Forty-five years later and now among Africa’s 30 richest people with a net worth to match–he is worth more than $545-million–Raymond Ackerman still bears the scars from the worst day of his life. The day still gnaws at his mind, fresh, like it happened yesterday. It has driven and defined his life.
“It was a Monday morning in 1966,” Ackerman, now 80, recalls. “Norman Herber, the chairman, called me in and just said you are out.”
The least Ackerman thought he deserved was an explanation. Certainly, for someone who had served the company with distinction, for the previous 15 years–at least as far as he was concerned. He had joined the retail group, Greatermans, as a 20-year-old trainee, rising through the ranks to become MD of its struggling groceries division, Checkers. He had built the besieged subsidiary from three stores to 85 by the day of his firing.
<div id="attachment_827" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-827" class="size-large wp-image-827" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AV_00020165-766x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="634" />SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; Date unknown: Pick &#8216;n Pay Chairman, Raymond Ackerman (Photo by Gallo Images/Sunday Times)</div>
To Ackerman’s shock and horror, Herber was in no mood to explain, nor did he seem to think he owed anybody anything, least of all his underling.
“I said Norman, what went wrong? He wouldn’t explain. He just said ‘Raymond, I know we are close. But from today, you are out.’”
With his last paycheck, off went Ackerman to his wife, Wendy, who was at the time heavily pregnant with their fourth and last child. Although equally devastated, she would give her husband the best advice he ever got.
“Raymond, this is the best chance of your life–open your own business.”
But where was the capital going to come from?
As Ackerman pondered the question, he remembered an American businessman he had met during the time he was learning the ropes at Checkers. He had told him: “Business is 90% guts and 10% capital.”
For the next few months Ackerman and an accountant friend would go around speaking to a wide range of potential investors trying to convince them to buy into their business idea. About 40 backers would line up and the following year, 1967, a new retail group, Pick ’n Pay, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Ackerman and company would start out by buying four small Cape Town stores, laying the foundations for what is today a US$6.76-billion turnover company.
Pick ’n Pay is now South Africa’s second largest food, general merchandise and clothing chain. The group boasts 775 stores, mainly in South Africa but also in neighboring countries: Botswana; Zimbabwe; Zambia; Mozambique; Namibia and Swaziland. The company is also in Mauritius. According to the latest annual report, 100 more stores are due to open over the next financial year. The company employs more than 38,000 people.
With that kind of achievement many men of Ackerman’s age would probably want to spend the rest of their lives in peace–traveling the world; looking after their grandchildren or simply tending the garden. The last thing you would expect from such an achiever is appetite for a new, if not hazardous, struggle.
Well, like an old war-horse sniffing gun-powder, Ackerman is bracing himself for a new war. In it, he wants to gallop ahead of younger stallions, including his eldest son Gareth, whom he anointed as his successor and chairman in 2010.
Ackerman discloses, during our interview, that he has drafted himself into a select and close-knit team that is working hard and spending a fortune on a battle plan to fend off marauding United States invader, the world’s biggest and ruthless retailer: Walmart.
Walmart–a multinational both feared and respected–bought a majority stake in Massmart, South Africa’s third largest retailer. It was an acquisition opposed by unions that went through a turbulent hearing at the Competition Commission in Pretoria. Many in the unions feared the company’s rough-and-ready approach to labor relations. Other South African retailers feared they’d be undercut and shoved out of the market by Walmart.
<div id="attachment_828" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-828" class="size-large wp-image-828" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0000139705-821x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="591" />CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA ñ 28 May 2011: Businessman Raymond Ackerman receives an honorary doctorate from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Cape Town, South Africa on 28 May 2011. (Photo by Gallo Images/Foto24/Nasief Manie)</div>
In the aftermath of regulatory approval, the US outfit made no secret of its intention to capture a much larger market share in South Africa by starting a price war with the likes of Pick ’n Pay.
“With Walmart coming, we want to be the best in every part of our business. We’ve redone our buying; we’ve redone our warehousing; and we’ve redone every aspect of our business. We are gearing ourselves for the fight, a very big fight.”
And fighting, it must be said, is something Ackerman is used to. After all he has spent a lifetime fighting his South African rivals OK and Checkers in the cut-throat world of supermarkets–where the cheapest baked beans can be a shot to the jugular.
I put to Ackerman that Walmart, with its deep pockets and huge operations around the world, could prove to be the toughest, if not most formidable, opponent he has ever faced.
“We’ve done our homework and will fight a good fight,” he says.
“I’ve studied deeply what they’ve been doing but I don’t want to get into that. I don’t think they’ve succeeded everywhere. We are looking at the weaknesses that we’ve picked up around the world, what countries they’ve done well in, what countries they’ve failed in. We are gearing ourselves to fight a good fight, not against a ruthless guy, but against a company that has shown that it’s got weaknesses.”
It also turns out that Ackerman’s much-publicized retirement, announced two years ago, never really was. Or, as he prefers to put it, he is “technically retired.”
Ackerman still goes to work everyday. He still arrives at 8am. In addition to attending to social responsibility programs, he advises the executive management team on administration and merchandising.
What happens when his son, Gareth, and his team don’t take his advice?
“I try not to interfere with the day-to-day running. They listen to some of my advice and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t take my advice I get upset but I don’t take offence. If I took offence, then they would feel that I’m interfering. It’s not easy, by the way. It’s not easy retiring when you’ve built a business from scratch.”
What some may call meddling or refusing to let go, Ackerman merely calls passion.
“I’m passionate about what I do. I want to build a company that will last forever”.
The only way to make a business last forever, Ackerman advises, is by sticking to good values–something he says he tells everyone who cares to listen to the story of his success, including the scores of entrepreneurs, business leaders and students he always gets invited to inspire and motivate.
It all goes back to advice a Professor gave Ackerman and his class back in 1949, at the University of Cape Town, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. The lecturer asked all those who wanted to go into business so that they could make money, to put their hands up. Almost everyone raised their hands, including Ackerman. The professor then advised the class: “If you think making money is the purpose of business, you are going to fail.”
Ackerman took the advice and it is his motto to this day. It is something he says analysts always miss, whenever they examine his business performance.
“Analysts are meant to analyze a company by this triple line and corporate governance–but analysts will never ask me about what I do on social responsibility, what I do for my people. They just want to see profit…profit…profit. I want to build a company that will last forever. The analysts just want profit growth, profit growth, profit growth.”
“South Africa, in my opinion, needs desperately more businesses involved with triple line reporting. You must give back to the community. The more you give, the more you will succeed.
By giving, Pick ’n Pay removed an albatross from around its neck.
When Nelson Mandela came into power after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, one of his first moves was to ask the country’s white business establishment to sell a stake to their black counterparts, in a program now known as Black Economic Empowerment.
Ackerman says he grabbed the opportunity with both hands, by creating franchises for black entrepreneurs. The result was a win-win solution that helped both black entrepreneurs and Pick ’n Pay grow. Ackerman converted some of his underperforming grocery stores into franchises and has been building scores of new stores in townships. Many of the franchise stores are owned by black entrepreneurs.
“It was a major shift for Pick ’n Pay, now half our stores are franchised. I thank Mr. Mandela for influencing me,” he says.
Ackerman’s relationship with politicians, though, has been strangely ambivalent–at best.
In the dangerous days of apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 80, when the country was in flames; many well-off whites were emigrating.
“Sure, I had misgivings about our decision to stay. Thank God we decided to stay with it,” he says.
In those difficult days, Ackerman met politicians. He vividly remembers a talk with Prime Minister, B.J. Vorster, who was in power when black students took to the streets and were mowed down in Soweto in 1976. It was on Vorster’s watch that more opponents of the apartheid regime were detained in a climate of racial conflict.
“It was quite an amazing thing, we wanted to promote black managers but it was against the Group Areas Act, [the legislation that apportioned land by race]. I went to see him [Vorster] and said we are doing it. He said, ‘I know you are doing it, and it’s against the law’. I said, ‘here are letters from ministers’ wives saying how courteous this or that manager is’. I showed him these letters that my wife had prepared. He turned around–I won’t forget that day–and said, ‘Mr. Ackerman, go ahead, even if you are breaking the law I won’t arrest you’. I asked, ‘do I have your word ? Can I have it in writing?’ He said, ‘go ahead, I won’t arrest you’. I said, ‘give it to me in writing’ and he said, ‘I won’t but you must do it’.”
In 1980, Ackerman went to see Vorster’s successor, P.W. Botha, a very stubborn man–who was called ‘Die Groot Krokodil’”, Afrikaans for ‘the big crocodile’, who oversaw the most violent years of apartheid rule. Ackerman wanted to discuss several issues, including a housing scheme he was contemplating for his black managers: “I asked him why we can’t have houses for blacks? Why not have a 99-year lease like they have in Sweden and Finland. He called in one of his ministers. I think it was Connie Mulder. After about a week of discussions, Botha came up with a 99-year-lease-hold, which was later changed to full ownership.”
Ackerman would also meet F.W. de Klerk, who was a senior Cabinet minister at the time.
“There was such a breath of fresh air about him,” Ackerman says of the man who would go on to succeed Botha, and later, release Mandela from prison.
“I’m not trying to say we played an enormous role,” Ackerman adds quickly, “but we played a role.”
Even in the so-called “new South Africa”, where there’s “tons of things going wrong,” Ackerman says he will, in his small way, continue to play a very positive role. That’s not to say he’s happy with everything that’s going on in the country.
For example, he wouldn’t mind being taxed more–a call that has been made by such people as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in part as a gesture towards reconciliation and redress. “I’d be happy to pay an extra tax to uplift and help entrepreneurs help businesses start,” Ackerman says, “but we’ve got to deal with corruption.”
He adds, however, that he always reminds people that corruption is not just in government, but also in the private sector, and that inequality and unemployment were “twenty times worse in the sixties and seventies.”
As a believer in entrepreneurship, in a free economy, he was delighted to hear South African President, Jacob Zuma, reject the calls for mine nationalization.
“You can’t create jobs through government. You need to excite the entrepreneur to invest capital and to invest in new things. I respect the fact that the government has by and large left a free economy.”
He is also delighted that government is not agreeing with the Congress of South African Trade Unions–the biggest workers union which is also an ally of the governing African National Congress–that labor brokers should be banned in South Africa.
“Unions hate labor brokers because when there’s a strike, the labor brokers come in and soften the strike and we can run the business without them. I hope he (President Zuma) doesn’t listen to labor unions. If he cuts out labor brokers he’s going to play into the hands of labor unions for strikes,” Says Ackerman.
So, when all’s said and done, what would this doyen of retailing and grandfather of 12 like to be remembered for?
“I’m not saying I’m different. I’m not saying I’m clever, I’ve just worked my whole life to rebuild myself after I was fired.”
The lesson for entrepreneurs?
“Find something you are passionate about, and make it your life’s work.”

