By the time the next World Cup rolls around, Nigeria captain John Mikel Obi will be 34.
Considering coach Gernot Rohr’s deliberate moves to lower the average age of the Super Eagles (Nigeria’s national football team), it’s doubtful if the silky midfielder will still be suiting up in green-white-green by then.
It would appear that Russia 2018 will mark one final top-level hurrah in Mikel’s illustrious career, one that has seen him win everything in European club football and represent his country at all levels and in every major competition.
Like many former Super Eagles’ captains before him ahead of a major championship, Mikel, who now plays in the Chinese Super League with Tianjin Teda, is coy about his post World Cup plans.
“I don’t know what I will do after the World Cup,” he tells FORBES AFRICA.
“I think we have to focus on doing well first and making the country proud.”
Despite all he has achieved, there is still some debate as to whether the former teenage prodigy has fulfilled his potential, but Russia presents him with an opportunity to forge a legacy and grow his legend further.
It’s a sign of how highly he was thought of when he first burst on the scene that this is even a debate after he has racked up an impressive collection of trophies, including multiple Premier League titles with Chelsea, the FA Cup, UEFA Champions League, Europa League, and the Africa Cup of Nations titles.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/05/02/big-money-big-dreams-africas-chances-at-the-world-cup/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Big Money, Big Dreams: Africa’s Chances At The World Cup</a>
At Mikel’s first international game, an African Under-17 World Cup qualifier against South Africa in Kaduna, visiting coach Serame Letsoaka said of the emerging starlet:
“Your number 10 is a special player, he has the potential to be a great player.”
Letsoaka was not alone. By the time the country returned from an ultimately unsuccessful 
FIFA Under-17 World Cup Finals in 2003, Mikel was already marked down for greatness in Nigeria.
Less than two years later, that attention went global when he became the subject of a three-way transfer controversy involving Chelsea, Manchester United and Norwegian club Lyn Oslo.
By the time the dust settled, Mikel ended up at Chelsea, where many Nigerians still believe his creative juices were squeezed and stifled by manager José Mourinho.
For Mikel himself, the argument is moot and he seems satisfied with his achievements, though leading Nigeria past the quarter-finals of the World Cup would perhaps even be the highlight.
“I think I have been lucky. I have had a good career, played for one of the best football clubs in the world, with some great players and won a lot of titles. I think that is a great honor for me.”
And he has gone from budding starlet to senior player in a captaincy role that always comes with great expectation and responsibility.
It is something that he has taken on and he knows that leadership on and off the pitch will be as important as anything else in Russia.
“I remember when I came into the national team as a young player, a lot of the older players helped me. Now, we have a young team, time has gone so fast and I have to help these guys too.”
Promoted from the Under-20 squad after helping Nigeria to a silver medal and winning the Silver Ball behind Lionel Messi at the FIFA World Youth Championship in 2005, Mikel was named in Nigeria’s squad for the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations and announced himself with a goal and assist after coming on as a substitute.
Already heightened expectations went into overdrive. With midfield legend Austin Okocha (Nigerian former professional footballer) on his last legs, Mikel was immediately installed as the next Jay-Jay.
Mikel, with a more direct, technical skill-set, is the direct opposite of Okocha’s more flair-oriented toolbox, which not only made that characterization unfair, but also spawned that unending debate about (un)fulfilled potential.
And it is. Since being named captain two years ago, Mikel has shown a level of leadership and drive that few believed he had.
Those qualities, both on and off the pitch, contributed in large parts to Nigeria’s uncharacteristically drama-free World Cup qualification campaign.
On the pitch, and unshackled with the freedom to roam handed to him by Rohr, Mikel drove the team forward almost by sheer force of will, with his goals against Algeria and then Cameroon major turning points in Nigeria’s qualification run.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2017/11/29/grounded-super-eagle-wants-fly-next-world-cup/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Grounded Super Eagle Who Wants To Fly To The Next World Cup</a>
Off the pitch, Mikel’s quiet diplomatic approach with officialdom to resolve team issues contrasted with the confrontational methods of the past and helped forge harmony within the squad.
“He is our captain and he is very important for us,” Rohr never tires of saying at every opportunity, clearly delighted to be working with a personality he feels is similar to his own.
Such is the respect Mikel commands within the squad that he is almost like a centrifugal force whenever he is present. And even when he is not, his aura still hovers around the team.
In two recent friendlies against Poland and Serbia in March, there seemed to be a general consensus that the team lacked cohesion without the captain.
In his absence, the Super Eagles struggled to maintain any semblance of fluidity or create opportunities.
Which may be why he almost feels a heavy responsibility to guide this young side, who will have one of the lowest squad average ages, to a good tournament.
But it hasn’t just been words. He has done it already, dipping into his own pocket to pay the team costs as they prepared for the Olympic Games in 2016.
Not many expect Nigeria to go beyond their best previous World Cup outing of the Round of 16. But if there is one thing that Mikel’s career has shown, it is that collecting trophies have become second nature.
His first World Cup tournament ended in a first-round exit, albeit by a drawing of lots. What odds that his last, where Nigeria faced Argentina, Iceland and Croatia, would finish at the other end of the spectrum?
&#8211; By Colin Udoh

