushed a microphone under his nose as he walked away from a state function and asked him why he was sheltering Haile Mariam Mengistu &#8211; the former president who is wanted for the deaths of many thousands of his fellow Ethiopians &#8211; who lives in luxury in Harare.
“Why can’t we give shelter to a legitimate refugee?” says Mugabe on the night. Well, Bob, there are refugees and then there are fugitives from justice.
As Mugabe walked away to his Mercedes he grumbled to one of his flunkies that it was the reason he didn’t like talking to whites (that must have been me) because they asked stupid questions. Arrogance told him that the latter was true even though the previous question was, pardon me, as true as Bob. That sense of self-importance that dates back to the days when his indulgent mother let him read books instead of herd cattle with his brothers back in his rural home in Zvimba.
Now it has all come home to roost. Everyone has turned on Mugabe: his comrades, his people and even those who worshipped him in better days. What a sad end to what could have been one of the most shining political careers in Africa. He won’t be remembered as a fox; more as a skunk.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe spent 10 years in prison, years in exile, years suffering headaches of building a new post-colonial society amid cold war politics and threats from apartheid South Africa across the border. I have one last question for him before he swans off into an uncertain retirement: Did you come so far for so little?

Bye bye Bob – did you come so far for so little?

President Robert Mugabe’s nephew and cabinet minister, who is hiding in fear of his life in South Africa, has said the 93-year-old head of state will not step down because of the letter of the Constitution, despite a military takeover and massed marches against him in Harare. He also claims Grace Mugabe has no interest in becoming president.
Patrick Zhuwawo, who has been Minister of Public Services and Social Welfare for the last two years, is the son of Mugabe’s sister Sabina, who died in 2010. He is said to be one of the supporter of his aunt’s bid to succeed Mugabe, although he denies this.
Zhuwawo had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina, attending a conference on child labor, when the military went in. As he checked in for a flight home at OR Tambo International Airport, in Johannesburg, he took a call from his family in Harare begging him to stay put.
“They told me that my house had been vandalized and I was on a wanted list. The also informed me that a number of people had died in this illegal coup and more than 200 were in detention,” says Zhuwawo.
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When will President Mugabe step down? I said, asking the question on everyone’s lips on the day as thousands marched in Harare calling from him to go.
“Because he has a mandate given to him by an electoral process. More importantly stepping down because of a coup is dangerous, it is evil we can never allow military weapons to determine democratic processes… he is not going to step down,” says Zhuwawo.
“This coup is now being window dressed to look like a popular uprising.”
Zhuwawo claims that military chiefs are using protestors to cover what he alleges is looting from multi-million-dollar agricultural funds.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/11/16/whats-next-embattled-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: What next for embattled Zimbabwe?</a>
Zhuwawo also claimed he was not a member of the so-called G40 group of young MPs backing his aunt Grace to succeed his uncle.
“No, that is not the issue and she has no intention of being the next president. The people of Zimbabwe must choose the next president,” he says.
What about President Mugabe’s age and infirmity. When I saw him at the <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/06/01/the-pain-of-mugabe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">World Economic Forum in Durban in May he moved painfully</a> – isn’t it time, I asked?
“One of the things in our constitution is that there must be no discrimination on race or sex or age&#8230; If you were Zimbabwean you are breaking the Constitution … What we do not want to go back to is the day of Nazi Germany when they were euthanizing old people,” he says.
After 37 years in power, the last 20  presiding over a crumbling economy, surely Mugabe and his comrades had failed and should go anyway to make way for new ideas?
“You will not divert me here, I am talking about a coup,” he says.
If only Mugabe, Zhuwawo and company had diverted the economy towards growth and prosperity 20 years ago there may not be tanks and protestors on the streets now.