The Pain That Put  The Fight Into A Tycoon

Christopher Okocha, or Chris, as he was referred to, was one of the passengers on the ill-fated airline that carried 146 passengers and a crew of seven from the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport in Abuja, Nigeria’s  capital, to the Murtala Muhammed Airport in the commercial hub of Lagos. He was one of the many Nigerians who constitute the nucleus of the country, who through their daily motions, are pivotal to the overall development of this giant of Africa. A young and visionary man, he had been married for about two years to the love of his life, during which time he became a father to his daughter. Chris’ life is a sad example of the misfortune that befell several families, as many like his small child lost fathers, while others like his young wife have become widows. The devastating crash wiped out whole families who were on board the airline, while children were left orphaned. The families of the victims have all experienced an irreparable loss; they are left bereaved and despondent, left alone with memories of their kin that do little to soothe the pain.
In the hours after the crash, a pervasive cloud of gloom hung over the country that had been weary from similar incidents that occurred in the past. Nigeria is no stranger to airline crashes. Its unenviable record of 10 air crashes in the last 20 years means that it has had an average of one fatal crash in every other year since 1992. A particularly disastrous spell in the 12 months between October 2005 and October 2006, saw three commercial airlines—each carrying a substantial number of passengers—meet a similar fate. After six years of relative safety, Nigerians bore a palpable sense of relief and cautious optimism at the changing fortune of the country with regard to airplane crashes. Many believe these incidents had become a thing of the past, but the crash of Dana Air flight 0092 represents a calamitous setback, which due to the scale, is a visible scar that has blighted the consciousness of the nation. Among the passengers on the flight was the group general manager of public affairs for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Levi Ajuonuma, a respected journalist who was chief spokesman of the state owned oil corporation for nine years. Likewise, Ehime Aikhomu, the son of a former vice president who held office under the military in the 90s, also lost his life in the incident.
The airline involved, Dana Air, is a subsidiary of Dana Group of companies, which is owned by the Hathiramani family. The family has lived in Nigeria for over four decades, they control a number of subsidiaries that play in the automobile, consumer goods, pharmaceutical and aviation industries. The airline has been operational since 2008, with a fleet of five planes that fly across various regions of the country. The aircraft involved in the crash was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 which was commissioned in 1990, when it was bought by its previous owners, American Alaska Airlines. The plane was reported to have had a history of incidents including a wiring incident that caused smoke to fill the cabin in 2002, while it was being used by Alaska Airlines. Dana Airlines is reported to have bought the plane in 2008.
As a result of this airplane crash, Nigeria’s aviation authorities are now faced with the enormous task of restoring the shattered confidence of the public in the aviation sector. This is despite comments by both local and international regulatory agencies in the aftermath of the crash that significant improvements have been made in the country’s aviation sector in terms of adherence to safety procedures and international standards. In 2006, the industry regulators issued a recapitalization order to airline operators. This led to a significant reduction in the number of carriers with only eight able to meet the new requirements. Since then, the carriers had operated remarkably well, with no major incidents recorded. But notwithstanding, some experts had indicated that airline maintenance and overall safety practises in the industry were not what they should be. On the evidence of the recent crash, it appears that they have been proven right. Dana is now liable to pay compensation worth over $15 million to families of the crash victims, in line with global practices and rates for airline passenger insurance. It is reported that about 70% of the insurance risk was retained with foreign-based insurance companies; therefore the local companies will avoid taking a massive hit from the claims. Thus, for both the aviation authorities and the airlines, the long and arduous task of addressing the challenges in the sector has just begun.

TRAGEDY ON A SUNDAY

Côte d’Ivoire is back in the committee of nations after post-electoral violence plunged the country into civil war in December 2011. The commodity-rich West African country is the world’s largest cocoa producer and net exporter of crops including coffee, banana and pineapple to the European Union (EU).
Côte d’Ivoire is also a leading agricultural economy with oil deposits. It accounts for 45% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the eight West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) countries.
The return to political stability and the economic optimism in the country have been great motivation for corporate high-flyers like Fabrice Sawegnon— Côte d’Ivoire’s brightest spark in advertising and CEO of Voodoo Communication. Now he, along with others, can dream and plan big about expanding enterprises and taking Africa to the next level of economic growth.
It almost did not happen though, for Sawegnon. His company was headed to the scrap-heap, along with many other casualties who also suffered in business, as a result of the post-election uprisings. Voodoo lost about 80% of its revenue in that period. A contract came just in time to avert the demise. The sizable deal was from President Alassane Ouattara’s office for the production of presidential campaign billboards.
“We won the contract to produce billboards during the campaign. The communication strategy deal for President Ouattara continues to date,” said Sawegnon.
Voodoo currently leads the pack in Côte d’Ivoire’s advertising industry with an annual revenue of $20 million. The company is expanding and recently opened offices in Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Mali and Niger. Another office is due to open in the DRC.
On the day of his interview with FORBES AFRICA, Sawegnon—the pioneer of Afro-centric advertising concepts in Côte d’Ivoire—sits in a plush office fitted with all the décor suited to an executive’s taste. He is ebullient and speaks passionately about advertising. He cuts an image of a CEO on top of his game.
This is a long way from 1999 when, at 28, he set up office determined to be a non-conformist in an industry dominated by Western views and opinions. He used the name  ‘voodoo’, derived from fetish cult worship in Benin, to provoke and draw attention.
“I have always been an inveterate entrepreneur. The idea to start my own company came when I was an employee at McCann Erickson. Prior to 1999, the advertising and marketing industry was dominated by Europeans. The name ‘voodoo’ was meant to give a clear African cultural reference point, ostensibly to position the company in the industry. We believe that advertising hinges on two things: technique and cultural bias. Success did not come on a platter,” explained Sawegnon.
Several European advertising firms approached him for partnerships. He turned them down because he believed an Afro-centric ad company should guard its “independence jealously”.
Voodoo has 300 employees across Africa. The thrust of the engine is a crop of enthusiastic creative and artistic employees who, under the leadership of Sawegnon, have powered the company to its current success. Sawegnon, a quintessential ‘local’ breed businessman, is giving the multinational advertising giants, such as McCann Erickson, a run for their money. Voodoo holds big accounts such as France Telecom (Orange)—which operates both fixed land lines and mobile telephones in Côte d’Ivoire; Western Union; Castel beer and Attijariwafa bank—a subsidiary of a Moroccan bank.
Work teams are structured to achieve optimal effectiveness. A dedicated team of marketers and creative staff is assigned to each account. Sawegnon said the team approach had helped them to deliver sterling performance to clients across the continent. Adding, “I believe in using raw talent that can be molded to produce the desired results. Talent can be cultivated when the environment is conducive.”
To demonstrate his determined commitment to Africa, Sawegnon recounted how he queried “made in America” ad campaigns that promoted a soft drink company showing white children playing in the snow at Christmas while the target public in Africa did not necessarily identify with the cultural ethos.
“I was told that it was appropriate to show such ads in Africa since experiencing snow was considered to be an aspiration of African youths; and that African people dream of visiting countries that experience snow in winter. Of course, I did not believe a word of that assertion.
“I told my colleagues at Voodoo that if a Chinese firm beat us to the game in Africa, it would be because we had lost our cultural finesse. Foreign companies might have a capital base to play with, but they couldn’t know Africa better than us,” he said.
Sawegnon considers his high work ethic as central to his rise from humble beginnings to a successful entrepreneur. He also received personal satisfaction from seeing his staff enjoy the fruits of their labor, saying, “I feel proud to watch my executives drive sleek cars and living the dream.”
He lives by the philosophy of passion and teamwork. The latter because he believes “a person working alone cannot succeed”. Sawegnon encourages young entrepreneurs to participate in creative ventures, However, he concedes that, “although you need teamwork, you equally require visionary leaders capable to chart the course for the team.”
Sawegnon views the sharing of experiences as one way to encourage entrepreneurs to forge ahead in hard times. He is convinced that there is space for Africa’s emergence. He said that youths needed to “show ambition” and aim to reposition the continent. He believes that there was still hope that talent could still be cultivated and that a new crop of corporate leaders could be developed.
Formidable success in advertising has not been a cause for Sawegnon to take things easy. In 2009, he diversified into publishing, with two magazines titles: Tycoon, a soft sell magazine, and Life magazine, which spotlights Ivorian celebrities.
“Tycoon features profiles of business leaders. It is a qualitative magazine which does not touch on the monetary aspects as this is deemed to be culturally unacceptable in our country. Highlighting values is closer to my heart. I am the publisher but I sometimes write the preface or editorials,” he explained.
Sawegnon also invested in an event management company that specializes in billboard advertising. As if that were not enough, he is poised for his next project: the launch of Côte d’Ivoire’s first television station, Life TV, once the Ivorian government issues audiovisual licenses later this year. The plan is ready for him to branch into private television programming and production in a country ripe for business following 12 years of political and civil strife.
The success he has achieved in business makes Sawegnon more keenly aware of the responsibility to give back.
“Those of us who have succeeded owe it to society to give back, especially towards empowering youth and helping to spur micro development initiatives in Africa. As entrepreneurs, we create wealth through job creation and add value to the microeconomic effort. I sincerely believe that if all of us entrepreneurs played our part, our efforts would snowball into a powerful force that would propel Africa forward.”
Sawegnon is a graduate of the prestigious École Supérieure de Commerce of Abidjan, where he majored in marketing. He joined the ranks of Young &amp; Rubicam in 1994 as product manager at Metallivoire Jal Afrique (roofing materials, roofing sheets and paints).
The battle for the soul of advertising in Côte d’Ivoire is not yet over, but Sawegnon has made his intentions clear—to conquer the country and the rest of Africa.