FBL-OLY-2016-RIO-HON-NGR

Nigeria’s John Mikel Obi Counts Himself Lucky

Not only is the Football World Cup the most watched sporting event in the world, it is also among the most lucrative. It makes more money than any other sporting spectacle apart from the Olympic Games and attracts more eyeballs than anything else on the small screen.
The 2014 World Cup reached almost half the global population of 7 billion people, according to a report released by FIFA and Kantar Media. In-home television audiences were reported at 3.2 billion people, with the final viewed by a billion people – and everything about the World Cup just keeps super-sizing.
In 2026, 48 teams will compete at the World Cup, 16 more than the current field of 32; 80 matches will be played, 18 more than the current 64; and revenue will skyrocket with FIFA’s early calculations suggesting a more than $700 million hike in profits.
While those eye-popping numbers can be ogled at and analyzed over the next nine years, for this year’s tournament FIFA have continued the trend of increasing the prize money for the World Cup, which has happened for the last five editions. In 2018, rewards have increased by 40%.
A total of $400 million will be shared among the 32 participating teams, with each team set to finish with a minimum of $9.5 million ($1.5 million in preparation fee and $8 million for a group stage exit). The winners will take home $38 million.
That’s a lot of many to dish out for an organization that spent a significant time between May 2015 and February 2016 muddling through a massive corruption scandal, which resulted in 18 people and two corporations being indicted and a complete change of the guard.
Sepp Blatter&#8217;s 17-year reign at FIFA was ended when he was slapped with an eight-year ban (since reduced to six years) for an unethical offering of a cash gift and conflicts of interest. He was replaced in an interim capacity by Cameroon’s Issa Hayatou, who served president of the Confederation of African Football for 29 years and was initially accused of accepting a bribe, a charge he denied. In fact, no-one involved in the scandal was African, though a payment of $10 million from Danny Jordaan – president of the South African Football Association – to FIFA, which was then sent on to Jack Warner, head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association, apparently intended as developmental support, was key in Warner’s downfall. Jordaan escaped unscathed.
Hayatou was never intended to be a long-term appointment and handed over to Gianni Infantino in 2016. At 46 years old, Infantino became the youngest FIFA president since the Second World War, but has yet to properly win the hearts or minds of the football-following public.
A survey endorsed by Transparency International in March last year, 12 months after Infantino took over, revealed that 53% of the 25,000 fans who responded to the questionnaire do not have confidence in FIFA as an organization, while 98% of people claimed to still be concerned about corruption. More tellingly, for the purposes of this story and the tournament that will take place in June, 43% of people disapproved of Russia as hosts for the World Cup.
Some of that sentiment stems from the process of allocating World Cup hosts, which was investigated and shown to be questionable, some of had come from Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine and the third group of nay-sayers would have been those appalled by the history of racism in the Russian game, something that remains of particular concern for African players. Feelings aside, on June 14 the first whistle will blow and the tournament will kick off.
FIFA will hope the flagship event will take some of the focus off a turbulent last few years and pave the way for a more transparent and inclusive future. Here is a complete guide to what the organization is hoping can be forgotten, how the World Cup will be funded and what the African continent can hope to achieve from sport’s greatest showpiece.
<h2>Financial Losses and Forecasts</h2>
The effects of the scandal that dogged FIFA through most of 2015 were largely financial. An article published by The Economist in June 2017, revealed that FIFA lost three times more money in 2016 than in 2015 – $369 million – and were forecasting an even greater deficit in 2017, of $489 million. But in March 2018, FIFA’s annual report revealed losses of only $191.5 million in 2017, leading to the organization declaring itself as having had a “successful year for all key financial parameters”.  Still, FIFA’s reserves, which had been above $1 billion since 2008, dipped.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2015/07/01/fbi-tackles-fifa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The FBI Tackles Fifa</a>
Not all of the loss was due to the scandal; it was also attributed to more funding for members and changes to the accounting system. Legal bills more than doubled, from $20 million in 2015 to $50 million in 2016, and FIFA invested in a museum which cost $190 million, which added to their total costs.
FIFA anticipates a smoother financial road in its next four-year cycle and expects to earn $6.65 billion between 2019 and 2022 inclusive. It also plans to raise payouts to member associations in that time, with each to receive $1.5 million, an increase of $250,000 and FIFA hopes to end the 2022 World Cup with reserves of $1.9 billion.
“I am very pleased to see that Fifa is able to deliver on its promises,” Infantino said. “We had committed to restoring trust in the organization and boosting investments for the development of football worldwide. This is now a reality.”
<h2>Sponsorship</h2>
A major consequence of the corruption scandal was the loss of sponsors, which make up a significant portion of World Cup revenue. Big name companies such as Sony, Emirates, Castrol and Johnson &amp; Johnson opted not to renew their contracts. By June last year, FIFA had only secured 12 sponsors out of 34 for the World Cup and only one of them was Russian, Moscow’s Alfa-Bank. “With one year to go, this situation is unheard of,” Michael Payne, a former marketing chief for the International Olympic Committee told The Economist at the time.
Since then, FIFA have lined up several more firms, many of them Chinese. Wanda, a private-property developer, electronics company HiSense, smartphone maker Vivo, dairy company Mengniu, and electric vehicle firm Yadea, were all signed on by February as Chinese interest in FIFA grows.
“Mengniu is one of the biggest dairy producers in the world and is a strong brand in the Chinese market. Growing the game worldwide is one of our key priorities, and we now have another strong official sponsor in such an important region,” FIFA’s commercial manager Philippe Le Floc’h said when the dairy company signed off.
China’s interest in FIFA is particularly intriguing because of the country’s interest in hosting the World Cup. Chinese president Xi Jinping met with Infantino last June and a statement released by FIFA said Jinping had “expressed his hope, and the dream of many Chinese people, that the country would have the opportunity to host a FIFA Men’s World Cup at some stage in the future.”
Though China has not made any official statements about bidding for a tournament, speculation is high that they are interested in either the 2030 or 2034 edition.
Meanwhile, Qatar Airways have replaced Emirates until 2022, the year in which the World Cup will be held in Qatar.
<h2>Africa’s Big Five </h2>
This year, the continent will be represented by three North African and two West African teams, but current Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) champions Cameroon are not among them. Neither are any teams from the east or south of the continent, which largely stems from the professional experience of players from these regions. North and West African players often gain experience in European leagues, especially France, while players in the east and south are less likely to find deals abroad.
Big things will be expected from the five nations, especially as no African team has progressed beyond the quarterfinals of a World Cup. A final four finish will be considered a major triumph as the continent continues to dream of its first world champions.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2016/02/01/111-years-fifa-not-african/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘For 111 Years Fifa Has Not Had An African’</a>
On paper, Tunisia enter the tournament as the best hope. They are the highest-ranked side of the continent, 23rd overall, and have not been at the World Cup since 2006. They have never got past the group stage but with players like Youssef Msakni, who scored a hat-trick against Guinea during qualification and has netted 14 times in 51 international appearances, that could change. The challenge begins early, with their opening match to be played against England, something coach Nabil Maâloul believes will be a true test of character against players from what he calls “the best league in the world.”
For nostalgic reasons, Senegal may be the team considered most likely to break into the semi-finals. They are still regarded as darlings of Africa after they stole hearts with their surge to the 2002 quarterfinals, in their maiden World Cup. They have not been to the tournament since and may not have made it to this one but for a case of match-fixing in the qualifiers, which allowed them to replay a match against South Africa. Their coach, Aliou Cissé, was the captain in 2002, so he will be coming full circle for this event. Their hopes will rest on Sadio Mane, who was the most expensive African transfer when he was bought by Liverpool for $48.2 million on a five-year deal in 2016.
Morocco are Africa’s third-side, ranked 42nd, and have not been to the World Cup since 1998. Their coach Hervé Renard has overseen two successful AFCON campaigns, with Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015. Morocco’s strength is their defence, after they finished unbeaten during the qualifiers without conceding a single goal. Their captain, Medhi Benatia, is regarded as the most accomplished member of their squad. He plays for Italian giants Juventus and Morocco will need his experience in a tough group that includes Spain and Portugal.
Egypt have been away from the global game longest, having last played in a World Cup in 1990. Since then, everything about Egypt has changed, with the Arab Spring having profound effects on society and sport. The football league was cancelled for two seasons between 2011 and 2013 and the game suffered tremendously. Despite being seven-time AFCON champions, Egypt failed to qualify for the 2012, 2013 and 2015 editions of the tournament and have also never won a World Cup game. Now, they can change that. In their squad is the veteran goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, who is 44 years old and will play in his first World Cup, and 25-year-old Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah, who has been compared to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo recently. He has scored 32 goals in 56 internationals, including five during World Cup qualifying, the joint-highest in the campaign.
Lowest ranked among the African sides at 52nd overall, but perhaps with the highest expectation, is Nigeria, who are making their third successive World Cup appearance and seventh overall. They were the first African team to qualify for the World Cup, a surprise considering they missed out on the last two AFCONs. They have a strong squad which includes John Obi Mikel, a Chelsea stalwart who has since moved to China, Chelsea’s Victor Moses and 21-year-old striker Kelechi Iheanacho, who played for Manchester City before moving to Leicester City. Nigeria have been drawn with Argentina for the fifth time at a World Cup and that will be their key clash on the field. Off the field, Nigeria have long had problems between the players and the football federation surrounding bonuses around World Cups. An agreement on a pay structure was reached late last year.

		<style type="text/css">
			#gallery-1 {
				margin: auto;
			}
			#gallery-1 .gallery-item {
				float: left;
				margin-top: 10px;
				text-align: center;
				width: 33%;
			}
			#gallery-1 img {
				border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;
			}
			#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {
				margin-left: 0;
			}
			/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
		</style>
		<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-35989 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>
			<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>
				<a href='https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/05/02/big-money-big-dreams-africas-chances-at-the-world-cup/attachment/fbl-asia-c1-lekhwiya-nassr/'><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="109" height="150" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GettyImages-465168624-e1525256460666-109x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-35992" /></a>
			</dt>
				<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-35992'>
				Youssef Msakni, Tunisia. Photograph proveded.
				</dd></dl><dl class='gallery-item'>
			<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>
				<a href='https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/05/02/big-money-big-dreams-africas-chances-at-the-world-cup/attachment/senegal-v-zimbabwe-2017-africa-cup-of-nations-group-b/'><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="127" height="150" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2-e1525256488496-127x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-35993" /></a>
			</dt>
				<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-35993'>
				Sadio Mane, Senegal. Photo provided.
				</dd></dl><dl class='gallery-item'>
			<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>
				<a href='https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/05/02/big-money-big-dreams-africas-chances-at-the-world-cup/attachment/nigeria-v-bosnia-herzegovina-group-f-2014-fifa-world-cup-brazil/'><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GettyImages-451006518-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-35991" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GettyImages-451006518-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GettyImages-451006518-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a>
			</dt>
				<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-35991'>
				John Obi Mikel, Nigeria. Photograph provided.
				</dd></dl> <dl class='gallery-item'>
			<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>
				<a href='https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/05/02/big-money-big-dreams-africas-chances-at-the-world-cup/attachment/egypt-v-cameroon-2017-africa-cup-of-nations-final/'><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/4-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-35994" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/4-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/4-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a>
			</dt>
				<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-35994'>
				Essam Kamal Tawfik El-Hadary, Egypt. Photograph provided
				</dd></dl><dl class='gallery-item'>
			<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>
				<a href='https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/05/02/big-money-big-dreams-africas-chances-at-the-world-cup/attachment/medhi-benatia-of-morocco-in-action-during-the/'><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/3-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail" alt="" aria-describedby="gallery-1-35995" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/3-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/3-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></a>
			</dt>
				<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-35995'>
				Medhi Benatia, Morocco. Photograph provided.
				</dd></dl>
			 
