Money sent home by citizens living abroad is a major source of foreign exchange for Rwanda, with an estimated $104.25 million received in 2011, a 42.8% increase compared to the previous year.
With this rise in remittances, Rwanda’s government is now focused on getting Rwandans living abroad to help drive investment to sustain the country’s rapid economic growth.
The government wants to issue a diaspora bond to soak up spare cash from 100,000 Rwandans living overseas through the National Bank of Rwanda. The Bank, according to Governor Claver Gatete, is currently studying the models of other countries that have issued similar diaspora bonds.
“We had to send people on the ground; they are now studying the models of other countries. We want to make sure that this year it is launched. There is no doubt about it. We are targeting diaspora because we want to give them an alternative to invest. This is the best and the easiest way to make an investment without leaving your desk,” says Gatete.
Rwanda joins the growing list of other African countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania that have backed the World Bank’s call for issuance of diaspora bonds to woo their citizens abroad to invest in their own countries. The Bank urges African economies to tap into an estimated $40 billion a year.
Countries such as Ghana and Kenya have already launched their bonds while Nigeria will join Rwanda in launching their bonds this year. A caveat is that Kenya’s infrastructure bond, issued last year, failed to attract the required amount because of weak local currency shilling.
The African Development Bank, which also supports the issuance of such bonds, has hinted on helping African nations market their financial instruments.
Raising investment capital through diaspora bonds is not a new idea. Israel and India have thrived on them. Diaspora bonds operate like any other government bonds and are highly secure for investment, especially when the issuers are creditworthy.
Rwanda is rated credit worthy because of its sound economy, sustainable debt and increasing levels of domestic revenue and exports. In 2010, the economy expanded by 7.5% while in 2011, it was expected to rise by 8.8%. This year, the central bank expects growth to slow to 7.6%, owing to uncertainties in the global economy. Inflation, which closed the year at 8.3%, is expected to slow to 7.5% this year—all favorable signals to investors.
Rwanda is one of a few highly attractive African investment destinations because of low corruption, investor-friendly policies and its geographical location in the heart of East and Central Africa—combined local and foreign private investments reached $626 million last year, from $350 million in 2010.
Gatete says that the bond will be issued in the local currency—the Rwandan franc (RwF) to avoid dollarization of the economy. Its proceeds could be used for monetary policy implementation since it will be issued by the National Bank. This means that it could be injected into the money markets.
“It’s not government borrowing, but we could use the bond for different ways to give chances to the diaspora to invest,” says Governor Gatete, adding that the value, maturity period and coupon of the bond will be announced when it is ready for the market.
The current Rwandan government, led by President Paul Kagame, has adopted strong measures to include the diaspora in the nation’s development. This has helped the diaspora come together to form a global network—the Rwanda Diaspora Global Network (RDGN), which has a permanent office in Rwanda and brings together Rwandans across the world.
The network has between 25,000 and 30,000 members in Canada and the United States, more than 40,000 in Belgium, which has the single largest population of Rwandan diaspora, and just over 1,000 members in Australia.
Sending money to Rwanda remains expensive, but with the fund in place the cost would go down, appealing to low-income earners overseas.