A New Lease on Life for Advertising Bright Spark

In this age of trust funds, favored sons, fat corporate bonuses and bling, how refreshing it is to read of an entrepreneur who has fought his way up from the very bottom of the barrel with courage and humility.
This is the story of Herman Mashaba—who was the April FORBES AFRICA cover story—told in a colorful but straightforward way. A man who struggled to raise 25 cents every year for his school fees, who went on to make millions. It charts his fairytale rise from a person growing up in the middle of nowhere, who made his fortune with a hair-care product, Black Like Me, on his way to the black business ball. You could argue that Cinderella had it far easier.
The overall impression you are left with is that life was grim at the bottom of the heap in apartheid South Africa. Mashaba grew up in Hammanskraal near Pretoria, without electric lights or running water. These were dark days of little food, bullying teachers and draconian laws enforced by ruthless policemen. When Mashaba talks of his fear of walking past a police roadblock, you almost feel as though you are walking with him.
In telling his tale, Mashaba appears to resist the temptation to airbrush his past, as is the wont of a lot of people who have made it. He admits he took and sold drugs and says he was no angel when it came to women.
This is a story of survival and Mashaba leaves us in no doubt that he did what he had to in order to keep going: whether it be running illegal dice games, where there were stabbings every now and again, or selling stolen welding equipment to the township gangster.
As a professional storyteller, I can commend Mashaba for his straight telling of the tale. There are no frills here, or flights into fancy; it is told with an almost business-like, dead narrative that lends power to the richness of the story. He talks of his roots with warmth, but without sickly sentiment; Mashaba speaks of the injustices he faced growing up under apartheid with a quiet anger. In particular, he writes bleakly about his determined mother, Mapula, who was a poorly paid domestic worker—she virtually had to escape from the house of her employers so she could make the long journey to spend time with her children. There are also aching words over the loss of his elder brother, Pobane, who died in a car accident, and the loss of his first child after just 16 hours of life.
Mashaba also pays generous tribute to his wife of nearly 30 years, Connie, who has stuck by him on the often fraught journey from township to luxury townhouse.
In short, Mashaba took his chan-ces, refused to give in and enjoyed a lot of what he says all entrepreneurs need to make it—good luck.
This modest little book could almost be a textbook for the young and hopeful in this, the entrepreneur-themed issue of FORBES AFRICA.

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A Grim Fairytale

Tanzania, the most expensive buffalo in Africa, is getting ready for a wedding night that is going to cost $31,000; the issue of this union will be worth even more.
People still cannot believe how much was paid for this cow—in a land where the average buffalo costs between $44,000 to $70,000. Jaco Troskie bought the huge and powerful cow for a staggering $2.5 million.
Troskie, the son of South African filmmaking mogul Boet Troskie, who made the film The Gods Must Be Crazy, outbid one of Africa’s richest men, Cyril Ramaphosa, for the East African buffalo. The buy broke records. In 2010, Piet du Toit and Cyril Ramaphosa bought a bull, Bayeto, for $1.2 million. In 2011, Peter Bellingham bought a bull, Senatla, for $2.2 million. Troskie, who made his money trading in game parks, beat the lot.
Tanzania is the biggest buffalo cow held in captivity in Africa, and possibly the world, and her horns span 43 inches long.
Troskie admits he did not think he would end up paying as much as he did. People said he was crazy and joked that he must have been drunk during the auction.
“I don’t even drink a drop of alcohol,” he says.
“I didn’t want to lose her… There are only a handful of buffalos with 50 inch horns or wider. You do not find one around every corner.”
Troskie spent $8.1 million that day and walked away with 10 buffalos.
“My investment is long-term. My idea was to keep her, take very good care of her and nurse her. If I don’t make my money back in eight years, then there is something wrong… Returns on investments [are] about 36%. There’s no investment in this country that gives you that kind of return on a year-to-year basis. It’s a sound business to get involved in and will be for some time.”
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Many in the business believe these sky-high prices cannot last. Piet du Toit disagrees.
Du Toit bought Tanzania for $324,000 last year from insurance billionaire Douw Steyn, and cleared $2.2 million from the recent auction. The 41-year-old began breeding game in 2001, and started focusing on rare game in 2006.
“There is [a lot of] money [to be made] in top genetics because there is nothing like it elsewhere. The breed is top class and investing in them will triple your money,” he says.
The former science and physical training teacher is now one of the country’s, if not the continent’s, top rare game breeders. The auction, held on his farm in the North West province of South Africa, where Tanzania, among other rare game, was sold, made almost $19 million on the day through the sale of 250 animals. The list of registered buyers reads like a board meeting. Among them, South African businessmen Ramaphosa and Steyn, and the Head of SAB Ltd in SA, Nicholas Adami, among others.
With an average return on investment of more than 70% over four years, du Toit is not planning on to quit anytime soon, but is also attempting to preserve the species.
“We are trying to get them as close to where they were in the early 1800s, when the settlers found [the buffalo] here [in Africa],” says du Toit.
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According to the New World Encyclopedia, the population of
African buffalo was once tens of millions, but has dwindled to around 900,000. Most of them are in East Africa. They’ve been hunted and their habitat has been squeezed by farming, drought and disease.
Top-class animals like Tanzania are more expensive because of their size, strength, health and horn length. Another rare and prized buffalo bull in captivity is Bayeto, co-owned by du Toit and Ramaphosa. They bought Bayeto, who is currently staying on Ramaphosa’s farm, in 2010 for $1.2 million and sold his first calf this year for nearly $900,000. But Tanzania will be mated with her equal, Matetsi, an equally rare and thoroughbred East African bull worth $400,000. He will be united with Tanzania to produce an heir to their throne—expected to fetch even more money.
Is there even more money to be made in the game game? Forget about the tip of the iceberg, the people in the game business prefer their own analogy. The prices paid so far merely reach the ears of the hippo as it raises its head from the water.