		</div>

<h2>Racism </h2>
There is a danger, however, that the performances of Africa’s teams will be affected by the reception they receive in the tournament’s host nation. Russia is the country in which African footballers have faced the most brazen forms of racism. In 2015, anti-discrimination group Fare revealed research of over 100 incidents of racist behavior in Russian football over two seasons and high-profile players, including Ivorian superstar Yaya Touré and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, have complained about being on the receiving end of monkey chants. Touré has even offered his assistance to World Cup organizers to prevent the abuse continuing.
“I have been abused by racism and because those things happened to me, I try to be involved and I want to help those people who don&#8217;t have a voice to control this situation,” Toure said. “For me to defend an African boy in this situation is a blessing. What we are looking to do is to try and stop those idiotic people doing that. We have to be focused and have fair play everywhere.”
Touré’s help has not been taken up but Russia has appointed an anti-racism official Alexei Tolkachev, who admitted to The New York Times in 2015 that as young man, he participated in monkey chants, like many compatriots of the same age. “They do it because it was done before and because they don’t know any better,” he said. While Tolkachev advocated for greater education, he also shrugged off the problem, even though FIFA have indicated they will take it seriously.
Infantino has given referees the power to stop or even abandon matches if discriminatory incidents take place and recent evidence suggest that could well be the case. In January this year, Russian club Spartak Moscow posted a video on Twitter of three of its own Brazilian players, Luiz Adriano, Pedro Rocha and Fernando in training in the United Arab Emirates with the words, “See how chocolates melt in the sun.” The tweet was deleted but not before anti-discrimination group Fare condemned the club for showing, “a shocking level of ignorance.” The players involved, who are all black, later denied that any racism existed in Russian football.
<h2>Kick off </h2>
Despite myriad concerns facing the World Cup, it will go ahead and though there is much to discuss and debate, there is also much to look forward to.
For the first time, video assistant referees will be used at a World Cup, showing a move to embrace technology in decision making. In total, 100,000 jobs have been created and 30,000 volunteers will be used. Russia expects over a million visitors as fans from around the world make their way to the tournament, three million to fill the stadiums and more than three billion to watch on television. The numbers are staggering and only confirm that no matter what happens behind the scenes, the World Cup remains an all-encompassing global spectacle.
Let’s hope Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia make Africa proud.
&#8211; By Firdose Moonda

Football players shooting

Big Money, Big Dreams: Africa’s Chances At The World Cup

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This African proverb is the glue that binds the Saltzman family. It has ushered in fame, fortune and happiness for Lynette and Ivan Saltzman.
This husband and wife duo founded Dis-Chem, one of South Africa’s fastest growing pharmacies. It is a specialist in beauty, health food, sport supplements and health and wellbeing. The company reported an impressive R17.4 billion ($1.46 billion) turnover in its full financial year results for the year ending February 2017, giving it a R30.43 billion ($2.56 billion) market capitalization.
It is big money.
As we meet, it is a clear summer’s day in Greenside, Johannesburg. Clarity has played a big part of Lynette and Ivan’s life. On this day, they feel the warmth of success born of a strong family bond.
“You know Ivan used to stay upstairs when he first moved to Johannesburg to study,” says Lynette as the pair walk into the studio.
Inside, the fan moves sluggishly through the stifling air as the power couple sit for a rare interview.
“I had an inclination towards retail from early age and I’m happy we now employ 15,000 people,” says Ivan with utmost humility.
It is an empire built through passion and love. Four decades later, you can still see it in their eyes whenever they look at each other.
<div id="attachment_35752" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35752" class=" wp-image-35752" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Lynette-Saltzman-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="451" />Lynette Saltzman (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
It all started in a pharmacy class in 1972.
“We were doing a science experiment and he lent me an eraser or something like that and that’s basically how we met. We started dating quite soon thereafter and we got engaged in our final year,” says Lynette.
Once married and working as pharmacists, Ivan says he was frustrated about how things were done at his workplace in Mondeor, south of Johannesburg. He had many ideas of how to make the business more profitable so he made an offer to buy out the owner.
It worked. Lynette left her job to join Ivan in the business. It was time to put their innovative ideas to test.
“We were just anxious to start putting all these new things that weren’t in the shop before. People started coming into this tiny neighborhood shop and they wanted to see what we had. We were always looking for new things, like putting earrings into the shop. The day we unpacked the earrings we had queues of people,” she says.
It marked a breakthrough. According to the Saltzmans, the shop started making profit almost immediately.
Growth was inevitable. Six years later, an opportunity to open another pharmacy in the northern suburbs knocked.
“A lot of people turned down the opportunity to open shops at the newly build centre in Randpark Ridge because of high rentals. We thought this is our opportunity, let’s take it and let’s make it work, which is exactly what we did,” says Ivan.
The answer was discounts on medicine. It was a case of volume over gross profit. It may have been an old theory but it worked. From there they improved their supply chain which gave them reasonable pricing, which they’ve kept to this day.
“We would go to other stores and <a href="https://regrx.com/">check drug prices</a> and then take our prices down. Our customers knew that we were always cheaper. We made sure we had plenty of stock and the concept of a discount pharmacy was born,” says Lynette.
“There was a time when we couldn&#8217;t advertise discounts, so the Dis-Chem could be dispensary chemist or discount chemist, but most people took it as a discount chemist,” says Ivan.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/12/01/bank-on-this-man/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Bank On This Man</a>
To keep expanding, they advertised the business on mass media and continued to innovate.
“When people needed medicine and came to our store, we could sell other things too. We were unique and our stores were always larger than any other pharmacy. And we had the variety in that space. We discounted heavily on medicines and we were competitive on the rest,” he says.
The discounts paid off. The second store expanded about four times within the mall; but not without challenges.
“It was unusual for a retail operation to have a wholesale operation at the same time, so that was a challenge to get wholesale prices,” says Ivan.
There were also unkind comments from people. In those days, most women stayed at home with the children. Lynette says she faced some negativity for being a working mom.
“I used to get comments from people, and a few of them that hurt at that time came from family members. I tried to juggle my time. In the earlier days, I used to try and get home in the afternoons, where I used to do homework or take kids to wherever they had to go to and work at night. Our marriage has come out stronger and our children are closer to us, we are more a family than some of the people that were making the comments about how I should spend my time with my family,” says Lynette.
<div id="attachment_35753" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35753" class=" wp-image-35753" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Ivan-Saltzman-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Ivan Saltzman (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Although some couples may find working together a problem, the Saltzmans made it work.
“Sure you have disagreements, on how to do things and how not to do things, but a strong factor is that we do different things in the business and we were not in the same office. Ivan has the foresight on most things. He can see the possibilities into the future and once the idea grabs me, I can then take it into implementation,” she says.
Ivan says they always move together and Lynette is an innovator in her own right. For example, being the only woman in the family, she built the business’ cosmetics and beauty category.
Lynette says she found that in the early days, although she would have been in charge, people would want to go to Ivan when it was time to sign agreements.
“There is a time when we were in the pharmacy, and I was dispensing and one of the customers said to me, ‘just because you are married to a pharmacist doesn&#8217;t make you a pharmacist’. But now everybody accepts it,” she says.
“In the business side there are assumptions that I’m the boss, but we are both bosses,” says Ivan.
Teamwork has earned them 135 stores and 15,000 employees. It’s a remarkable story considering they started with one store and one employee. They will open 21 stores this year alone.
The company also has stores in Namibia and will be getting into Botswana this year.
“Namibia is different but [also] very similar to South Africa. The consumers are very similar, the supply chain is different, there are different laws and regulations, but it is very busy and competing very well with the South African stores,” says Ivan.
The Saltzmans currently own just over 50% of the group. Dis-Chem has become a major retailer of health products, with annual sales of more than R15 billion ($1.26 billion). In 2016 they listed the company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Its shares opened at R18.50 ($1.50). At the time of going to press, Dis-Chem shares were R35.39 ($2.97).
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2014/05/01/mouse-ate-elephant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: How A Mouse Ate An Elephant</a>
Being on the JSE may have posed some questions when it was found that other listed companies were cooking books.
“We are not worried about our own company, but it is just sad to see, that some companies have misrepresented their assets. I think it taints the country,” says Ivan.
Although they say they haven’t made major mistakes in the business, Ivan says they were, and still are, cautious. He wishes they had expanded faster and earlier. On the other hand, Lynette feels they grew as they were comfortable.
“We expanded as we felt we could cope. We could handle everything properly, do it properly and get it right. So it’s taking us a bit longer to get more stores; it’s a great business. I feel that we&#8217;ve done it the right way,” she says.
The business has had its share of struggles. Lynette remembers some bad days. One of them is an employee strike eight years ago. The striking crowd threw a gas cylinder into one of their shops in Pretoria. The second is when an electrical fault caused a raging inferno in their store in Roodepoort.
“That was absolutely terrible. The whole roof came down. The whole shop was destroyed and it took us a year before we could reopen the store,” says Lynette.
Ivan says those were disasters that happened when the business was strong. They were able to pick up business in surrounding stores.
With all this success, they don’t hesitate to offer advice to young people.
“The basic thing is that, whatever fields anybody wants to go into, they have to have a passion for it, they have to want to do it. If it’s just a job, it’s not going to succeed,” says Lynette.
<div id="attachment_35754" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35754" class=" wp-image-35754" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DisChem-wharehouse-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />One of Dis-Chem&#8217;s warehouses in South Africa (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Ivan says the next boom is artificial intelligence and information technology.
To ensure smooth processes, the company already makes use of technology. A few days after our meeting, we visited the Saltzmans at their head office in Midrand to see the technology at work.
As we walk up the stairs of the 40,000m2 building, many awards hang on the wall. We meet Saul Saltzman, one of Lynette and Ivan’s three sons who takes us on a tour.
The warehouse is semi-automated. Processes are still run by humans with the help of robotic technology.
“It will be impossible to run ourselves without some sort of robotics. I don&#8217;t believe that robots have replaced jobs, it has probably, in our case, created jobs because it enables us to do far bigger volumes and there are always people involved,” says Ivan.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2014/08/01/the-reluctant-pharmacist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Reluctant Pharmacist</a>
The group has three other warehouses around the country. Most of the business comes from Johannesburg, with Cape Town accounting for 25%.
“We have the ethical, beauty and retail departments and the warehouse doesn’t shut down. We work 24 hours a day and seven days a week and there are 2,500 employees in this warehouse. We are always busy and the technology we use helps us with efficiencies,” says Dis-Chem’s Logistics Manager, Brian Sher.
There are machines which wrap 500 pallets in plastic per day and some that help sort 4,000 boxes per hour.
“Because we deal with sensitive things like medicine, we always have pharmacists available and have controls in place to make sure things are done properly. For example, you can find medicines that need to be kept under certain conditions and we also use these technologies to track orders and progress within the warehouse,” says Saul.
Giving back also forms a big part of Dis-Chem’s DNA. In 2006, Lynette founded the Dis-Chem Foundation to help South Africa’s impoverished communities.
“We started a loyalty card program to give back to the customer and the community. We then started the foundation which works closely with registered NGOs who work with orphanages, rehab centers, abandoned babies and old age homes. We also have two mobile clinics in the Western Cape,” says Lynette.
<div id="attachment_35755" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35755" class=" wp-image-35755" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Dis-Chems-food-garden-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Dis-Chem Foundation&#8217;s food garden in South Africa feeds 10,000 people a month (Photo supplied)</div>
She also saw a need for nutrition and in 2013, the foundation decided to use two hectors of vacant land in front of their offices for farming. As we walk through the garden, we pass all types of vegetables, from onions to carrots to spinach. Lynette introduces us to farm manager Lebo Malinga.
“We have 13 farmers working here to make sure we feed 10,000 underprivileged people per month. Now we even have students interested in agriculture visiting us to learn. We even get students studying agriculture in college coming in to test the soil, look into irrigation systems and water catchments,” says Malinga.
As we leave the garden, the sun blazes down from a cloudless azure sky and the heat bounces off the streets creating a mirage of wavering images but Dis-Chem’s future cannot be clearer – brighter than ever.
<h2>How we made it:</h2>
<ol>
<li>Convenience – We made sure to create a shop that offers many things so that it’s convenient for our customers. They can come into our store to get their make-up done or buy medicine or buy healthy food items.</li>
<li>Hiring the right people – Our employees know who we are and we are not inaccessible to anybody. We are still very much a family business. I think our employees feel this loyalty. They see our passion and and they feel the passion and they go all out to help run stores. So having passionate, well-qualified and well-trained staff has helped us.</li>
<li>More for less – Being a discount pharmacy helped because we were always affordable compared to our competitors.</li>
<li>Passion – When you love what you do it becomes easy to grow the business. You have to love your job.</li>
</ol>