Mugabe won’t step down and Grace won’t step up, says nephew

The old man would have been proud. You could find your way to the party of the year, blindfolded, by following the skirl of the pipes and whiff of fine whiskey.
The lowly Scottish roots of Bertie Charles Forbes – the son of a humble tailor of New Deer, Aberdeenshire – were bound up with the celebration of 100 years of the glossy world famous billionaire’s magazine that he founded. Pipers in tartan kilts blasted out the sound of the Highlands at the entrance to the big name party at Chelsea Pier, overlooking the Hudson River, in New York, in tribute to the journalist and entrepreneur. A man who never forgot where he came from and lies buried beneath the damp soil of New Deer thousands of miles across the Atlantic.
Parsimony could have been his middle name. Forbes, who grew up poor as a church mouse, was a struggling immigrant to this city who carved out a life by writing about money and avoiding lending or spending it – a lesson for us all. He bootstrapped his magazine to world fame, with a tiny investment, by keeping a careful eye on the pennies.
“My grandfather once asked me ‘how do you make copper wire?’ Simply get two Scotsmen to fight over a penny!” says grandson Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of the magazine, in his element on stage.
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BC Forbes, who worked as a journalist in South Africa on his way to fame and fortune, died in 1954 in New York, the city where he worked his way up from walking the streets, jobless, to the top tables. He was there, in spirit, in the shape of one of his favorite tailored tweed suits worn by grandson Kip Forbes. It was made in the 1940s, yet looked like it was cut yesterday.
“I managed to rescue it from the mothballs and felt it was important to wear it tonight,” Kip told me.
Was his grandfather really that parsimonious?
“I think he was very shrewd. My grandfather used to say: I don’t give advice, I sell it!’” says Kip with a broad smile.
Kip’s favourite story was he the time his grandfather questioned, angrily, his gentle grandmother, Adelaide, over her frivolous spending.
“But I like spending money,” she replied sweetly and slowly to the old man’s exasperation.
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In later years, Adelaide was described by her son, Malcom, who took over the editorship of Forbes from his father, as an early Keynesian who believed that prosperity came through increased spending. If his father hadn’t been dead already, the thought of her spending would have killed him – in fact, Malcom said, it could have been enough to resurrect him.
Wally Forbes, now in his 90s, the youngest and surviving son of BC Forbes, attended the 100th birthday dressed in a kilt. He recalled, as a young man, he took some friends for lunch at the famous New York Athletic Club where his father was a member.
Soon afterwards came a terse, angry note from his father asking: “Who, for example, ordered the $5 lobster, I would personally never consider indulging in such extravagance.”
<div id="attachment_34301" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34301" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34301" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Patrice-Motsepe-Forbes@100-e1510041659749.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="341" />Patrice Motsepe (left) and Jacqueline Novogratz (right) are joined onstage by other influential business people and philanthropists. (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
Many of the billion-dollar names who came to Chelsea Pier, to pay homage to their chronicler Forbes, are not bothered in the slightest by extravagance. Wherever you looked there were people who know how to make money, in weird and wonderful ways, and spend it.
“Look, there’s the founder of Tinder,” a fellow guest nudged me.
The big names were everywhere: Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys; Steve Wynn; Muhammad Yunus; Steve Case and Jack Welch. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, worth $130 million according to Forbes, placed a huge wet kiss on the back of the head of Steve Forbes as he bounded on stage, as one of the 100 best business brains, to one of the biggest cheers of the night.
At the centre of it all was Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, who appears to improve with age as much as his investments.
“Forbes is living proof that you should never sell short,” he quipped to more cheers.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/09/20/forbes-magazine-100-years-hits-flops/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Forbes Magazine: 100 Years Of Hits And Flops</a>
True enough, Forbes is a worldwide concern now, with versions in scores of countries from Mexico to Russia and Azerbaijan. FORBES AFRICA was proud to become the 16th English language version, in 2011, going from strength to strength. It was an honor for us to be there on this historic night.
Speaking of historic there was no messing around when it came to bringing a legend onstage to top the night off. On came Stevie Wonder, almost as seasoned as the magazine, alone with a keyboard and straight into: My Cherie Amour.
<div id="attachment_34302" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34302" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34302" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Warren-Buffett-Forbes@100-e1510041870963.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="419" />Warren Buffett onstage with other influential business people and philanthropists at the Forbes@100 celebration. Photo by Getty Images)</div>
Thirty seven years ago I danced, slowly, in the dark, with a young lady at the town hall to Wonder’s beautiful: Lately. “I’m a man of many wishes… ”
On that night, this then-awkward-and-confused teenager dreamed of exploring the whole wide world. Yet, if you had told me then that I would stand a few yards from the great man, in New York, I would have accused you of drinking too much of the rough cider that used to flow over the town hall bar like water. A lifetime later, I have explored the world, I was in New York, with the garnered skill to write about it; unforgettable and priceless in a room where wealth was everywhere.
The last words of the night went to Steve Forbes, who was fast becoming the wit of Chelsea Pier. He pointed out that Forbes had been launched in the same year as the Russian Revolution in 1917.
“My grandfather would have been very proud that his magazine outlived communism,” says Forbes to applause.
“We look forward to celebrating our next century and, if medical technology advances far enough, many of you will be there to celebrate it with us.”
As the laughter died down Forbes could not resist another light-hearted dig at his grandfather’s parsimonious Scottish roots as he lifted a fine glass of 18-year-old single malt Scotch – courtesy of one of the sponsors of the night – to his lips. The toast was Forbes, 100 years&#8230;
“My grandfather would have appreciated us toasting this anniversary with Scotch whiskey… especially as it is free!”
A final reminder that the Forbes founder’s innate care with money fostered a magazine that has survived the outrageous fortune of turbulent history with all its wars, revolutions and depressions. Cheers to the millions who read Forbes from Africa to Azerbaijan – may it enrich your lives.