The Two Million Dollar Buffalo  Is The Queen Of The Game

Fate thought it had struck a crippling blow to the Ndlovu family enterprise, Fikile Construction, when its visionary, Amos Ndlovu, passed away in 2007. He had powered the company to multimillion-dollar success in the South African building and civil engineering construction industry in just over 15 years.
But with his 26-year-old daughter taking over the helm as executive director, the company’s turnover more than doubled in three years. Hlamalani Ndlovu has propelled 100% black-owned Fikile Construction to phenomenal success, with a turnover of R153 million ($19 million) in 2010/11.
Ndlovu, now 30 years old, is vivacious and eloquent, yet also perceptive and focused. “It has not been easy. I was constantly overwhelmed for three years,” she says.
“The benefit of being naïve about leadership is that you think everything is easy and you don’t know how hard ‘hard’ can be until it confronts you. But it was important for me to succeed. I had to do it for my father’s good name, the level of respect he enjoyed in the industry, for my mother and three siblings, and the staff members of Fikile Construction. I give credit also to the management team of the company,” she adds.
A lesson she appreciates is that construction is not a get-rich-quick scheme. “If you want to do it, you have to do it properly, otherwise you could lose a lot of money,” Ndlovu explains.
To joint credit with her father, Fikile Construction has successfully executed, either independently or in partnerships, formidable projects such as the building and construction of phase two of the head office of international cellular giant MTN; the Cradle of Humankind; O.R. Tambo International Airport; the national head office of the South African Department of Education and Training and renovations to the Johannesburg Central Library.
The company is divided into five sections: building construction, civil construction, property development, housing and public-private partnerships (PPPs).
A healthy order book shielded Fikile Construction from the effects of the economic meltdown in 2008. In that year, they began building 3,000 RDP houses (basic quality subsidy housing) in the North West province of South Africa. They also started construction on the national head offices of the Department of Education and Training.
However, most companies were exercising caution in the two years following the economic downturn by deferring spending, which resulted in some retrenchments at Fikile Construction in 2011. The company had to let go of 13 of their 50 full-time employees.
Ndlovu is optimistic about the current financial year, saying: “We have increased our network. Our order book also looks good. It currently stands at R70 million ($8.7 million). We are hoping to push to R300 million ($37.4 million) by the end of the year.”
Another reason for her optimism is that she recently appointed four directors onto her team of seven executives. All of the new appointees have experience working for listed construction companies.
“Our strategy moving forward is to focus on resources, to ensure that we target clients who know how we are spending, and to get involved in more PPPs to ensure we are not dependent mainly on tenders,” she says.
Ndlovu believes Fikile Construction should get a stake in the South African government’s infrastructural development plan.
“Fikile Construction has an established track record as a company that delivers. We are also in line, in terms of government targets. The company is headed by a woman and we employ 80% young people. We are not threatened by big construction companies. No one company can do everything in this industry. There has to be a role and space provided to black companies. The challenge is to be at the right place at the right time. At Fikile Construction, we rely on our good name, the excellent quality of the product we deliver, our cost effectiveness and the good relationships we have established in the industry.”
Ndlovu received her commerce degree at the University of Pretoria, majoring in entrepreneurship.
“I have always known I would be in business. An experience in grade 10, selling snacks at break for a class project, had a lasting impression on me. I never went home with stock.
“A truck manufacturing company was interested in an idea I presented for an assignment I did during my second year at university. I did not follow it up then, due to a lack of confidence and childish playfulness. I was adamant, though, that I wouldn’t go into my father’s business.
“But when I finished my degree, I still wasn’t ready to roll out the business plan I had proposed to the truck company. I decided to give the family business a go.”
Ndlovu is the second of four siblings. She insists she was not forced into the decision to join Fikile Construction and knew she could walk away from it if she wanted.
“My father’s words when I told him about my decision to join him were: ‘I am happy to have you work for me, but please understand, I have always done this on my own. I don’t need you.” she says.
“On my first day at work, he plainly told me he was very busy and wouldn’t have time to hold my hand. I knew then that I was officially in the deep end,” she says.
Determined she would not suffer the “boss’s daughter syndrome”, Ndlovu decided to investigate Fikile Construction’s options in property development.
“I had a lot to prove in a field I knew nothing about. A lot of the projects did not come off the ground. There were hits and misses. But I was determined to keep at it until it worked out,” she says
With time, she has become more involved in PPPs, acting as director on some of the boards.
Her record proves she has earned her position. Hlamalani Ndlovu is making her mark in the South African economy and beyond.

All In The Family

It doesn’t matter how many capital cities you have flown into; the descent into Maputo never fails to impress. It is a breath-taking expanse of wide, deep water flowing into the Indian Ocean, 92km long and 32km wide, that sparkles in the sun. When Portuguese navigator, Lourenço Marques, surveyed the bay in 1544, on behalf of his seafaring country, tears of joy must have welled up in his eyes. Maputo is a perfect natural harbor made for ships. Marques laid the foundations for the port and lent his name to the colonial city that grew up.
The mouth of the harbor is hemmed in by banks thick with bush, and the blue waters lead right up to the city of Maputo, perched on a ledge of rock above the cranes, palm trees and funnels of the mighty ships in dock. Offshore tankers from Namibia to New York line up for their turn at the quayside.
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They say in Maputo you are never far from the port, and in many ways it dominates the city, home to two million people. It helped pay for the high-rise concrete buildings of this rich city center—or “cemento”, as it is called in Maputo—but for many years it was failing.
In the early years of this century, the port was crumbling to dust after decades of neglect. By 2003, the roads to the port, once among the busiest in Africa, were strewn with rubble. There was barely enough working equipment to load the dwindling amount of cargo. Hundreds of idle casual dock workers lounged by the waterfront waiting for jobs that would never come.
It is a sign of changing economic times in Maputo that private business has been allowed to ride to the rescue with the dash of Zorro. The government of Mozambique invited Grindrod—Africa’s largest shipping company—from South Africa, and DP World, from Dubai, to operate the harbor in return for a stake each.
The turnaround was dramatic.  The number of ships docking in Maputo has doubled, compared to 2003, to more than a thousand-a-year. Coal exports have more than doubled to four million tons and chrome exports are set to reach two million tons this year—five times what they were in 2003. The port is reopening rapidly to trade and now handles everything from citrus fruit to steel from neighboring Zimbabwe.
The change in fortunes, for this key piece of infrastructure, couldn’t have come at a better time to support the rising economic fortunes of Mozambique. The Moatize coalfields, in the north-west corner of the country, are set for a boom; gas has been discovered on the northern coast of Mozambique and BHP Billiton’s Mozal smelter in Matola, south of the capital, is churning out aluminum for export. Rio Tinto has been buying up coal mining assets to add to its international portfolio.
Maputo millionaire Venancio Matusse, an engineer by trade, is one of 42 shareholders in the consultancy, Mozambique Gestores, which manages the port and owns 3% of the free carry business. He said the port is investing $800 million in security and dredging the channel leading to the docks to make way for the big ships. The Maputo River empties into the bay, bringing with it tons of silt that choke the channel.
“A lot of money needs to be spent on the dredging; it is a job that almost never ends,” says Matusse.
“Now the port has all the equipment it needs, but still needs to grow. We need to earn more of the container cargo market because that is where the money is. One challenge is the time goods take to go through the port inspection side. You can take three or four days to clear your goods and that costs money.”
Fernando Lima, a veteran journalist in Maputo, agrees that the port has a long way to go.
“If you look at the container terminal, it is completely congested. Grindrod has attracted a lot of business and now the terminal is facing serious problems of congestion,” he says.
“There is also a problem with bureaucracy, especially when it comes to customs. Delays mean you are losing money as an importer or exporter, which is bad when you have to compete with Richards Bay and Durban in South Africa.”
Even so, millions of dollars are
flowing into infrastructure at the port and another school of thought is that exporters from South Africa—struggling against high cost and a lack of rails at home—could be looking towards Maputo. Either way, to borrow from the words of American writer Mark Twain: reports of the demise of the Port of Maputo have been greatly exaggerated.