TLH_3297

How The Dis-Chem Founders Went From $1,000 To Over A Billion

The New Wave Of Disruptors

Space is virgin territory, yet, for Sir Richard Branson.
But even that, he appears set to conquer commercially with his company Virgin Galactic this year.
One of the greatest business minds on earth, Branson is in the space race.
In a CNN interview mid-February, commenting on South African billionaire Elon Musk’s recent SpaceX test-launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, Branson said: “I was a little bit jealous,” and called Musk’s feat “extraordinary”.
The British tycoon, known for his profound love for adventure and sport, admitted in the interview that Virgin Galactic is hoping to put people in space in the coming months.
He also hints about it on his blog: “The team are working tirelessly, and each flight brings us one step closer to commercial service in New Mexico’s Spaceport America.”
“One of our biggest investments has been the space companies, which we have already invested $1 billion to set up,” he says in FORBES’ 100th anniversary issue in 2017.
And should Branson – worth $5 billion according to FORBES – be one of the first space tourists to look down on earth, he would no doubt marvel at the continent he often visits – Africa.
In his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, launched last year, you find multiple mentions of Africa, and memories and images of the people and places he keeps returning to on the continent.
Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Graça Machel… are revered in these pages.
Branson tells FORBES AFRICA, in an exclusive interview in November last year when in Johannesburg for Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Business is an Adventure’ event, that “almost since the day Nelson Mandela left prison, I got very involved in Africa”.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/11/03/lessons-ideas-100-greatest-living-minds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons And Ideas By The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds</a>
Almost three decades on, he continues to be.
On the continent, Virgin’s biggest presence is in South Africa.
Worldwide, Branson owes his fortune to diverse businesses bearing the Virgin name. The son of a barrister and flight attendant, he started almost 50 years ago with a mail-order record business. He was a school drop-out, but never looked back.
He founded the Virgin Group, which now has interests in mobile telephony, financial services, travel, hospitality, holidays and health, among others.
He created his music label Virgin Records in 1972, signing on artistes such as Mike Oldfield, Janet Jackson, The Rolling Stones and the Spice Girls.
A disruptor in the aviation industry, Branson started Virgin Atlantic in 1984, and the airline has been flying between London Heathrow and South Africa for the last 21 years, and Nigeria for over 16 years.
<div id="attachment_35451" style="width: 330px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35451" class=" wp-image-35451" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-Getty-Images-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="480" />Richard Branson (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images)</div>
In his new book, he says he is often asked the question: “How do you go about becoming a millionaire?” And his answer has been the same: “Start as a billionaire and launch a new airline.” He recounts the first 15 years of Virgin Atlantic as “a topsy-turvy tale of excitement, innovation and survival”.
Branson famously lives on Necker Island, a British Virgin Islands retreat, which, according to FORBES, he bought for $180,000 in 1978. Tutu has been a visitor: there is an endearing 2006 image of Branson planting a kiss on him with the azure sea in the background.
Far from Necker, at the ‘Business is an Adventure’ event in South Africa in November, Branson, the man who never wears ties, is in a pale blue shirt and khaki chinos. He enters, waving his hands in the air simulating the wings of an aeroplane. And on stage, much to the audience’s delight, rips off fellow panelist and Discovery Group CEO Adrian Gore’s tie, saying: “I believe the workplace should be comfortable, it should be relaxing.”
He recounts his entrepreneurial experiences, and pulls out a little black book to note down everything he learns from the people he meets.
“A notebook you can refer back to, especially if people share pearls of wisdom,” he quips.
And he has found enough wisdom in Africa.
Along with British pop musician Peter Gabriel, Branson was instrumental in starting The Elders, formally launched by Mandela in Johannesburg in 2007. An independent group of global leaders working together for peace and human rights, it also includes stalwarts Tutu, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon.
In 2005, the billionaire also started the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in South Africa to “address a critical need for entrepreneurs, at a time when there were few organizations offering free, practical business training and mentoring to start-up businesses”.
The physical center in Johannesburg is now closed as they “review their entrepreneur support strategy”, but has over 12 years supported more than 4,300 entrepreneurs.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/07/01/man-pouring-millions-rich-slice-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Man Pouring Millions Into A Rich Slice Of Africa</a>
Tracey Webster, who headed the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg for almost three years from 2011, vividly recalls her interactions with Branson.
“He is shy and unbelievably humble,” she says. “He is smart about getting everyone else to do the talking – he’s so charming and gracious about giving others the platform; he just has a way in which he promotes people on the ground.”
Webster, who is currently CEO of Enterpriseroom in South Africa, says the most important leadership lesson she received from Branson was “to respect absolutely every single human you came in contact with”.
“He taught me to be a listener rather than a talker,” says Webster, of the shy, introverted man millions look up to.
<div id="attachment_35452" style="width: 410px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35452" class=" wp-image-35452" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-with-Archbishop-Desmond-Tutu-pic-courtesy-The-Elders-300x266.jpg" alt="Richard Branson Archbishop Desmond Tutu The Elders" width="400" height="355" />Richard Branson with Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Picture courtesy of The Elders)</div>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">‘Africans Are Natural Entrepreneurs’</h1>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">In our interview with Sir Richard Branson, we let him do the talking, about his new ventures in Africa, his work for the communities around his businesses, his take on wildlife, and that moment he almost fell off the stage in South Africa.</h4>
You have a special affinity for Africa. Why, and what is on the cards for you on the continent? 
Almost since the day Nelson Mandela left prison, I got very involved in Africa and one of the first things we did was put up a statue to [South Africa&#8217;s anti-apartheid activist] Steve Biko in East London [in South Africa’s Eastern Cape]. That was an incredible event with Nelson Mandela presiding over it. I have told quite a few of these stories in my latest book.
I have done quite a few things with Mandela, and Desmond Tutu, and Graça Michael and Kofi Annan, for things like The Elders and so on.
We are building a mobile phone company or financial services company, [then there’s] Virgin Active, Virgin Insurance…
But I suppose the thing I love the most is the bush. I spend a few days in Ulusaba [the reserve Branson owns], which was voted the best game lodge in Africa last year. And we love working on protecting species and wildlife. We also draw circles around any of our properties and try to help the communities within those circles, so quite a lot of our time and energy is spent on [work], for example, near Ulusaba, we set up quite a big clinic to make sure the people got anti-retroviral drugs, malaria tablets and TB tablets and were helped in other ways. We set up orphanages and small schools and so on.