The Night Of The Century

It had been a day of noisy celebration, but you could have heard a pin drop just before midnight on the cusp of October 9, 1962, when the independent nation of Uganda was born.
Sixty thousand people stood in respectful silence at the poignant ceremony at the Kololo Stadium, in Kampala. The British flag, which had fluttered over Uganda for 68 years, was lowered to the strains of God Save the Queen; seconds later the black, yellow and red of Uganda was raised to the country’s new anthem. The crowd roared its approval and applauded the birth of Uganda; overhead fireworks crackled in the skies, bonfires blazed from the hilltops and across the city people sang and danced in the streets.
After decades of colonial rule Uganda was to join the growing club of free and independent nations in Africa. A nation that was to decide its own destiny under the authority of its own leaders in Kampala, rather than that of detached civil servants in London.
It was the climax of a day where all roads led to Kampala. From the break of dawn, thousands flooded into the city. As they arrived, many were handed free food and drink in celebration of a day to remember.
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From London, through the skies, arrived the Duke and Duchess of Kent, who were Britain’s representatives, at Entebbe Airport. The new government made the Duke of Kent the first ever Freeman of Kampala.
A glance at the grainy newsreel of the day is a peek into Africa’s long-lost colonial past. The Duke of Kent wore a white uniform and ceremonial sword on his hip; there was a 21-gun salute as he left the plane and a company of soldiers from the King’s African Rifles to inspect before he left the tarmac. Waiting for him was the governor general, Sir Walter Coutts, in a cocked hat with feathers. If you took the plane and the tarmac away, it could have been a scene from the 1860s instead of the 1960s.
As the bars and streets of the city filled up, 20,000 people turned out to watch a regatta on Lake Victoria, featuring races between long canoes. An annual event that began more than 100 years before the British arrived and survives until this day.
In the heat of the Kampala afternoon, there was a genteel garden party for 4,000 people complete with a brass band, tea and cakes. Strolling through the party, as slim as a reed, was Milton Obote, then just 37 years old, the man who was soon to become the first Prime Minister of Uganda. Later, the Prime Minister opened the new Independence Pavilion of Science and Industry at the Uganda Museum.
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As the sun went down, crowds poured into Kololo Stadium for the midnight handover. A military tattoo, that could have been in Edinburgh, saw British soldiers and Ugandans dance step for step.
First, the world-famous Acholi dancers from northern Uganda, who set the pace with a routine to the pulse of beating drums, then came a group of soldiers from the Scottish infantry regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, resplendent in kilts, who danced a Highland reel.
It was a night of military might to the sound of fife and drum; the Fourth Battalion of the Kings African Rifles, soon to become the First Battalion of the Uganda Rifles, performed a perfect slow march before the cheering crowds.
“Our independence shall mean great responsibilities for all of us without exception. Collectively, we shall all be responsible to safeguard our independence and to ensure peace and stability within our country. In addition, the government in whose name I now speak offers to you a firm determination to protect your life and property and opportunities for your advancement,” said the new Prime Minister Obote in his speech.
“It is in this ensuring of peace and stability and this determination for the protection of life and property coupled with opportunities for advancement as individuals and combinations and as a country that I now call upon all to pass an irrevocable resolution marking our new status and guiding us into the future. Let us add to that resolution that we are of Uganda and Uganda is ours. Let us recognize that and pay our tribute to these friends from inside and outside Uganda who have helped us on our way to independence. Let us remember the best we have received and now inherit from the British administrators. I also ask all to give the missionaries past and present a special praise for the light they brought and do still maintain.”
As the black, yellow and red flag flew through the dawn, Ugandans woke up to a new world where they were, at last, masters of their own destiny.