The Port That Came  Back From The Dead

When Douglas Stern wakes up in the morning, he looks over the beautiful hills of the Karoo, which cradle his livestock farm in the Eastern Cape. This land is close to his heart and defines his life.
On his bad days, he is haunted by the scenes he saw at numerous hydraulic fracturing sites in the United States of America in July. A local agricultural co-operative sponsored his trip to research hydraulic fracturing or fracking. In Pennsylvania, he saw heartache among people suffering from fracking, which is planned for the Karoo and many other parts of the country.
<div id="attachment_721" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-721" class="size-large wp-image-721" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/006-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="356" />Douglas Stern and his wife, Liz</div>
“They are gagged by the law because they are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements by the various companies’ lawyers, in return for a water supply to replace theirs, which is contaminated by gas. They [gas companies] hold this ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude. It seems they do what they like and won’t be held accountable, but I won’t let it happen here,” says a determined Stern.
Hydraulic fracturing involves horizontal drilling to create fissures. The insertion of pressurized water, sand and fracking fluids release the gas. Shale gas reserves require a high-volume hydraulic process which uses around 20 million liters of water per fracking incident. In short, it could damage the Karoo’s land and possibly its water.
Stern was born and bred in Graaff-Reinet. This land has been in his family since 1948; he inherited it, from his mother, in 1979. He gained an agricultural diploma from Grootfontein College in Middelburg. Farming is his life and he won’t allow gas companies to ruin it. In this part of the country, water is life. His daily water usage for domestic and farming purposes adds up to 1,512,600 liters.
“In my view, it’s the government’s responsibility to tell them to bug off. Our constitution is strong and allows us to earn an honest living and be exempt from such possible water contamination,” he says.
Derek Light, the epitome of a small-town attorney, represents the farmers of Graaff-Reinet, who see themselves as guardians of the Karoo. Many of Light’s 300 landowner clients refer to him as a saint, a humble man and a saviour. He also represents Agri-Eastern Cape, which brings his representation up to thousands of farmers and landowners. The Eastern Cape produces around a third of South Africa’s livestock.
The protestors want to stop the landscape from being littered with drilling rigs. That could happen if international energy companies are granted the rights to exploit gas. “Imagine well pads every three to five kilometres, for thousands of kilometres, which will be interlinked with roads. You’ll have a highway of pipelines all over the country to Mossel Bay, Coega, a Sasol plant or wherever you want it. You won’t recognize this country, it’ll be a wasteland,” he says.
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The protestors are not immune from criticism. Their critics ask whether their landownership is valid as they are not ‘traditional’ owners of the property. Light feels that this view is aimed at creating a divide between South Africans and that it has nothing to do with the scientific research in question.
“People tell us to wind our necks in. We’re saying, don’t come with false promises… We don’t want our land harmed to the detriment of all our people. But sadly, people are sometimes persuaded by their political views,” Light says.
It all began in October 2008, when the worried owners of Samara private game reserve, in the Karoo, approached Light. In a lengthy process, Light successfully opposed three of Sunset Energy’s applications for exploration rights before the local regulator, Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA). Sunset Energy is the Australian subsidiary of South African Bundu Oil and Gas.
More clients approached Light after Falcon Oil and Gas—a Canadian company—applied for exploration rights elsewhere in the Karoo, spanning 30,000km2.
In January 2011, PASA accepted three of Shell’s applications for fracking in three areas in the eastern, central and western Karoo covering 90,000km2.
Light addressed landowners from around Graaff-Reinet. It drew the big names: multi-billionaire Johann Rupert, whose father was a founding member of the World Wildlife Foundation; and Dutch Princess Irene, a Karoo landowner. She even had a full audit conducted to prove that she has no links with Dutch company Shell.
“What had been a lonely fight for me and a handful of landowners suddenly entered the public domain and became big,” he says.
Light filed applications against Falcon Oil and Gas and the three Shell applications in March 2011. PASA directed objections against the five applications to regional committees to be adjudicated. It had been swamped with applications concerning parts of KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and the Free State.
On April 29, 2011, Susan Shabangu, Minister of the Department of Mineral Resources, placed a moratorium on all applications for six months and extended it for another six months to allow for investigation.
The process is determined by the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of 2002. According to the act, the applicants should determine how the environment will be affected.
“I am satisfied that in law none of these companies have complied with their legal obligations in terms of the MPRDA. There are, in my view, shortcomings in the processes currently regulated, in that it’s certainly inadequate to deal with a situation of this magnitude. I have very little doubt in my mind that the courts will intervene if the applications are granted under the current circumstances,” says Light.
The government and South African citizens have an obligation to preserve their environment for future generations. While the moratorium passed in mid-February, the investigation’s findings are expected to be presented to cabinet by the end of July. Energy Minister Dipuo Peters is awaiting cabinet’s decision. She has conflicting views about fracking: while it could ensure energy supply security, it needs to be done safely.
“If we need 10 years to decide, then we need to take those 10 years,” says Light.
Light questions how fracking fits into South Africa’s long-term energy planning. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? He suggests the government considers the Mozambican offshore natural gas find as an affordable, alternative source.
Stern agrees: “The gas industry in the United States went from boom to bust. At the moment, gas is being produced at a loss because there’s an over-supply. South Africa can purchase gas far more cheaply than it can produce it.”
Light talks about the report by respected economist Tony Twine, who died in March, which was commissioned by Shell. “He had to make huge assumptions about the extent of the gas reserves in the Karoo; the price of gas when it comes into production in 10 to 15 years’ time; and the cost of producing it in South Africa. He [Twine] acknowledged that he had to make those assumptions, which rendered the report nonsense because you could equally make other assumptions,” says Light.
The protestors also claim that the industry in the US was regulated poorly; they made fatal errors and are now putting on the brakes so they can re-regulate.
According to Stern, incidents of water contamination and chemical spillage have been reported throughout the US. The claim from gas companies is that there is a natural barrier of impermeable rock between the area you frack and the ground water.
There is also concern about the chemicals that could be used. They sub-contract the process to other companies that want to protect trade secrets, which means that certain chemicals are undisclosed. Some of the chemicals are known carcinogens and toxic: simply put, hazardous to health.
Two recent studies, conducted in Denver by Petron and Howarth, suggest that 4% of the methane gas was leaking. According to Stern’s research conducted in the States, he found that 5% of wells were failing on an ongoing basis, which resulted in further leaking.
Countries should consider renewable energy sources like solar and wind power as clean, alternative energy sources, say Karoo farmers.
“We [farmers] are very conservative people in the Karoo with regard to our water because it is sacrosanct and we have droughts. As a consequence, I never use more than half of my borehole water capacity. My concern is that they will say to me, ‘But you’re not using the other 50%’,” says Stern.
“The rate of recharge is very low in the Karoo—scientists tell us it’s between 2-3%—and it could take decades or even hundreds of years to recharge when you take water in those volumes,” says Light.
Once exploration rights are granted, the applicants have to conduct a public participation meetings.
“We were appalled by how sly they were,” mentioned a Karoo farmer who was eager to talk and who had attended a public participation meeting.
“They didn’t even show their faces. They sat in amongst us like cowards. It’s a very large area we represent, so I don’t know every farmer within the district and neither does the next. Derek Light was standing in front of us, by himself, waiting for answers from representatives who, it seemed, didn’t even bother to show up. They wanted to see who they were up against.”
The country awaits cabinet’s final verdict. It’s a case of determined farmers versus equally determined international energy companies, who have deep pockets and big-city lawyers.

We Won’t Let It Happen Here

The world descended on Africa’s political capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 9.  The queues were long and winding at Bole International Airport as global airlines landed one after the other, offloading hundreds of delegates bound for Africa’s most exclusive economic event.
Throughout the World Economic Forum on Africa, the streets were abuzz with vehicles and people going about their daily routine, oblivious to the occupation of their capital. This humming capital is the epitome of Ethiopia’s remarkable economic achievements in recent years.
Ethiopia is the second most-populous nation in sub-Saharan Africa with a population of more than 80 million people. It is also one of the fastest growing economies on the continent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects growth at 5.0% and 5.5% in 2012 and 2013 respectively. This is a far cry from growth prospects in Europe and the rest of the developed world. Most Eurozone economies are either in recession or teetering on the brink.
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The skyline over Addis Ababa is full of swinging construction cranes. A delegate, who had worked in Addis Ababa since the late nineties, told of his surprise at the building and economic progress since he was last in the country.
Rain and dark clouds hung over the capital for most of the conference, but this didn’t dampen the enthusiasm as delegates exchanged business cards in the hope of new business opportunities. Almost every conversation talked of how the fast growing continent of Africa was the place to be.
“‘It is a tremendous time for Africa where Africa is coming to the world, and the world to Africa,” says Josette Sheeran, vice-chairman and member of the Managing Board, World Economic Forum, speaking to CNBC Africa on the eve of the forum.
Sheeran, in her remarks at the opening plenary session, said Africa was in an era of the hand shake with people banding together to galvanize the continent’s transformation.
The discussions were wide and varied, ranging from innovation and technology, to social and gender issues. Several themes were pervasive throughout the three days—among them infrastructural development, regional trade, leadership and governance.
Infrastructure development was identified as the biggest impediment, bar none, to growth in Africa.  Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, talked of a recent trip to an African capital. To his dismay, this particular city of a million people had water infrastructure to cater for a mere 17,000 people.
This story brings to light Africa’s gaping infrastructure hole. Delegates at the forum were unanimous. Africa needs to invest heavily in roads, ports, railway lines and power stations to remove bottlenecks and promote efficiency in the economy. Sufficient infrastructure will reduce the cost of doing business on the continent dramatically, which will in turn spur investment.
Many African governments have taken heed. Governments across the continent are spending billions of dollars on infrastructure. In February, South Africa, Africa’s biggest economy and by far the most advanced in terms of infrastructure, announced a $100 billion capital expenditure program over the next three years.
The forum also heard Africa’s global and regional trade was at risk through uncertainty created by the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis. Delegates were concerned about low intra-Africa trade.  Intra-Africa trade is only about 10% compared to 70% in the Eurozone; 52% in Asia; 50% in North America and 26% in South America.
Low intra-regional trade is a missed opportunity for growth and development for the continent.  Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organisation, blamed this low intra-regional trade on poor infrastructure, inefficient border procedures, regulatory discrepancies and insufficient trade finance.
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“The issue of boosting intra-African trade is not so much the diagnosis on what needs to be done, but on how to do it.” He added that “we know that the necessary initiatives have to happen at the regional level. Regional organizations have to address these problems one by one. The key to removing these bottlenecks lies in the political energy of regional leaders to do it,” says Lamy.
Over the last decade, six of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world were African.  Part of Africa’s stellar growth during this period has been partly attributed to good leadership and governance. Kofi Annan, chairman of the Africa Progress Panel, praised the continent’s leadership and governance standards.  He was confident that over the next decade Africa’s progress will continue.
Annan stressed the need for public policy debate which, he rued, was practically non-existent across the continent.  He lamented that as much as there is democracy there is no engagement between governments and their citizenry. As such there is no policy consensus in nations which means that at each change of government, every five or 10 years, there is a change in policy. He said that lack of policy debate not only promotes myopic policies but also policy discontinuity. This limits consensus and nation building on the continent, ultimately putting a cap on economic growth and development.
Gao Xiqing, president and vice chairman of China Investment Corporation, hit the nail on the head when he referred to a quote by Chairman Mao referring to China’s poverty.
“This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written; the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted,” he says.
Africa, like China then, is also fortunate enough to have ‘a blank sheet free from any mark’. It is Africa’s opportunity given its many desires to rise and produce a unique, beautiful and heavenly masterpiece in the form of inclusive, strong and sustainable economic growth to lift Africans from poverty.