Around our Virgin Active health clubs, we are doing similar things. Not for companies to draw circles around themselves, but to help the communities within those circles. Hopefully, one day all the circles will join up and most of the problems will be solved.
<div id="attachment_35453" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35453" class=" wp-image-35453" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-with-Nelson-Mandela-on-the-creation-of-The-Elders-pic-courtesy-The-Elders-201x300.jpg" alt="Richard Branson Nelson Mandela The Elders" width="300" height="447" />Richard Branson with Nelson Mandela on the creation of The Elders (Picture courtesy of The Elders)</div>
Your most abiding memory of Mandela?
I was at his funeral and invited by the family to join them by the graveyard. The coffin had been put in. And then I saw one of his grandsons falling into the hole and I thought ‘why is everybody not reacting, everybody just looks very calm about it’ and I saw another grandson jump down in and I assumed he was going to rescue the first one and then another grandson jumped in and I had to turn to somebody on my left and ask, ‘are they okay’ and he said ‘oh, they are just putting personalized gifts on the coffin to send Madiba on his way’. Anyway, I felt pretty foolish after that.
When we did the original Steve Biko statue in East London, there was just myself and Peter Gabriel there who weren’t local. There must have been a 100,000 people in the crowd and Madiba was standing on a small stage with the other main African leaders. He was president at the time, and he made this incredible and impassionate speech trying to unite the country and all the people on stage. The politician in him was coming out as well as the philanthropist he had become and when he finished, I went up on stage and whispered to him and he then gestured Peter forward who then took the microphone from Mandela and sang the song Biko with all the 100,000 in the audience singing along with him. It was the most wonderful moment. And then the crowd rushed to the stage and the whole stage started collapsing and we only just got Mandela and everybody off just in time before the whole thing collapsed.
After all your visits here, what are your lessons for Africa’s youth?
Because of the Branson School of Entrepreneurship, I got to know lots of wonderful young people over the years, and I think Africans are natural entrepreneurs and need help and need encouragement. This morning [November 10], I was at this wonderful center, the GEN 22 On Sloane [a start-up campus in Johannesburg], where they are going to have a few hundred entrepreneurs working there and in fact, [we] may end up doing something there as well.
We spend a lot of time encouraging entrepreneurship in the UK as well and managed to encourage the government to start something – start-up loans – which is loans to help budding businesspeople. Britain is the only country doing it. And what we are trying to do is to encourage Africa to do the same thing&#8230; The other thing the government could do is to get out of business completely themselves, as best they can, and break up any businesses the government is doing into small units and get entrepreneurs to run them. And I think governments have got to encourage competition… and the most important role governments can play is break up monopolies in order to enable thousands and thousands of new jobs to be created by new businesses being started.
The fourth industrial revolution, AI, robotics… where do you see Africa headed? Do you have any investments in these sectors?
One area of AI that we are working with in Africa is with a wonderful foundation and they are trying to get 50,000 women in African villages to have an iPad each; they are not trained as doctors or fully-trained as nurses, but using that iPad, through the fact that thousands and thousands of women have used this iPad and every time they make an answer, it gets better and better and better, they can actually act almost as good as a doctor or a nurse by just asking questions and getting answers and then prescribing malaria tablets, or TB tablets, and even anti-retroviral drugs and so on. Obviously, with serious cases, they’ll refer them to a surgeon or doctor, but again, the tablet will show that. So that actually will create 50,000 jobs and definitely save a lot of lives.
If it works, it will cost about a dollar a person, for a pretty good health service. And that should be happening, they have already trained up to 7,000 and the idea is to go up to 50,000.
You own a wine estate in Cape Town, is that something you see your future in? 
Well, we need to be able to party as well and relax after all the hard work. We found Mont Rochelle and fell in love with it three or four years ago and felt we could turn it into one of the best vineyards in Africa. I think the team have done a great job and of course a lot of people who get to the bush want to come down to the Cape as well, so it’s nice they can stay in the Virgin family.
You started your entrepreneurial journey at the age of 16, any advice for innovators that young?
One of my books is called Screw It, Let’s Do It and I would just say follow that philosophy and give it a go. If you fall flat on your face, beat yourself up and do it again until you succeed.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: FORBES&#8217; Profile On Richard Branson</a>
<div id="attachment_35449" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35449" class=" wp-image-35449" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Richard-Branson-on-stage-with-Adrian-Gore-at-the-Business-is-an-Adventure-event-in-Johannesburg-in-2017-pic-supplied-e1519893950896-300x179.jpg" alt="Richard Branson Adrian Gore" width="501" height="299" />Richard Branson on stage with Discovery CEO Adrian Gore at the Business is an Adventure event in Johannesburg in 2017 (Picture supplied)</div>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Branson’s Ventures in sub-Saharan Africa</h1>
<ul>
<li>The Virgin Group operates 140 Virgin Active health clubs across southern Africa. More recently, it opened its first club in Botswana and a second in Namibia, a strong indication of the growth potential that exists in Africa for the group.</li>
<li>Virgin Active’s presence in South Africa came about following a request by Nelson Mandela to Richard Branson, asking him to help save the country’s Health &amp; Racquet Club chain, which was about to collapse. This resulted in Virgin acquiring the 76 Health &amp; Racquet Clubs in South Africa.</li>
<li>In South Africa’s Western Cape province, in the wine town of Franschhoek, Branson owns Mont Rochelle, a luxe hotel and vineyard an hour’s drive from Cape Town.</li>
<li>Mahali Mzuri is Branson’s safari lodge in Kenya, positioned within the Maasai Mara ecosystem.</li>
<li>The Virgin Limited Edition’s Ulusaba private game reserve in South Africa supports the local communities through a not-for-profit called Pride ’n Purpose, focusing on sustainable development initiatives and improving access to food, water and health services.</li>
<li>Elsewhere in Africa, projects include an investment in M-Kopa, focused on solar power in East Africa and primarily Kenya, helping families gain access to energy using solar technology at affordable prices.</li>
<li>In the financial services sector,Virgin Money has just launched a peer-to-peer payment service called Virgin Money Spot. The app allows customers to send money to friends in a simple, safe and social way.</li>
<li>The Virgin Group has recently invested in South African mobile software firm wiGroup.</li>
<li>Virgin has initiatives called Living Goods and Last Mile Health, aiming to have just under 50,000 digitally empowered community health workers across sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2021, reaching a total of 34.3 million people. This will be through a mixture of digital devices, including iPads.</li>
</ul>

The Shy Billionaire In Space

African Billionaire Fortunes Rise

Uganda’s First Lady: ‘Write Your Own Story’