A Night To Remember As Uganda Was Born

One of the world’s leading voices on business believes better times could be round the corner for the United States economy despite uncertainty over North Korea.
Steve Forbes – a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who ran twice for president – spoke to editors and publishers of the many versions of the magazine around the world, including Forbes Africa. The conference, at the Forbes Media center on Fifth Avenue in New York, was part of the 100-year celebrations of the world-famous business magazine. It was Forbes’ chance to show his stripes as the eternal optimist in US capitalism.
“I think you will see the US economy showing signs of life over the next three months, you will see a growth rate of more than 3%, maybe more,” says Forbes.
“I think there will be a big tax cut soon, there has to be. Republicans may not be the fastest thinking people in the world, but half the senate is up for re-election and not too many of them want to end up as an Uber driver.”
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Forbes believes that the politicians could come up with a vote-winning cut in corporate tax, from 38.9% to 18%, or even as low as 15%. He believes this could stimulate the economy.
“A little growth goes a long way. Bill Clinton survived all of his scandals as president because the economy was growing. By contrast, Richard Nixon was kicked out because the economy was struggling.”
On the trade front, the threats from President Donald Trump to slap tariffs on everything to protect business may not come to pass.
“I think the reality will be much gentler than the rhetoric, especially if the economy is growing,” says Forbes.
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Yet the Editor-in-Chief of Forbes believes the US will be tough against the nuclear threat of North Korea.
“If they attack us they know they will be obliterated no matter what happens. The feeling is strong here that North Korea does not take us seriously. The US will increase sanctions, including cutting North Korea out of the world banking system. We have had sanctions before and they hurt North Korea.”