Build And We Will Grow

How would Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet have met during the internet era? Would it have been in person, as their eyes met across the dance floor at the Capulet Ball, after he confirmed her location via a foursquare update? Or would he have sent a virtual wink to her BBM, the pin of which he coaxed from a mutual Facebook friend?
In 16th-century Verona, the star-crossed lovers were blamed for being reckless; in the 21st century, their only danger would be the accusation of being anti-social in public, as their thumbs did the talking. Countless hours would be spent sending each other their most flattering, photoshopped images, taken on the beach or a Friday night. These would be complemented with blushing and pouting emoticons and beating hearts.
Juliet’s Facebook status updates would reflect an acute case of infatuation. She would post a YouTube video of Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ on her wall. Her friends would comment: “So, who’s the lucky guy? &lt;3” Her nurse—these days, her life coach—would share a photograph, using instagram, of a sports brand billboard encouraging her to: “Just do it!”
Romeo’s workout video to LMFAO’s ‘Sexy And I Know It’ would be posted on YouTube, in an attempt to impress his new love. It would go viral within a few days. He would have to be fit for the secret balcony rendezvous: he would have to jump her wall and give the security guards the slip.
Meanwhile, lying on her bed, Juliet would use her notebook to dote on her lover’s talents in his flickr albums. While browsing through his professional expertise on LinkedIn, she would receive a BBM text saying, ‘Meet me on your balcony in 10.’ He would be heartbroken about being unable to tag himself “—with Juliet ‘Jules’ Capulet” in his Facebook status. To keep it secret, Romeo would open another Facebook account, with a red Ferrari as his profile picture, under the alias, Italian Stallion. He would use this new profile to stalk her wall and compare himself to photographs of her previous boyfriends.
Tybalt, Juliet’s protective cousin, infuriated with Romeo for sneaking into the Capulet Ball, would challenge him to a duel through Google chat. Romeo would decline, and Mercutio—his right-hand man—would accept the challenge on behalf of the Montagues. It would end in Mercutio’s death. In his final moments, while clutching at his chest, Mercutio would tweet @RoMeo, @JCapulet13 ‘A plague upon both your houses #caughtinthecrossfire.’ He might be re-tweeted by someone caught in the I’m-doing-this-because-everyone-else-is-doing-it sharing trend. Romeo would avenge Mercutio’s death by killing Tybalt. #TybaltRIP. Please retweet!
Lord Capulet would discover the love affair through the iCloud application, which would indicate that Juliet was at the Montague estate. Upon her return, a row would ensue. In a tantrum she would leave to meet Friar Laurence, the spiritual healer slash yoga instructor. He would Google search the name of the best sedative to help her feign death in an attempt to escape a proposed marriage with Paris. He would shun the messenger—who in the original story fails to deliver the message, resulting in Romeo’s suicide—in favor of multiple social media alternatives, in case Romeo’s cellphone were to go through to voicemail.
The friar would spare Paris’ life. While mourning at the Capulet burial crypt, the friar would divert Paris’ attention from Romeo’s presence with his new tablet. “What can’t you do with it?” Paris would ask, as Romeo slipped past to prevent confrontation. While Shakespeare would still be credited for penning the world’s greatest love story ever told, with the help of social media the story would end differently. The lovers’ tragic double suicide would be avoided, hence Shakespeare would have saved the lives of three young people. It would no longer be “a story of more woe” as the happy couple would elope after booking a room in Las Vegas via booking.com. They would, however, have to remember not to ‘Facebook check in’ their location.

How Much do average apps make?

@Juliet: Did My <3 Love Til Now?

Deep in the heart of the hot and dry mining town of Carletonville, west of Johannesburg, is the modest headquarters of a small company trying to move mountains.
Natalie Killassy grew up in Carletonville—the heart of South Africa’s gold mining industry—and knows the often harsh life of mines and miners. Her family have lived there for generations and when she was a child, she often felt the grief of mining accidents. The deep mines of Carletonville burrow down around 4km into the earth and are prone to lethal seismic activity that can bring shafts crashing down.
<div id="attachment_647" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-647" class="size-large wp-image-647" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTP2641-1024x632.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="293" />Staff working on the backfill bags in the bag factory</div>
As director of Stitch Wise, Killassy has made a business out of helping to rebuild the shattered lives of injured miners, while at the same time trying to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
Stitch Wise is a safety gear company which makes huge bags that save lives underground. Miners pour backfill—liquid mud created by blasting that solidifies—in the bags. The bags save the cost of transporting waste to the surface, as well as providing a shield against rockfalls underground.
It has taken 16 years to build up Stitch Wise, which sprang from an 18-month study into the world’s deepest gold mines. For the first eight years, the business did not pay dividends as every cent was reinvested.
“We come from humble beginnings where we couldn’t afford forklifts to lift the bags as they surfaced. We only had one sewing machine and today everything is automated,” says Killassy.
Nearly a third of her workers are injured miners who are trained to make the bags and patented safety equipment. The company is 26% owned by its employees through a broad-based black economic empowerment trust.
<div id="attachment_649" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-649" class="size-large wp-image-649" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTP2689-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />Stitch Wise Director, Natalie Killassy, standing next to her patented bag material</div>
“Businesses are built on people and we need to add value to people’s lives—that helps you build a business. You need to allow them to take ownership, through that you develop pride… Social entrepreneurs are people who do things that touch their hearts,” says the softly spoken Killassy.
The mining companies—AngloGold  Ashanti, Gold Fields and Harmony Gold—have poured money into the idea and Killassy is trying to get companies to spend more on safety.
The company was chosen by Endeavour, an Oppenheimer family funded NGO, and became part of the group in 2004. Endeavour selects promising entrepreneurs, assists them in improving their business models and has so far picked 300 in 25 countries.
“It is quite a rigorous process; they basically panel beat your business and you as an entrepreneur.”
<div id="attachment_650" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-650" class="size-large wp-image-650" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTP2724-1024x680.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />Knee and arm pads produced by disabled staff at the safety gear factory</div>
With innovation and experienced mentors backing her, Killassy’s Stitch Wise is setting its sights on the rest of the continent and South America’s Chilean mines.
“Mining is going to be around for a long time and we need to grow with it.”
Killassy grew up in the tough world of mining in Carletonville. She has grown to be as tough in business.