There is something about first impressions.
When you meet Diana Kamuntu, two things instantly strike you about her: that she is tall – very tall – and that she would probably pass off as more movie star than manager.
Half an hour into meeting with the 37-year-old Ugandan entrepreneur and mother of three running a tour company in Kampala, facts emerge that she has been a business woman for the last decade, and that is as an elephant conservationist – who would have thought?
The youngest daughter of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni plays it down.
“In the beginning, I was more on the tourism side but in the last few years, that’s when I went more into conservation, especially of the African elephant,” she says.
“I don’t think we as Ugandans know that much about it and knowing that it’s an issue that affects the whole continent.”
Her company, Age Safaris, is in the building we are in now, in the Luzira suburb of Kampala. By the reception to her offices is a giant carpet with the image of the President, hung on the wall.
How does she blend business with conservation, we ask.
“What I have learned over the years is that business is about people, it’s about the networking. The people you meet, the people you work with, is what makes a business, they become an extended family. For tourism in particular, I think it’s a great industry because it goes right down to the people. It trickles down to the communities, and changes whole communities,” says Kamuntu.
This she admits to learning from her parents.
“I guess for me the greatest thing I learned from my parents is their love for people. It’s what drives them, what keeps them going for work and being in touch with ordinary people. Many times, I have been with my father upcountry and he’ll stop the car to talk to people and ask them how their day is and how their families are. That will always remain with me. The greatest lesson in life is people.”
Her company works with an organization called Restoration Gateway that supports children and the vulnerable in northern Uganda.
But talk still veers to the African tusker.
“Here in Uganda, our African elephant population is steadily growing, it’s about 5,000 now. That’s not enough but it came from about 2,000 in the 1980s – it’s small but at least it’s not declining… During the war, many of the elephants migrated to the Congo but now they are slowly coming back and we are repopulating but in different parts of Africa, it’s mostly poaching, so the efforts are to try and stop that poaching and stop the market for ivory.”
The mountain gorilla, found in these parts, is even more endangered.
“Efforts mostly are about bringing awareness to everyone who visits that there are only about 750 to 800 mountain gorillas left in the world and more than half of them are in Uganda.”
<div id="attachment_34780" style="width: 311px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34780" class=" wp-image-34780" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Diana-Kamuntu-1-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="301" height="452" />Diana Kamuntu (Photo by Lovington Kambugu/Blush Media)</div>
Kamuntu’s travels take her far. Her husband Geoffrey is into the logistics business, and with children aged 12, 10 and eight, she says it’s hard work but certainly not as demanding as the early years when she had to “travel for exhibitions and business development”.
“The children are your priority and at the same time, you want to contribute. It’s a big challenge especially for women. Starting a business is not easy, as investment capital is hard to come by even though there are many microfinance projects targeting women. I think those are the biggest challenges that I’ve seen,” she says.
Kamuntu recounts her own career trajectory. She studied African History at the University of Minnesota in the United States.
“My father always made fun of me saying, ‘you went all the way to the States to study that’,” she laughs.
“Back in Uganda, for a bit I was [cattle] ranching with my father. Everyone knows he loves his cows – it’s our culture, the backbone of who we are. Then I started to venture into business. I would travel to many tourism destinations and see the number of tourists and think ‘you know if Uganda was discovered as a tourist destination, it would sell’. The more I went into it, the more I discovered what a unique country it is.”
Until the age of six, Kamuntu was in exile with the family. Her earliest memories are of winters in Sweden.
“And we spoke fluent Swedish,” she smiles.
“I guess as kids we didn’t know the struggles my mother was going through trying to raise four kids on her own. For us, it was a happy time really, but I guess there was always someone missing – my father, but his presence was always looming. I remember when my sisters and brother would want me to do something, they would say ‘daddy is coming today’, and then I would get up because I never really met him until I was six years old when we came back to Uganda and were reunited… That’s when I really got to know him.
“Both my parents are amazing. I think my father tried to make up for that time lost, so he would spoil us, especially the girls. He was always encouraging us to follow our dreams and dream big. Whatever he felt or you felt as a person was your calling, he would support you.”
Like both her parents, would she ever enter politics?
Kamuntu shakes her head. “I don’t aspire to be in politics… It’s a lot of sacrifice.”
It’s clear her heart is in many other things.
“Ugandans are very creative as a people so that’s our untapped potential,” she says.
It’s only when we meet her sister Natasha Karugire the following day and she mentions that she has cast Kamuntu as the leading lady of the movie, 27 Guns, she is currently filming that we know.
What was it again about first impressions?

‘The Greatest Lesson In Life Is People’

We are in one of the breakaway rooms of the conference center at the five-star Kampala Serena Hotel in Uganda, but the conversation is about Luweero, located two hours by road from Kampala.
Natasha Karugire, the eldest daughter of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, speaks breathlessly, her thoughts coming thick and fast, as she moves from one staccato sentence to another.
She is talking animatedly about the feature film, 27 Guns, she is currently making on Uganda’s ‘Bush War’, and 1981, when the young Museveni went into hiding as part of the National Resistance Army (NRA).
“He and 42 other men had only 27 guns between them, but what they had was faith and hope and fire,” says the 41-year-old mother of four, who started out as a fashion designer and has now scripted the film and is directing it. It is expected to premiere in February. When we meet her in September, she has been filming for two weeks, with an all-Ugandan crew and cast.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/12/12/ugandas-first-lady-write-story/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Uganda&#8217;s First Lady: &#8216;Write Your Own Story&#8217;</a>
Karugire’s creative energy is palpable as she speaks passionately about the project that has seen her literally live in the bush in Luweero, re-enacting the guerrilla war in which her father played a lead role. The NRA was based in different parts of Luweero for five years.
“It’s time we tell our own stories, and not wait for someone to come and tell it in a different voice, from a skewed perspective,” she says of the reason she started her film production company Isaiah 60 in March 2017.
“We have epic tales in Africa, and for us starting with Uganda, we have just such big stories… But you know the saddest thing for me is that our own citizens, a lot of the time, are unaware.”
She laments the tendency among the young to endorse the Western narrative.
“Whenever a story is being told by Hollywood about Africa, it’s so generic, there is a way that it’s told, the song that is played… And in your heart, you are feeling this is just not us, we are not only about this, there is so much more to the people of Africa… I think this film is our way of saying, ‘this is how we say it’.”
<div id="attachment_34773" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34773" class="wp-image-34773" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/27-Guns-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />A scene from Natasha Karugire&#8217;s film, 27 Guns (Photo supplied)</div>
Growing up, Karugire says she was always artistic. “I draw, I sketch, take pictures and write poetry.”
At university, she studied fashion, design and marketing. She was barely 22, when she started her own business in Uganda’s non-existent fashion industry. She struggled.
“I started out in Uganda, when fashion was not understood,” she says simply. She got married at 24, and started a family. Her eldest child is now 16 and youngest five.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/12/12/connected-to-her-land/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Connected To Her Land</a>
Her husband Edwin, a lawyer, supported her “strange artistic journeys”.
But throughout her stint in the fashion business, Karugire kept asking herself if she was doing something she was passionate about and that kept her up at night.
“Almost the day I turned 40, something just happened,” says Karugire of her epiphany, that she should make a film about the struggle. Up until then, she had been putting together video clips, culled from old footage, for friends and family who loved them.
“I started reading my father’s books and I prayed, because we are Christians, my first point of call always is to ask God, that’s when I started writing a script for the first time,” she says.
“I realized I could not go to bed, I could not talk about anything else , and that’s when it hit me that this is my passion.”
Soon, Karugire met a producer in England, but “she was patronizing about the story”, saying it would probably be good for Ugandans and the region but not the international market.
Determined, she pressed on and started filming.
“It has such been a walk, quite a journey on so many levels , but right now, our faith is reaffirmed,” she says.
Funding for the film, she says, has come from people who believe in the story.
“But we are still looking for investors,” she tells us at the interview.
In the film, Karugire’s youngest sister, Diana Kamuntu, plays the role of the First Lady.
Talent, it seems, runs in the family.

‘It’s Time We Tell Our Own Stories’

It’s not every day one gets to meet a First Daughter, in the living room of the official residence of an African President.
At the Nakasero State House in Uganda, Patience Rwabwogo is a picture of calm, like the verdant surroundings around her.
An entrepreneur since the age of 23, she operates out of her offices in Luzira, a suburb in Kampala.
“I never thought I would go into business,” begins Rwabwogo.
“When I went to school in the US, I studied Political Science and Development Studies. When I came home, my parents advised and encouraged me to start a business to learn to be independent, and know the ins and outs of the business world.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/12/12/ugandas-first-lady-write-story/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Uganda&#8217;s First Lady: &#8216;Write Your Own Story&#8217;</a>
The only boss she had was herself.
“I have always been self-employed and that’s the only world I know. You never go home and say the boss is going to deal with the problem; you are the one who takes all the responsibility.”
She started in commodity trade, buying food produce, selling it and also exporting and selling to local markets. Was being a First Daughter ever an advantage in business?
“It was a disadvantage at times because people don’t really take you seriously, they think you are sort of privileged, that you don’t really need to do this and that was the farthest thing from the truth,” says the mother of four.
“We’ve always learned from when we were young that you make your own way in life and should be valued on your merit.”
Rwabwogo works with her husband Odrek and is primarily into agriculture.
“We have a farm and process dairy products, we sell to the local market in Uganda, and are looking at exporting to the regions.”
Rwabwogo is close to her siblings and says her memories of life in exile, during Uganda’s long drawn-out civil war, are “scant”.
“When you are a child, you don’t look at the big questions in life. We were content and happy.”
Today, her message to young Africans is to stay connected to agriculture, and their land.
“What is important is the connection with the land. Agriculture is easy for Africans to relate to, it’s so very close to our culture… Our identity as Africans is so connected to the land, so our land has to produce for us, be it livestock or crops. It has to be commercially viable, that is the source of our wealth.”
In addition to her business, Rwabwogo also spends “a huge amount of time” serving as a pastor in a church in Kampala.
“That was my own journey,” she says, and you know it is a calling she truly enjoys.