Cheer up, better times ahead for world economy – Steve Forbes

World-famous Forbes magazine woke up to its second century in an overcast New York after a night of whiskey, bagpipes, banter, billionaires and Stevie Wonder.
Forbes celebrated 100 years of publication with a huge party for the rich and famous on the swanky Chelsea Piers overlooking New York Harbour. It was a who&#8217;s who of business from South Africa&#8217;s mining magnate Patrice Motsepe to Warren Buffett and Sean &#8216;Diddy&#8217; Coombs.
The business magazine &#8211; celebrated in songs with a cover that is the envy of  billionaires &#8211; has survived two world wars, depressions, recessions and the decline in the print business. It began reporting in a business world where oil and steel were king; it completed its century when Artificial Intelligence and technology were making people rich.
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The magazine was the brainchild of parsimonious Scotsman BC Forbes, a man who spent a few years working in South Africa, in the early 20th century; first, on the Natal Mercury, in Durban, then on the Rand Daily Mail, in Johannesburg.
Forbes sailed to New York in 1904, with $50 in his pocket, to make his fortune. He struggled to find a job and worked for free for a New York publication to prove his worth.
&#8220;For my grandfather this was a leap of faith. He didn&#8217;t know whether the owner was going to pay him or not. Money was very important to my grandfather. He used to say the best way to make copper wire was to get two Scotsmen to fight over a penny!&#8221; joked his grandson Steve Forbes, the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine who hasn&#8217;t missed a column for nearly half a century.
Forbes also recalled how his grandfather had booked into New York&#8217;s the Waldorf Astoria, one of the most luxurious and expensive hotels in the world. He had to scrimp and save, by walking to stories and saving his taxi money, to make the bill every month.
&#8220;A lot of his friends asked if he was mad. He couldn&#8217;t afford it, but every night he was in the bar mixing with the biggest and most powerful business names of the day,&#8221; he says.
Mixing with the right people, coupled with sharp and honest reporting, helped make Forbes magazine a success from its launch in 1917.
At the function was a sartorial reminder of BC Forbes. Grandson Kip Forbes wore his grandfather&#8217;s tailored tweed suit, that looked like it was made yesterday.
&#8220;I think it was made for in the him in the 1940s and it has survived the mothballs, so I thought it was right to wear it tonight in his honor,&#8221; he says.
Kip Forbes agreed that his grandfather was parsimonious as well as a shrewd business journalist.
&#8220;He used to say, I don&#8217;t give advice, I sell it,&#8221; he chuckled.
The event was supposed to see a jet plane, mounted on a boat, float up to the quayside at Chelsea Piers, but the rough weather on the night caused the Coastguard to put the block on this.
Instead the high-flyer of the night was Stevie Wonder who played a set opened by My Cherie Amour.
But the music closest to the Forbes family greeted guests. The skirl of the  bagpipes was in honor of the founder who had traveled a long journey from poverty in the village of New Deer, in Aberdeenshire, to creating the magazine of billionaires amid the riches of New York.
Steve Forbes toasted his late grandfather with a sip of 12-year-old Scotch given by one of the sponsors of the party. With the sip came the Forbes wry wit.
&#8220;My grandfather would have appreciated this&#8230; especially as it is free!&#8221; says his grandson to laughter from the large crowd.