Investment Begins At Home

It was a beginning dogged by poverty, but inspired by dreams. Actress Terry Pheto’s family was too poor to own a television set and she grew up paying 10 cents a day to sit on the floor to watch TV with her neighbors. Now, she sits in Hollywood and makes a fortune from appearing onscreen in the soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful.
So was it by sheer luck that Pheto was chosen in a country full of accomplished and perhaps more experienced actresses? Vukile Madlala, the publicity manager at the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s SABC1, explains how it all started: “Since we are the channel that carries The Bold and the Beautiful as one of our longest-running soapies, the producers of the soap came down with a handful of their actors for a South African tour. It was during that trip that they discussed with us the possibility of developing an African character. They asked us to nominate a few actresses, and Terry Pheto was one of the actresses we put forward.”
It would seem that this move by the American producers was a calculated one. Madlala points out that The Bold and the Beautiful is still among the top five rated shows on SABC1. Simply put, viewers are still hooked—even after many years of watching the storyline unfold.
A look at general viewership trends reveals that while the craze over reality television is crushing the soap opera in the US, Africans are still tuning in—and in large numbers, compensating for the loss of viewers and income on home turf.
All of these factors have conspired to take a woman from Boipatong in the Vaal Triangle, near Johannesburg, to Hollywood. It has been a long journey.
Pheto has certainly come a long way from being the child whose family didn’t own a television. She had to drop out of college during the second year of an IT diploma, because there was no money for tuition, and joined a community theatre group.
It was a long apprenticeship that bore fruit in 2008. She found fame after being cast in the 2006 Best Foreign Film, the South African Oscar-winning movie, Tsotsi. Then, Pheto was selected as the face of international cosmetic giant L’Oréal Paris, following in the footsteps of Jane Fonda, Halle Berry, Beyoncé Knowles, Freida Pinto and Cheryl Cole.
Now, Pheto is playing the role of Dr Malaika Maponya in The Bold and the Beautiful.
“It was amazing playing a South African on one of the world’s most famous American soaps,” she says. “I didn’t have to learn a new accent, I didn’t have to venture too much into the unknown—all I had to do was make sure I knew my lines by the time I arrived on set because the level of professionalism there is unlike anything I have ever seen before.
“The production is like an incredibly well-oiled machine that runs with amazing precision. There’s simply no room for error or tardiness. You get only one take, and there is an expectation that you must get it right the first time,” she explains.
With the type of opportunities that she’s had at her disposal so far, Pheto would most certainly be forgiven for packing her bags and relocating to the United States permanently in pursuit of her own Charlize Theron fantasy tale. She already travels back and forth for classes and workshops. She has great connections and relationships with the South African community making it big in Hollywood—the likes of Gavin Hood, creator and director of Tsotsi, the very same guy who took a great gamble by putting Pheto and a few other community theatre actors in front of the camera for the first time.
But as I engage her on her current and future plans, it is pretty clear that the African continent features front and centre in her plans.
Growing her resumé as an actress is also top of mind for Pheto. She has recently been one of the main stars in a local movie called How to Steal R2 million, where she played the character of Olive—a feisty township girl who will do whatever it takes, even crime, to survive.
“I am currently reading scripts and attending castings. In our local film industry, you are lucky to do two movies a year. So I am constantly in search of my next big movie project,” says the lady whose portfolio includes roles in movies such as Catch a Fire and Goodbye Bafana, in which she played Zindzi Mandela.
Pheto also has ambitions of making it behind the camera. “A while ago, I got awarded a scholarship to study filmmaking and directing at the New York Film academy. And as soon as I can identify a gap in my schedule, I will be enrolling in that course,” she says.
She would love to collaborate with the stars and directors in Nollywood, the highly successful Nigerian movie circuit. “I admire how the Nigerians delight in their own culture and how they love telling their own stories. With the kind of viewership numbers they attract, and our sense of quality in production as South Africans, we can do really big things together,” she says with a smile.