Angel of The Underground

At a quarter to noon on a slow Friday in November, Aslam Khan is in a hurry. As he leaves his third floor corner office, he punches buttons on his BlackBerry. “I’ll be there in a flash,” he says in a deep baritone voice that doesn’t appear to fit his body.
Khan is the chairman and co-founder of Aviation Leasing Services (ALS) Ltd, an aircraft rental company based in Nairobi. He knows that when it comes to flying, time is of the essence, and he runs downstairs to the hangar where Captain Nahashon Mutea is waiting for him in a chopper.
The journey to Kisumu, a city 500 kilometres west of Nairobi on the shores of Lake Victoria, lends a rare chance to interview the aviation entrepreneur where he makes his money—up in the air. Khan, a renowned rally driver, has a tough race the following day, but right now that is the least of his worries as the helicopter rattles through headwinds.
“Kenya is such a beautiful country,” he says, peering down at the green tea estates hemmed in by forests that dot the Great Rift Valley.
Flying a chopper on a hot and humid day is a study in the business of running an aviation company. Everywhere you look there are risks—turbulence, fog and the deadly possibility of mechanical failure. As co-founder of ALS Ltd 20 years ago, Khan, along with his late brother Ashraf, has piloted the company from a scrappy outfit, with a single Cessna 150 aircraft, to a thriving company with 25 planes and three subsidiaries.
“The aviation business is not for the faint-hearted,” says Khan, who turned 60 in December. “It’s a very sensitive business.”
It is so sensitive that the recent volatility in the Kenyan shilling forced the company to charge Kenyan clients in dollars to avoid exchange rate losses. Even a small rise in interest rates can ground business, he says, given that regular piles of cash are needed to finance operations.
ALS Ltd leases aircraft to humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross and World Food Program as well as oil companies; it also operates charter flights for businesses. The firm has shareholdings in local airlines Safarilink and Severin Air Safaris and runs Heliservices, a wholly owned helicopter division.
Khan is a former Kenya Airways (KQ) pilot with experience in the Kenyan Air Force. He joined the Air Force in 1970, where he completed his training as a pilot. Six years later, he joined East African Airways, which was later absorbed by Kenya Airways when it was carved from the regional carrier in 1977. He says that if it were not for the Air Force, he would probably be doing something different today as his father could not afford fees for a commercial flying school.
“When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a pilot,” he said back at his office at Wilson Airport, near Nairobi, “but I also dreamed of owning a professionally run business. I had achieved my pilot dream; now it was time to chase the business aspiration.”
While at Kenya Airways, Khan says he started saving up and together with his brother, Ashraf, they bought a small Cessna 150 aircraft worth $7,000 so Ashraf could learn to fly. That was a fortune in an era when flying, let alone owning a plane, was a luxury for government officials and rich businessmen.
“We leased the plane to a flying school and discovered that it was an interesting business,” says Khan.
The lease gave them the business name, Aviation Leasing Services, too. As ALS’s fleet of aircraft rose, so did Khan’s position; he became the Airbus captain for Kenya Airways in 1991.
At the time, Somalia was slipping into anarchy as President Siad Barre was overthrown. Sudan was at war. Humanitarian organizations started trooping into the countries to assist the innocent civilians caught in civil war. This presented an opportunity in the relief business which Khan and his brother seized. Most aircraft serving the countries were foreign, mainly from South Africa.
“We got into relief and grew the business over the years,” he says.
Expansion was a problem—in the 1990s, financing was hard to come by, especially for African-owned businesses.
“We had to depend on leasing aircraft from outside because there was some kind of stigma about Africans. We had to negotiate through leasing until we started owning our own airplanes.”
ALS outgrew the stigma and eventually won the confidence of banks to expand its fleet. Khan had to quit his captain’s job in 1992 to take charge of the business and in the same year, his brother and co-director died in a plane crash. Every opportunity in aviation came with competition and as he discovered to his chagrin, pilots were not only rare and sought after, they were also fickle and open to the highest bidder.
“We do a lot of pilot training, but many move on to other airlines. It’s a reality we have to live with. Retention of pilots is a major problem because people tend to move to better conditions and bigger airplanes. We try to have retention schemes and more opportunities for pilots to grow, but it’s hard to stop it.”
With ALS and three other aviation companies, Khan is still dreaming big. Last year, he relinquished the CEO post to Cornwell Muleya, a professional airlines manager from Zambia, partly as a succession plan and to bring in new ideas. Going forward, ALS plans to work with Kenya School of Flying, which is run by captain Martin Ririani, his former colleague at Kenya Airways, who quit to start training pilots.
“We want to set up an academy for flying,” says Khan. “Kenyans are hard-working and there’s huge potential for pilots, even in the region. The only way to overcome supply and demand is to have enough pilots. We’ve got infrastructure to train and the opportunities. Many people leave Kenya to go to South Africa and the US to train as pilots. Local facilities are inadequate, so we are in negotiation with schools in Europe and South Africa to see if we can partner and set up a high-standard flying academy.”
The larger plan is to make ALS a one-stop shop for aviation services and solutions—from leasing aircraft and training pilots to operating scheduled flights. This is a highly capital-intensive business and the founder is scouting for a management buyout to bring in investors.
The idea of a management buyout is more of a succession plan. The business is very much a family culture, he says, and he is looking to change that by turning it into a corporate business. “This is very important,” says Khan, who was voted the best rally driver for 2011 by the Kenya Motorsports Association.
“To achieve success companies have to be run professionally. Family can be involved in the business, but successful companies are the ones that follow corporate governance.”
He says family-owned companies lose out on the contribution given by professional managers, though they enjoy the virtue of trust—critical for business and hard work. But trust can be extended to employees if you find the right ones. Khan says that in a competitive market, even family members find it hard to resist the allure of better opportunities outside. “My niece started with us as a pilot; now she has joined Kenya Airways.”
Reputation is critical and so the company’s operations constantly undergo audits carried out by its customers and industry regulators. The company invested millions of dollars in meeting security and safety benchmarks, including IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification for meeting international aviation safety standards in June 2011. It is the second after KQ in Kenya to get such a certification. In September of the same year, the firm was admitted to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), joining KQ and Precision Air in East Africa.
Khan says this has positioned ALS to partner with major airlines and global aviation firms to expand its market. It can now lease its aircraft to leading airlines and is in talks with national carrier Kenya Airways. It already leases to RwandAir, Southern Star Airlines in South Sudan and an airline in Sierra Leone.
To serve bigger carriers it needs medium-sized planes in the 70 passenger capacity. But that needs more cash, he says, with a single unit going for $10-25 million. “We are looking at Dash 8 models. But then this means we need cash to buy enough parts and staff like crew and engineers etc., and unless it is backed up with a contract, it’s difficult and risky to invest.”
ALS has found itself with idle planes like other airlines—unable to stay afloat due to cash flow problems which ground operations, such as the Southern Star of Juba and an airline based in Sierra Leone, which stopped operations last year.
Piloting and rallying experience has given Khan some of the most important management traits: focus and attention to detail. “Rallying has been very much in the family and when on the rough and at times muddy roads you must focus, just as with managing any business.”
Rallying is an expensive hobby and he has to invest both time and money into it. His best career moment, he says, was when he qualified as a pilot in the Air Force. So does that mean good pilots make good managers?
“Good pilots are not necessarily good managers and good managers are not necessarily good pilots. I’m lucky I got both,” he says philosophically.

From The Cockpit To Corporate Suite

In just six years, Timothy Vieira (38), Nuno Traguedo (44) and Odair Peres (32) have created Angola’s number one advertising giant that advertises for major brands including Cuca, Chevrolet and Kraft Foods.
“Angolans connect with rhythm, music, happiness and bright colors. Those ingredients work magic in
drawing Angolan consumers’ attention,” Peres says at Special Edition’s humble headquarters in the Angolan capital, Luanda. But creating the perfect match between an advert and its Angolan audience does not end there.
Special Edition’s biggest clients include Angolan beer brands Cuca, Eka and Nokal; Argentinean chocolate company Arcor; Angolan TV broadcast company Zapp; Suzuki, Chevrolet and Volkswagen; Kraft Foods (owner of Cadbury); the Ministry of the Interior; and South Africa’s Standard Bank.
One of the reasons Vieira, Traguedo and Peres manage to hook such big fish is that competition in Angola is only a fraction of what it would be elsewhere. “If you’d set up the same company in Portugal, it would be one in a million,” Traguedo says. “Here, it’s one in five.”
More importantly, though, the three owners know what works in Angola and what doesn’t. They understand the Angolan psyche and the country’s troubled past. “Culturally and linguistically, Angola is not a united country and its civil war (1975-2002) only ended 10 years ago. For outsiders, that makes it very difficult to understand how Angolan consumers will react,” says Traguedo.
One of Special Edition’s companies, Key Research, conducts research into Angolan consumption habits. With Bon o Bons, big chocolate bonbons in yellow wrappers that cost 20 (US) cents each, they made a surprising discovery. “Bon o Bons here are sold by the millions. We always thought Angolans had a sweet tooth, but they don’t: these chocolates serve as a lunch substitute for people who work far from home,” Peres says. “That makes TV ads unnecessary, because Bon o Bon’s eaters generally don’t own a TV. So we just offered a free T-shirt per two boxes of chocolate at branded Bon o Bon’s selling points.
“But until recently, people would go to the store and ask for a Brazilian Garoto (when they wanted a Bon o Bon), since it was the only brand that existed here during the war. We created a jingle that constantly repeated Bon o Bon’s name. It worked.”
Special Edition’s history started six years ago, after Traguedo sold his first Angolan company, Publibrinde. “I originally returned to Angola with just $500,” he says, “but the sale of Publibrinde left me with some pocket money. Tim and I, together, invested about $100,000 in the creation of our first advertising company six years ago, Dilal. Tim’s garage was our office.”
Dilal developed into the group Special Edition, of which Angolan-Norwegian investment fund Fundo de Investimento Privada Angola now owns 20%. Six directors have also been given shares. Directors who stay for more than a decade are entitled to their share. “That’s how they stay loyal,” Peres says.
Special Edition’s growth rate has been spectacular from the start. The group employs over 350 people. “Growth has been an average 20-25% annually and annual turnover has reached between $25-35 million,” Traguedo says. “We chose to reinvest in Angola because returns here are still more attractive than in most parts of the world.” Angola’s growth forecast for 2012 is a staggering 12.8%.
Some of Special Edition’s companies offer a clearer illustration than others that advertising in Angola is a custom-made art. Key People, for example, is a recruitment agency. It was originally set up to prevent clients from “stealing” the group’s employees. “Due to Angola’s lack of human resources, qualified Angolans constantly get proposals from other companies. We created Key People to train employees and rent them out to our clients. That way, our clients are happy and we make sure our employees stick with us,” Peres says.
Key Promotion helps Angolans understand how to use various products “primarily via radio, because TV is not accessible to everyone and internet is even worse. During the war, Angolans only had one type of soap. Now there are hundreds to choose from, but people aren’t used to that. They use Omo to wash their clothes, cars and themselves. That’s where Key Promotion comes in,” Peres says.
Press People is a printing company that produces its own pocket-sized magazine with gossip, music, fashion and recipes. It’s for the masses. “They love it!” Traguedo says. “It’s very unlike the other magazines, which cost $7 or $8. That’s quite a lot for the majority of Angolans (two thirds of Angolans live on less than $2 a day). Our magazine costs $1. While other Angolan magazines print 5,000 issues a month, we print 45,000 a week.”
Special Edition currently has nine companies within its holding. The newest additions include the high-tech outdoor company Big Media, “the Angolan government’s choice during national elections”, which has 2,500 billboards across the country; Digital Print, Angola’s leading digital printing company; Key Service, which was set up to analyze the media group’s competition; Angola’s biggest media buyer, On Media, which develops bluetooth advertising, SMS, plasma rental and indoor advertising in shopping malls; IMACOP, which creates light boxes, stands, store decoration and signs; and the PR company, Uanda, which was set up to create a good relationship between clients and the media, and which is part of the largest independent PR firm in the world, the Edelman Group.
With 98% Angolan employees, Special Edition’s three owners are convinced that human resources are key to their success. “We employ the best staff in the industry,” Vieira says. “The commitment I see here is huge compared to advertising agencies in Europe. None of our Angolan employees have studied abroad, but they are all top people,” Peres adds. “One of them learned to create 3D by watching YouTube. There’s a little competition going on. Our people motivate themselves to learn from each other, which is beautiful.”
In the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report last year, Angola ranks 163 out of 183 countries. “In Angola, finding a place and qualified people is difficult and the stress involved is a lot worse than in other countries,” Peres admits. “Sometimes you don’t have any water or power or the generator breaks down. But Angolans are happy by nature. If we don’t have electricity, we visit our neighbors and have a glass of champagne. What other people call problems, we call challenges. Nothing is impossible in Angola.”
Special Edition has already booked its first international success. “We managed to convince Arcor to do an Angolan campaign instead of simply translating their existing one, which would not have worked,” Peres says.
“The response was so good that we’ve translated the Angolan Bon o Bon TV ad into English and French. For the first time ever, an Angolan TV spot is being broadcast all over Africa.”
Despite that, says Vieira, Special Edition does not have international aspirations. “Angola is big enough to keep us busy. I believe our story has just begun.”