A Mad Decision Paying Off 100 Years Later

It was an African dream to create a cutting edge renewable energy industry in one of the continent’s biggest economies to attract foreign investment and train a pool of talent to run it; that dream is in tatters with the companies, that sank nearly $5 billion into it, left in limbo and out of pocket.
In the next few months, companies behind 37 signed-off renewable energy projects are likely to be on shaky ground because South Africa’s Department of Energy has failed to sign 20-year power purchase agreements. These agreements not only secure a connection to the national grid, but also revenue. Government promised to sign the PPAs on April 11. This evaporated and many fear they may not be signed before the next Integrated Resources Plan – the national plan for the energy mix to take the country to 2050 – to be finalized next year.
Reading between the lines, it appears the Department of Energy is more interested in eking out aging coal-fired operations, which generate more than 70% of South Africa’s power, and planning for a highly expensive nuclear program that could set back the taxpayer $50 billion. There have also been fewer power cuts this year. The feeling among many insiders at Eskom is ‘why should we pay for what we don’t need right now?’ The national power generator also pleads poverty.
“I would say of the 37 projects, 14 are very vulnerable right now,” Brenda Martin, the head of the South African Renewable Energy Council, said.
“If nothing happens in the coming months, companies will not be able to hold on and there will be closures and retrenchments in which hundreds of South Africans will lose their jobs.”
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If you want to check the temperature of the sick South African renewable energy industry you should look across the border into Botswana. It is a minor player in energy, let alone renewable energy, with peak demand of a mere 600MW for its tiny population of fewer than two million compared to around 40,000MW in South Africa.
In May, the state-run Botswana Power Corporation put out a call for an expression of interest for a partnership in a small 100MW solar project. Usually a call like this would attract a handful of bidders. This one attracted a staggering 166 bidders, most from South Africa – a clear indication of the hunger at home. A mere 62 of these were selected.
“It’s just crazy. We have to search to survive,” one of the South African bidders, who asked not to be named, said.
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The dearth of PPAs in South Africa appears to have unintended consequences across Africa.
“The markets are all opening up across Africa. We have seen shifts happen in sub-Saharan Africa in wind, solar and hydro. Biomass is moving quite fast too and energy from waste is very labor intensive. The bigger companies can go for these projects but the smaller companies won’t be able to afford to,” Martin said.
“But what we are doing now is training wind technicians for jobs in Zambia, Uganda and Ghana. This is the opposite of development that was meant to stimulate jobs for South Africa. We are simply creating jobs for other countries.”
As for a new date for the signing of the PPAs for South African producers?
“I don’t see any strong leadership among government officials right now,” rues Martin.
The Department of Energy requested FORBES AFRICA to e-mail questions over when the PPAs would be signed, which we did and followed up with numerous phone calls. Like the renewable energy producers of South Africa, we didn’t get any joy.

An Ill Wind Blowing Nobody Any Good

It was day 18 of a cold and hungry strike, haunted by death. At Western Holdings, an Anglo American mine in Welkom, in the Free State province of South Africa, the mood of the penniless crowd threatened to turn ugly; many were angry and wanted to go back to work.
To make matters worse, the news had broken that the mining companies had begun firing workers over the strike for a 30% pay rise. In two turbulent winter weeks of 1987, police had shot and beaten strikers to death; along with worker kangaroo courts, for strike breakers, it brought the death toll to nine. The first flexing by the new National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) proved painful.
Into the eye of this angry storm stepped fresh-faced strike leader Frans Baleni to address 50,000 strikers at Western Holdings.
“I was 27 years old. I was very nervous, I was shaking, I was not sure what was going to be the reaction,” he recalls nearly 30 years to the day.
<blockquote>“I told them we had two choices: stay out, or go back to work and forget the people who died. I said if you don’t accept this, kill me.”</blockquote>
There was deafening silence for a few seconds and then a chant of: “Amandla (power to the people).”
“All of a sudden, I was in the sky. The crowd had picked me up and were carrying me, singing, to the beer hall about 800 meters away. I was not sure whether I was going to fall. When we got there they bought me a drink!”
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The joy was short lived. The mining companies threatened to fire 50,000 miners and on the 21st day the strike caved in. For current South African deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa – the lawyer who founded the NUM in 1982 – it must have been a bitter blow made worse by the fact he heard the news, not from the employers, but from a journalist. Many years ago I interviewed an activist who went with Ramaphosa on an early appeal for union recognition at one of the big mines in Carletonville, west of Johannesburg, one rainy afternoon. They had to use the backdoor and were forced to stand, soaking wet, before the seated bosses in the boardroom.
The first strike ended in defeat, but Baleni, who went on to head the NUM in 2006, believes it was worth it.
“We didn’t get a pay rise but it saw the birth of the provident fund that is now worth R27 billion ($2 billion)!” chuckles Baleni.
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Baleni also believes the strike opened the way for black workers to be trained for whites-only jobs. He helped the employers to select candidates, but his activism saw him fired in 1988 and he never was trained himself.
One of the chosen was Senzeni Zokwana, who trained as a shift boss and safety specialist at President Steyn Gold Mine in the Free State. In 2000, he became president of the NUM and in 2014 he became probably the first minister of agriculture in South Africa’s history to hold an underground blasting license.
Out of three weeks of misery and violence sprang some good.