Connected To Her Land

Bank On This Man

Lessons And Ideas By The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds

Oprah Keeping The Promise Made To Mandela

Twenty eight million. That’s the number of people in Africa who will die from cardiovascular illness, diabetes, and other non-communicable diseases, according to the World Health Organization. That’s 46% of all deaths in Africa by 2030. Half of these deaths, according to a 2017 article in the BMC Public Health journal, are because hospitals aren’t good enough.
“Large numbers of our people continue to die prematurely and to suffer unnecessarily from poor health. Treatable conditions are not being treated on time and preventable diseases are not being prevented,” says South Africa’s Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on his department’s website.
It is because times are tough in South Africa. Gross domestic product growth was -0.7% in the first quarter of 2017, while unemployment increased to 27.7%. Medical aid is expensive. It costs about R4,500 ($340) a month, on average, for a family of four. That is almost half of South Africa’s average salary of R10,680  ($815) per month, according to BankservAfrica. It means a mere eight million people, out of 55 million, can afford cover.
To make matters worse, last year, 16 of the top 20 medical aid schemes had to reach into investment funds to stay afloat. It also meant that, this year, scheme members received price increases, on their cover, far higher than consumer price inflation.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/10/02/suffering-waiting-wrong-side-divide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Suffering And Waiting On The Wrong Side Of The Divide</a>
It is so bad the South African government wants to start National Health Insurance (NHI), the first step to free healthcare for all, by 2025, bankrolled by the tax payer.
The NHI White Paper says the money that people pay for private health should be directed to funding the NHI. According to Paula Armstrong, an economist at Econex, an economic consulting firm, even though medical schemes received about R18.5 billion ($1.4 billion) from a medical scheme tax credit, in 2014/15, redirecting some of this money won’t be enough and it is the poor who are likely to suffer.
“The removal of medical scheme tax credits will affect poorer medical scheme beneficiaries disproportionately. In total, 21.86% (1.9 million in 2016) of medical scheme beneficiaries will move above the affordability threshold with the removal of tax credits. The disproportionate effect on relatively poorer households will need to be considered when evaluating the rationale for removing medical scheme tax credits to help fund the NHI,” she says.
Some medical aid schemes are suffering anyway. Between 2000 and 2015, according to Alexander Forbes, the number of medical aid schemes reduced from 144 to 83. If government presses ahead with free health, they are going to lose out even more.
“I see small schemes consolidating and move into larger risk pools… Bigger pools provide bigger sustainability and that’s where I think we will see smaller schemes suffering, going forward,” says Gerhard Van Emmenis, Principal Officer of South Africa’s second largest open medical scheme, Bonitas Medical Fund.
The big question is how many of these medical aid schemes will survive.
“We do believe, at Bonitas, that we should have both, private medical schemes and NHI. You can’t just destroy or dismantle national assets like medical schemes that have proven over the years that they can contribute to the healthcare industry,” says Van Emmenis.
According to the White Paper, NHI will tackle the most needy first. That is healthcare at schools, childhood cancer, women&#8217;s health, the elderly and the disabled. Most of the people will have to wait.
“For NHI to be a success, collaboration between medical schemes and government is essential. There needs to be agreement on the roles of both players as well as which benefits will be covered by the NHI and which can be offered by the medical schemes.”
<div id="attachment_33740" style="width: 506px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33740" class=" wp-image-33740" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Gerhard-Van-Emmenis-Bonitas-e1506931303492-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="496" height="329" />Gerhard Van Emmenis, the Principal Officer of Bonitas. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
According to Van Emmenis, specific conditions, such as mental and dental, may not be fully covered by NHI. This is the gap where private schemes could find business. Van Emmenis says medical aid schemes should find a way to work with government, instead of fighting it.
“Primary healthcare might be accessible to everyone, but then there’ll always be a complementary environment with dental benefits and a lot of other things, which is not necessarily life threatening but can improve the quality of your life. You may need packages that will attend to stress, for instance… That’s where we are going to play a part in the future,” he says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/10/02/healthcare-got-available-everybody/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Healthcare Has Got To Be Available To Everybody </a>
The problem is, there is no clarity on whether people will be allowed to belong to a private medical aid scheme in the future of free health. To make it worse, the cost of the NHI is likely to be heavy, according to Econex. It is expected to increase healthcare costs from R121 billion ($9.2 billion) for the 2015/2016 fiscal year to R256 billion ($19.5 billion) for the 2025/2026 fiscal year. The government argues it is not going to be expensive but Econex says the annual health budget is likely to increase by R200 billion ($15 billion), and not the R108 billion ($8.2 billion) stipulated in the White Paper.
NHI not only faces money problems but also has scarcity at hospitals and a blundering bureaucracy. To add to that, it would use a standard price list that may be cheaper for patients but, in the long term, less rewarding for doctors. Doctors could work longer days for less money and could look outside Africa for work.
“You’d get an orthopaedic surgeon that only works on hands and is a specialist in that… That guy will detect what sort of charges he’ll charge for his services. You can’t just take it away and decide to pay all orthopaedic surgeons the same money. I can promise you which one will be on the first plane leaving the country, it will be the guy who’s a specialist. If a doctor leaves this country today, it takes us at least seven years to replace that doctor,” says Van Emmenis.
The private hospitals that are left will also suffer.
The 2014 National Income Dynamics Study, by the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, surveyed 28,000 people in 7,300 households and found that 41.5% of them used private healthcare in their last medical visit.
“The reality is that many people use a combination of both sectors. It means the number of people with medical aid does not equate to the number of people using the private health sector. The converse is also true with some medical scheme members using public hospitals or state clinical protocols for the treatment of specific conditions such as tuberculosis,” says Van Emmenis.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/10/02/surgery-safaris-facelift-africa-needs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Surgery Safaris &#8211; The Facelift Africa Needs</a>
Van Emmenis says Bonitas is in favor of healthcare being cheaper and wider, but wants more consultation.
Matthew Prior, Funder Relations and Health Policy Executive at hospital group, Life Healthcare, concurs.
“Until the NHI benefit structure has been defined it is difficult to say what the impact will be. In addition, the role of private medical schemes is couched in vague terms, as the benefits that will be offered by the NHI have yet to be determined,” he says.
Life Healthcare had about 600,000 admissions, in 2016 alone, excluding outpatient and emergencies, and 95% of those were patients covered by a medical scheme. Prior says Life Healthcare agrees with the fundamental objective of the NHI but much depends on how it is implemented. He says improving the nation’s health, by addressing the challenges within the healthcare sector, is a massive undertaking and a responsibility that government should not shoulder alone.
“Although the White Paper mentions shortage of staffing, there does not appear to be a coherent plan to increase supply of medical professionals to meet NHI demands. A massive re-organization of the entire healthcare system, where there is an acknowledged shortage of management skills, places any fundamental change to the healthcare system at risk,” he says.
Prior says it is also not accurate to assume that by changing the financing structure and directing more money to the public sector will, on its own, improve the delivery of quality healthcare to all South Africans.
“The key issues around healthcare resources, management skills and leadership must be properly addressed. Recruitment of doctors on contract from foreign countries is a necessary measure in the short-term but it does not build long-term, sustainable capacity in the country,” he says.
Making matters more complicated, research by Econex shows that removing medical aid tax credits will make medical aid schemes too expensive for one in five.
“Members leaving private healthcare will place additional burden on an already overburdened public sector. One would also need to carefully monitor whether organized labor will accept the impact of the tax credit removal on net income,” says Prior.
If history is anything to go by, this is not the end for medical aid companies. About 10 years ago, South Africa introduced the Government Employees Medical Scheme. It got many worried, but some private medical aid companies, like Bonitas, grow regardless.
“Bonitas had 85,000 members that belonged to government that had to go to GEMS. We had about 216,000 members and everybody thought Bonitas was going down, but today we have about 350,000 members… So with the possibility of NHI, we have shifted our emphasis and visions to developing products that can and will be complementary,” says Van Emmenis.
Private money is likely to survive the biggest shake-up in Africa’s health system, whatever the weather.