TERRY PHETO

<h4> FORBES AFRICA (FA): How is Samsung’s partnership with the Africa Cup of Nations boosting the development of football in Africa and what was the company’s strategy behind its involvement in the tournament?</h4>
KK Park (KKP): Football is a passion we share with our customers in Africa, and Samsung is thrilled to play a part in this celebration of African football. As an official sponsor of the Africa Cup of Nations since 2008, Samsung has provided many programmes for fans to engage both inside and outside the football stadiums. For example, we have sponsored the ‘Samsung Fair Player Award’ for each game, contributing to the spirit of good sportsmanship in football. Our Africa Cup of Nations sponsorship forms just a part of our commitment to sport on the continent.
Our commitment to football in Africa is also part of our broader strategy of constantly looking for opportunities to engage with our consumers and to help them do the things they love. Just two weeks ago, Samsung and Chelsea FC hosted a Youth Football Camp in Ghana and Ivory Coast to improve the skills of children, aged between nine and 13. We also sponsor the Nigerian national football team.
By supporting sports and recreation initiatives at local, regional and international levels, we believe we can make a tangible difference in the lives of young people and our customers across the continent.
<h4>FA: How important is the African continent to Samsung’s bottom line? What is your growth target for the next five years and how do you tailor your products for the continent?</h4>
KKP: Our belief is that Africa is an incredibly important market for a variety of reasons. The growth of the market is tremendous, and so is the opportunity to develop new lines of business and even new products. For us, Africa is blazing a new path, and Samsung plans to be part of that. One of the ways in which we’re supporting African consumers is our Built for Africa product line. ‘Built for Africa’ was born from our legacy of constant innovation. Our specific insight was to take our products and to look for ways of making them even better. Often this means improving a product to help our consumers navigate their local environment. For example power surges often damage electronic products in Africa. Therefore we created products such as our SurgeSafe TVs, Triple Protector Air Conditioners, and Duracool Fridges—ll with built-in surge protection. This initiative has already seen enormous success, and we are very excited about the next generation of Built for Africa products that we will be unveiling at our Africa Forum 2012, this March in Cape Town.
<h3>FA: How does Built for Africa fit into your overall strategy for the continent?</h3>
KKP: The key to our engagement with Africa is our belief that we need to contribute to African society not only through localized products, but also by supporting the development of talent in the region. This means that Samsung is deeply committed to growing capacity in Africa. You can see this reflected in our Hope for Children program, which consists of three initiatives meant to help ensure the education of the next generation of Africans. First, we are opening our Samsung Electronics Engineering Academies, which support the development of African engineers and then help graduating students find jobs within Samsung. Our current goal is to develop 10,000 electronics engineers across the continent by 2015. Second we have developed unique Schools, Solar Powered Internet  portable schools aimed at increasing accessibility to education and connectivity in remote rural areas with limited or no access to electricity. Finally, we have our Mobile Education program, which involves working with universities and content developers in different African countries to customize mobile apps and educational content for Africa.