‘I Said Kill Me, They Said Cheers!’

The three hours I spent interviewing Terry Paine were steeped in the blood and sweat of the game. They were the kind of conversations rare in football these days – like the benefits of learning ball control with a tennis ball on the streets. It was football with laughter – full of the human frailties exposed by the beautiful game; rather than the vogue, yet false, notion of it as a cross between an academic subject and a computer game.
Paine is the sort of player that England used to be famous for: passionate about the game, down-to-earth, with that openness and innate decency born of growing up in a small town – Winchester, just north of Southampton in Hampshire. It is only that steely glint in his piercing blue eyes that reminds you that you wouldn’t stand a chance in a rough 50/50 tackle.
The bright sunshine on this winter morning, at a table outside an airy Rivonia café in Johannesburg, contrasts with a journey back to the dark days of vicious tackles on mud heaps amid the smokestacks and factories of industrial England. This is where Paine honed his craft as one of the fastest, toughest, trickiest and most enduring wingers England ever produced. He played 19 times for England, scoring seven goals, remarkably as a second division player. Paine won a World Cup in 1966, earned an MBE from the Queen and scores of scars along the way.
“In those days any tackle below the neck was allowed,” he chuckles. “But I never got seriously injured because I could jump.”
Paine’s trade as a professional footballer built a career that straddles the foggy days of bleak, windswept, terraces, where the fans had cigarettes in their hands instead of cell phones, to the glossy, money mad, 21st century game. He played 713 games for Southampton, the club where he began as a wide-eyed teenager, scoring 160 goals in 18 years.
The Premier League club made him honorary president, in 2012, and flies him from Africa for games in another world to the rough, tough one he knew at Southampton. In Paine’s playing days, a pre-match meal was steak, chips, a cup of tea and a slice of toast. In those days there were five people, including the manager, working at the club – now there are 300.
<blockquote>“What you have got to remember is it is business now, and big business. The sport is no longer the sport you and I knew and loved.”</blockquote>
At Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium there is a swimming pool next to the dressing room with underwater cameras so physiotherapists can study injuries. The club uses special soap powder for washing the kit that reduces the chance of allergies or rashes. Every day, doctors swab the mouths of the players to see whether they are sick.
“If you sneeze nowadays they don’t play you – the medical side has really taken over. The big question is why are players getting so many injuries with all the modern equipment and pitches you’d want to carpet your front room with? No one can work it out.”
St Mary&#8217;s Stadium is a carpeted, cosseted world with one of the best youth academies in Europe that has produced a string of internationals, including Adam Lallana, Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale, Wayne Bridge and Luke Shaw.
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When Paine was a talented 16-year-old playing for Winchester City, in the 1950s, there was no such thing as an academy. His father was a welder for British Rail and the young Paine spent a year as an office runner there before signing up for an apprenticeship in the body building shop in Eastleigh, a few miles out of Southampton, constructing railway carriages.
“I would have made the worst body builder, I was absolutely useless; football came to my rescue there,” laughs Paine.
<div id="attachment_33050" style="width: 264px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33050" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-33050" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/525723610-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="254" height="338" />Terry Paine gets presented to the crowd, during the World Cup qualifier between England and Andorra, as one of the members of the winning squad of the 1966 World Cup (Photo by AMA/Corbis via Getty Images)</div>
It was a colleague in the railway body shop that proved the catalyst for Paine’s career. Arsenal called  Paine to London for a trial and a fellow worker, a die-hard Southampton fan, phoned club manager Ted Bates to say he was about to miss out on what the newspapers, these days, would call a teenage sensation. What followed could have led to a court case in the uptight world of modern football.
“Ted Bates got in myself and another player, Colin Holmes, and locked the office door and said he wouldn’t open until we signed. Time was getting on and we were both starving so we signed just to get out.”