Batten Down The Hatches

If you have got hard currency, you can afford to come to Africa to look good or feel better for less. Fourteen million people, spending between $3,800 and $6,000 per visit, are travelling the world looking for medical treatment with a beach holiday.
It&#8217;s a market estimated to be worth between $45 billion and $72 billion, and South Africa is sitting at the top table, according to Patients Beyond Borders (PBB), a US-based firm that has given medical tourism advice for a decade. The country has the advantage of good hospitals, English speaking doctors and breathtaking landscapes.
They call it medical tourism and it&#8217;s growing among the wealthy and not-so-wealthy. Even those who don&#8217;t have so much money are heading to hospitals in countries like South Africa where their hard currency makes it cheaper and also helps them escape hospital waiting lists in their own land.
Even in these hard times, PBB expects this multi-billion-dollar industry to increase by up to 25% per year over the next 10 years.
One entrepreneur who is banking on this is Cape Town-based Faith Cartwright, who founded Medical Tourism SA three-and-a-half years ago. Cartwright, a hospitality and guesthouse owner, noticed many of her guests were in South Africa for medical procedures.
&#8220;Who wouldn&#8217;t pay if they knew that they had to go through two years of pain waiting for a knee operation? Imagine you have decided you want children and you are told you can&#8217;t go through fertility treatment because you are 39 and cannot get an appointment,&#8221; says Cartwright.
&#8220;I thought ‘what if medical tourists like these could be given access to private medical care, have their accommodation and travel needs taken care of, and plan safaris and other tourist excursions, all through the same service provider?’&#8221;
Sitting by the harbor at the V&amp;A Waterfront, a popular tourist destination in Cape Town, it is easy to see why many decide to find a hospital bed here. Above us are the stunning peaks of Table Mountain and just down the road you can book a tour to see a great white shark, helicopter rides or pirate cruises. All this to the sound of seals, seagulls and many languages, as wealthy tourists from around the world stroll by with their bulging shopping bags.
<div id="attachment_33732" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33732" class=" wp-image-33732" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/FaithCartwright-Medical-Tourism-e1506930410225-300x165.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="275" />Faith Cartwright, the founder of Medical Tourism SA. (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
Cartwright has as many customers as there are tourists on this street on this morning.
&#8220;It&#8217;s the reason why I&#8217;m so busy. Just this morning I was facilitating 65 women from Botswana to meet a doctor in Johannesburg at a fertility clinic. Sometimes you do get a good feeling about the work. But it can also be hard work and frustrating. It is rewarding when you know you are helping someone who has been struggling for years to get pregnant,&#8221; says Cartwright.
&#8220;Fertility is a big thing here. We get a lot of it from all over the world, but in Africa, there is a particular stigma that if you can&#8217;t get pregnant, you can be kicked out of your community. I also see a lot of requests for bone marrow transplants and women looking to slim themselves with gastric bypass surgery.&#8221;
It&#8217;s the start of the high tourist season in Cape Town and Cartwright is on call 24/7. For this 48-year-old mother, her time needs to be managed down to the minute.
&#8220;Thanks to the weakness of the rand, hundreds of medical procedures are available at a comparatively low cost, with most surgeries coming in at roughly a third of the price for an equivalent procedure in the UK. Affordable breast augmentation, for example, costs around $8,000 in the UK, but only about $3,600 in South Africa. More minor treatments, such as botox injections, can be even cheaper – $310 in the UK versus $70 in South Africa,&#8221; says Cartwright.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/10/02/suffering-waiting-wrong-side-divide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Suffering And Waiting On the Wrong Side Of The Divide</a>
It is not just the rich and famous that makes these journeys either. Cartwright has seen hundreds of clients from all walks of life.
&#8220;Our clients range from the ones who can afford to be pampered to those who can barely afford it. We&#8217;ve had people staying in Cape Town eating [maize meal] for 21 days straight, because that is all they could afford over their IVF (in vitro fertilization) treatment; they were so desperate to have a child,&#8221; she says.
&#8220;I had a woman come from Australia who failed 17 rounds of IVF and South Africa was her last option. She now has a daughter and came back to South Africa to try for a second.&#8221;
Using US prices as a reference, across a variety of specialties, PBB estimates South Africa to be 25% to 40% cheaper.
“Most nations in Africa continue to struggle to build out their healthcare infrastructure and are thus not yet suitable for the contemporary international medical traveler. South Africa (particularly Cape Town and Johannesburg), are exceptions, offering an array of medical care for regional and long-haul travelers, including cosmetic surgery, cardiology, dental care, joint and spine work, and ophthalmology,” says Josef Woodman, CEO of PBB.
It is not all rainbows and butterflies. Business isn’t helped by the lack of efficiency when crossing borders.
Cartwright tells of a US couple, a husband (the sperm donor) and wife, looking to come to South Africa for IVF treatment. It meant both needed to apply for South African visas. There was an error in the husband&#8217;s application, and, because of new visa regulations that required applications in person at a South African embassy, it meant he had to fly to the South Africa embassy twice. By the time they entered their application correctly he missed their window. The wife had to come to South Africa alone, and they had to find another sperm donor.
&#8220;As she was walking off the plane I asked her where her husband was. It was only then that she told me their story. Not only was it a huge waste of money for two flights to the South African embassy, but they lost out on their flight tickets and reservations in South Africa, which need to be paid for in advance before applying for your visa,&#8221; says Cartwright.
&#8220;This is where the medical tourism industry can help, resolving issues when you hit a brick wall. I would have been able to help them both get here. The process of IVF is incredibly stressful without worrying about the technicalities of international travel,&#8221; says Cartwright.
Another challenge is putting Africa on the map. Many patients know little about the country they are visiting and often make the mistake of booking doctors in Johannesburg with their accommodation in Cape Town, 1,500 kilometers away.
&#8220;Abroad, people still think we&#8217;ve got lions and elephants in our backyards. It&#8217;s very seldom I hear a good story about South Africa. Most of the things people know are about our crime, our president and that we have no water in Cape Town.&#8221;
&#8220;We need to tell the good story. South Africa is an amazing place. It&#8217;s got first-class treatment. What really stands out is that we are English speaking. It&#8217;s a calling point and a huge thing. Imagine when you go to a country like Thailand and you can&#8217;t read the road signs. Now imagine trying to be a patient there who needs medical treatment.&#8221;
While the costs for those traveling into Africa may seem affordable, it is a different story for those living in it. In South Africa&#8217;s case, the recently tabled White Paper on National Health Insurance (NHI) wants to give medical aid to all South Africans to make healthcare accessible to the poor. Its implementation has been hotly contested.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/10/02/healthcare-got-available-everybody/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: &#8216;Healthcare Has Got To Be Available To Everybody&#8217; </a>
Many fear this will be the tipping point that brings the country&#8217;s health system to its knees and results in qualified doctors emigrating. The uncertainty surrounding the impact of the NHI on the private sector, and other compounding issues like an overburdened public healthcare system, could be why medical tourists choose not to come to South Africa.
&#8220;There are a huge amount of doctors in South Africa. The NHI only affects South Africans and not my clientele. In fact, I think it will encourage more doctors to work in the [medical tourism] industry.&#8221;
&#8220;The healthcare industry needs to look at more innovative ways of looking after its patients. I get calls from lots of South Africans trying to get help [with surgeries]; most don&#8217;t even know where to find a good doctor. Most South Africans can&#8217;t afford to go overseas and pay for a surgery. My uncle died of a brain tumor while he was waiting for a date to operate,&#8221; says Cartwright.
Ultimately, the success of medical tourism will depend on exchange rates, prices, quality of medical care and hospitality services on offer to tourists. Even Cartwright is keeping an eye out for opportunities elsewhere.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been thinking seriously of emigrating to the United Kingdom and setting up base there. My plan would be to fly down to South Africa once a month and check up on the base here. Working from South Africa is too far away. Moving to the UK is quite a good move for the business. It’s central, with access to clients from Europe and America. It&#8217;s an hour&#8217;s flight to many of the medical conventions and conferences, which are great places to network. It&#8217;s also a good idea because there has been a rise in wellness travel, doing yoga retreats and all that. It’s taking off in the UK and Europe and I&#8217;d like to get in on this wave. South Africa would be an awesome destination for wellness tourism.&#8221;
Cartwright remains optimistic. She believes that medical tourism can offer a window of opportunity for doctors who still want to work in the private sector.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve found the Tanzanians to be the most sincere and humble. I&#8217;ve found that Nigerians, if you look after them, they will become part of your family for life. The people come and go. I try not to remember their names because I am so afraid of breaking their confidentially. But when they leave, we become a huge part of their lives.&#8221;
For Cartwright there is no time to stop, relax and watch the waves. She leaves the Waterfront with a phone to her ear, as usual, talking to her next medical tourist with money to spend.
<h3>Golden Oldies</h3>
A 2014 study by VISA  found the United States to be the largest hub for medical tourism. Thailand, Singapore, Germany, Korea, and Spain are quickly catching up.
Their data showed by 2025, travelers over the age of 65 will more than double their international travel to 180 million trips, accounting for one in eight international trips globally. Older travelers can afford bigger trips and are more focused on comfort and health than saving money.
The ageing traveler will transform travel and one area that is already growing in response is the medical tourism industry as more travelers opt to combine medical treatments with vacation.
&#8220;We believe that medical tourism is primed for accelerated growth as more of these older travelers seek new treatments, as well as lower-cost or higher-quality care not available in their home country,&#8221; the report concludes. &#8211; SOURCE: Mapping the Future of Global Travel and Tourism (2014) VISA

Category: Cover Story

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

More from Cover Story