Bursting Colors, Vibrant  Rhythms And Dazzling Smiles Sell

They are fresh-faced, full of ambition and look like they could be on their way to a rock concert—instead, they are on their way to a fortune.
In just 14 months, they’ve managed to beat the odds, and their peers, to amass just over $385 million in assets in a $19-billion property market in South Africa.
Sesfikile Capital, which means “we have arrived” in Xhosa, is a young company in more ways than one. Evan Jankelowitz is the eldest, aged 32, Mohamed Kalla, 29, and Kundayi Munzara, 28.  Together they’ve beaten the benchmark of the property business, the South African Property Index, in times of recession and doubt.
Sesfikile Capital, which opened its doors in December 2010, manages institutional capital on behalf of pension fund clients in domestic and international property listings.
It wasn’t easy. In the first four months of their business, they had zero assets to manage.
“We used to look at our monthly statements and we had an expense statement, not an income statement! April 2011 is when we got our first mandate, which was $1.2 million—not a great deal, but at least that gave us the ability to start,” says Munzara.
If that was a surprise—10 months later came a shock. Sesfikile Capital had set a target of $257 million for the first year; instead they got $385 million. The company has reaped the benefits of property coming into its own as an asset and pension funds also started to pay a lot more attention to listed property.
“It’s by no means a pushover sector and we have sleepless nights when the markets don’t always go our way; but the truth of the matter is we’re so involved and enjoy what we do. It’s a challenge we’re up for,” says Jankelowitz.
“It’s also difficult in this sector because it’s small and relatively illiquid. There’s a lot of competition out there, so you have to work pretty hard to beat the average,” Kalla adds.
South African property economist Professor François Viruly says Sesfikile Capital’s portfolio is a substantial one to be created in such a short time. He says there are significant bargains to be had in the property market in South Africa and the launching of new property funds offers good opportunities.
Sesfikile Capital says making sense of what is happening globally is another issue they face. The constant news flow on the euro zone and other global political issues affect equity markets and is something they’ve come to work prepared for every day.
The South African commercial property market has adjusted from its peak in 2005 and 2006. The focus at present is on maintaining tenants and keeping operating costs under control. But the number of new players entering the South African market reflects the opportunities here and further afield.
“If you think of the big oil countries like Angola, Ghana and Nigeria, for instance, there’s a big shortage of stock there. So at this point, the stock actually has to be built. And the guys who are really doing that are probably the infrastructure and private equity funds; we’re more a second-round investor, where we invest in existing stock that provides rental,” Munzara says.
Viruly says a slowdown in returns should be expected in 2012, reflective of relatively high vacancies in the commercial property market. There is also some pressure on rentals at the moment and the focus of property managers is to ensure that incomes are maintained. The rise in municipal rates and taxes and the rising cost of electricity are also having an impact on returns in the property market.
Sesfikile Capital is ready for rough waters, though.
“The volatility in equity markets has seen pension funds and investors look towards more income-driven assets and both fixed-income and property have actually benefitted from that. And there is very little evidence to suggest that investment in property has actually been hampered by the recession,” Kalla says.
“It reshuffled the whole market and allowed for cheaper entries into property. I’ve personally seen a lot more pension funds looking at this space—there has been more focus on property than there has been in the past,” Jankelowitz adds.
South African property continues to demonstrate relatively strong performance when compared to equities and bonds, according to Viruly. The densification of South African cities continues to offer opportunities, especially in the retail and residential sectors.
Sesfikile Capital has just launched a unit trust, which will focus on the retail market and invest in the listed property sector. The company is launching a global fund as well.
“Our numbers are looking good and there’s no reason to think we can’t continue in this manner,” says Jankelowitz.
The young lions appear ready to roar.

Young Lions Feast At  The Top Table

Crossing Pont Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Abidjan, you get to see Côte d’Ivoire’s dichotomy clearly. In front of you, mid-rise buildings glow with neon lights through the darkness: Pepsi, Mitsubishi, MTN create a mask that hints at prosperity. But the queues of young men waiting on street corners and the cranes pecking at the drifts of garbage on the water’s edge tell a different story.
Once the region’s most sophisticated economy, Côte d’Ivoire is now a case study for the economic impact of conflict and political paralysis. But even though its election descended into violence and the country teetered on the brink of another civil war, the much-delayed completion of the transition from post-war junta to democratic state has put Côte d’Ivoire back on the path to regaining some of its former glory.
A shaky cease-fire, signed in 2003 to hold the country together after an attempted coup, led to a government that controlled the south—under Laurent Gbagbo—and a north run by Forces Nouvelles rebels.
During that limbo, investors talked about the country’s potential and the build up of money that was waiting to be released once the election finally passed. But it was delayed, then delayed again, until it seemed as though the delay would be interminable. While regional neighbors, such as Ghana, saw their economies boom and attract international investment, Côte d’Ivoire was in stasis.
In November 2010, there was one last twist. The incumbent old warhorse Gbagbo refused to yield, leading to a violent standoff. The victor, Alassane Ouattara, formed a government within the compound of the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, protected by a ring of UN peacekeepers while militias fought in the city around them.
Escalating international pressure and financial sanctions eventually led to the collapse of Gbagbo’s support. Ouattara, a former International Monetary Fund official, took over in April last year but not before the country had defaulted on its bonds by failing to make coupon payments to international creditors London Club, while its assets were frozen.
His early achievements—in reassuring investors that the arrears would be repaid and getting backing for debt relief from France—were encouraging, and today in Abidjan there is a cautious optimism. The city is not visibly transformed from two years ago, but construction projects are restarting and traffic is building. Though the change has not been dramatic, the lifting of the deadlock means that companies can finally plan beyond the short term.
“There’s a sense that a lot of things are possible,” says the director of the private equity firm Emerging Capital Partners’ (ECP) Abidjan office, Brice Lodugnon. The security situation has improved and there’s some certainty over the direction of the government, which has pledged to increase spending on infrastructure and agriculture.
The good news is that at least around Abidjan, infrastructure and utilities still function. There are good companies in many sectors and a relatively strong system of governance. Key industries, including financial services, are competitive and the country is still the world’s largest exporter of cocoa. But while Côte d’Ivoire has some of the political risk of a post-conflict environment, it does not have an abundance of underpriced opportunities. That’s a problem for investors.
Even before the crisis, there were tentative expansions into previously politicized industries, including cement making and flour milling, with companies from North Africa, as well as the country’s large French and Lebanese expat communities, moving into manufacturing and processing. Agribusiness group Olam has pledged a further $200 million in investments, while ECP is expanding its portfolio in the power sector. Rather than looking for a new cohort of investors, Ouattara’s government might find more support from those existing players, now free to make long-term plans.
Many businesses were battered by the 2011 crisis but now stoically downplay the human cost of that period, talking instead of the relief at their newfound ability to plan beyond the short term. Still, the scars are there. At the height of the violence, pro-Gbagbo forces executed one of the country’s largest foreign investors—Yves Lambelin, the former president and patriarch of Sifca. That story gets told regularly.
International investors speak highly of Ouattara. One CEO of a multinational operating across the continent said that the president—while his ability to create a government is unproven—is one of the most accomplished leaders in economic planning in Africa.
Politics are bound to be difficult. An hour’s flight north of Abidjan is Ouattara’s hometown of Bouaké, until recently the headquarters of the Forces Nouvelles. There, the difference in development is marked. The roads are in worse condition and the security presence, in the form of UN peacekeepers from Pakistan, are far more visible. People living there refer to the country’s “reconstruction”.
Further up country the situation is worse, with an entire generation denied access to education after the southern government abandoned schools. An executive in a cotton company, with an extensive presence in the north, called the state of some areas “appalling”.
Making sure that the country’s redevelopment is even and that the government—headed by a northerner—does not re-open divisions that are still fresh, will be a massive task for the new president.

Category: Focus

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