Bates sent a cheque for £25 to Winchester City to seal the transfer. Paine’s signing on fee was £10. He spent it on a bright red jersey on one of his first games for the reserves, in the Hampshire League, against Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
Money was scarce for the players, even though most clubs were pulling crowds in tens of thousands. The maximum wage was £20 in the winter and £17 in the summer; it wouldn’t have mattered if you had the dash of Ronaldo, you could have been paid the same as a loyal, lumbering, defender for Sheffield Wednesday.
“We always hoped we would play Ipswich just before Christmas because the Cobbold family that owned the club used to give all the players a turkey. In those days we struggled to buy a chicken for Christmas,” Paine recalls.
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This penury was one of the reasons hundreds of English footballers agreed to go on strike in January 1961. The vote among the members of the newly-formed Professional Footballers’ Association – the trade union for players – was 694 for and 18 against.
Paine and his Southampton teammates went to the pub across the road from the ground and voted 8-7 in favor of the strike to be staged on January 14, 1961. The Football League held firm saying removing the maximum wage would send many clubs to the wall. But the league caved in and, on January 18, the maximum wage was lifted.
“They could see the damage it was going to cause; it was no skin off their nose because it was the clubs that had to pay,” says Paine.
One of the first to cash in was the late <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2005/oct/20/newsstory.sportobituaries" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Johnny Haynes</a>, who played for Durban City in South Africa near the end of his career, the then captain of Fulham and England. His chairman and music hall comedian Tommy Trinder, as many believe in a publicity stunt, said he would pay Haynes £100 a week if the maximum wage was lifted. The day after, Haynes was in the boardroom and got his money.
Paine got his money too – £35 a week and spent his heavier pay packet on a Renault Dauphine, even though he couldn’t drive.
“The chief of police, who was a Southampton supporter, phoned the club and said: ‘Tell Terry Paine to pass his test, we know he is driving and doesn’t have a licence’. Weeks later, I passed.”
Innocent times maybe. But even then the big clubs were winking at corruption. It is still referred to as “tapping up” – the illegal approach to players without the knowledge of their club.
One summer a manager, from one of the big clubs up north, knocked at Paine’s door in Winchester.
“He pops up outside my house and says: ‘Oh Terry, I was on holiday down here and I thought I would come and see you’,” chuckles Paine.
Tottenham Hotspur, and its assistant manager Harry Evans, couldn’t leave Paine alone. Manager Bill Nicholson looked to strengthen his side, in the 1960/61 season, as it strove to become the first club in the 20th century to do the league and cup double.
“Harry Evans would be waiting outside at away games, whispering in my ear. It was all illegal but nowadays they have agents so it doesn’t matter.”
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Football agents and their vast fees they charge stick in Paine’s craw, as well as mine. Money that could keep a score of lower division clubs afloat. On this morning there is uproar in the English newspapers about the agent of Manchester United player, Paul Pogba, who charged £41 million to handle the move from Juventus.
“It probably took a few phone calls and a couple of meetings,” says Paine as he shakes his head.
<blockquote>“A line has to be drawn… All the clubs must get together and say ‘right we are going to cap this, don’t pay more than £20 million in a deal. But you know it’s a business now and the agents will say ‘if you don’t want to do the deal, we will go to Real Madrid’.”</blockquote>
Paine was one of the pathfinders for the highly-paid, sports car-driving, product-endorsing footballer of today. He first came to South Africa with fellow World Cup winner Bobby Charlton’s guest team, in 1979, and made his home in Johannesburg, in 1984, where he was offered a job as a football coach. These days he is a football pundit for a sports TV channel and often comments on players at the highest level, with half his talent, who earn more in a month than he did in more than 20 years.
“That’s always difficult; you have to be careful not to over criticize. You always try to give your honest opinion.”
His final verdict on the money-dominated business that is football?
“If I was playing now I would be a multi-millionaire… I think the players I played with would have thrived in the modern era – I wonder whether modern players would have thrived in our era?”
Spot on, from the king of the pin-point cross.

Author: Chris Bishop

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