Built For Africa

It all began in the 1920s, when Kishin Chand Chellaram stepped off a boat and onto the shores of Lagos. He had heard from a family friend that there was money to be made in Nigeria and had journeyed for months across the sea to find out if this was true.
Chellaram was a small textile business owner in his hometown of Hyderabad. In 1923, he joined other Sindhis who were venturing into Nigeria’s growing economy. After two weeks of exploring his options, he sent for the first consignment of goods.
In the late 1940s the Chellarams, who are Hindu, were forced to leave their home after East and West Pakistan were formed as a Muslim state. The Chellarams sold all their assets, exchanging them for coupons in Bombay, and set up shop permanently in Lagos.
The name Chellaram became known in Nigeria for retail, operating 17 department stores across the country selling groceries, cosmetics, textiles, luxury items and electronics from the early 1950s up until 1992, when economic and political conditions in the country slowed down its operations. The family business survived as Chellarams Plc. and is one of the largest conglomerates in Nigeria, with a business portfolio consisting of fast-moving consumer goods, chemicals distribution, a bicycle manufacturing division, a food packaging unit contracted to Nestlé Nigeria, an industrial goods sales and service subsidiary, a textiles manufacturing unit, a plastic film manufacturing unit,  quick service restaurants, a travel agency and a retail operations business.
This mixed bag of companies is now run by Kishin Chand’s great-grandson, Suresh, his wife Kavita and his two children, Aditya and Amisha. Although the company listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1978, 75% of the business is still held by the family; 20% belongs to shareholders and the remaining 5% is in the name of a Nigerian charity.
“My great-grandfather was the first Indian member in Nigeria’s prestigious Ikoyi Club and the first Indian to live in Ikoyi,” says Aditya proudly.
Amisha was behind the first foray of South African retail giant Woolworths into Nigeria. She started as a franchisee in 2002, but operations halted in 2005 due to an importation ban on garments and footwear. In November 2011, the deal was reopened as a joint venture business that will see three stores running in major shopping centers in the country this year. The company also made headlines in Nigeria when it entered into a joint venture with RJCorp of India and Yum! Restaurants International as the sole operator of the KFC brand in Nigeria. Today, 15 stores operate in Nigeria, with plans to open another 15 stores this year.
Chellarams has also partnered with big international names like American Express travel services, Oldenburger and Real (dairy products), as well as chemical companies like Shell and Bayer, and other international consumer durables and electronics companies. The company’s biggest trading line is chemicals for the foam mattress industry and 70% of their chemicals sold go into this.
“Nigerians are very savvy and well traveled, so they are exposed to international brands. They are looking for brands and these brands are looking for Nigeria now. With the recession in Europe and America, everyone is looking to Nigeria now and Chellarams is positioning itself to be a partner for these guys—not just an investment partner but a strategic partner that can provide services and that has the local knowledge. We will keep finding ways to leverage these partnerships to grow our other businesses,” says Aditya.
The Chellarams family is a picture of success in Nigeria, but it has not been easy. As any Nigerian business owner can tell you, manoeuvering the political and socio-economic environment in the country is an uphill battle. Nigeria has had a turbulent past, which has resulted in a tough business climate.
“A difficult period was the early to mid-’90s with the major devaluation and the ’94 election saga,” Aditya reminisces.
“International credit lines were given to Nigerian banks and they were crawling on repaying these loans. They began to aggressively try and cease advantage and take over our house. Real estate really saved us then and we have had to sell some iconic real estate that we owned, including warehouses, retail stores and an office tower.”
Remarkably, the family was not derailed by the oil boom of the ’60s when many companies were rushing to get a piece of Nigeria’s black gold.
“We are not running after a rainbow. It is a high investment business and we were small boys. It’s a game that is not for Indians or foreigners but a game for the indigenes. Our aim is to supply products that benefit these businesses which, Chellarams believes, is a better business model anyway.”
Africa hosts more than 150 Indian businesses today, many of whom are trying to penetrate Nigeria’s market. The company claims that it is not threatened by the increasing number of similar businesses entering the space it has occupied for the last 88 years. Rather, Chellarams is more worried about competition from Nigerian companies that are able to operate with lower overheads and have more focused product lines, geography and customer base within Nigeria. These businesses import their products and sell them at much lower prices.
The family is trying to invest in Nigeria’s power sector and capitalize on the government’s plan to reform and deregulate the sector. Chellarams had already formed a company called Solar Power Generation Ltd, which has already commissioned two gas-powered generators and has attained permission to sell power to their neighbors in the industrial areas of Lagos. This project has the capacity to hold up to 50 megawatts. Currently, Nigeria is the only country in which the family operates, but its next step is West African expansion in both the Anglophone and Francophone parts of the continent. Chellarams Plc. is already looking into sponsoring activities in Chad, Cameroon and Niger, where the plan is to create the pull effect for their goods into these three nations. Chellarams also has its eye on a full-time operation in Ghana.
To finance its growth objectives, the company issued a N1.5 billion ($9 million) BBB-bond in December 2010 and a second tranche of N3.5 billion ($22 million) in December 2011.
“For now, we are just holding back and looking, but we expect partnerships to be a big part of the brand. This is the business model that is prime for a region that everyone is trying to come into at once.”
The family says it will continue Kishin Chand’s Nigerian dream in the 21st century. When people ask where they come from, the family says: “We are Sindhi refugees but Nigeria has been a warm welcome.”

From Refugees To Tycoons

Lord Malloch-Brown has been described as a rare statesman and a public intellectual. He is a man with a passion for Africa and is the former United Nations Deputy Secretary General and World Bank vice chairman, who has also held the office of Minister of State for Africa, Asia and was the British Prime Minister in Gordon Brown’s cabinet.
A former journalist for The Economist, Lord Malloch-Brown’s astute observations concerning international relations, macro-economics and the role of emerging markets were the platform for his keynote address at the Hasso Plattner Ventures Capital Africa Conference 2012, in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, a conference aimed at matching investment opportunities in Africa with venture capital.
When asked whether the global economy is heading south, Lord Malloch-Brown’s answer painted a realistic picture, with hope for emerging economies.
“Its going to be a year of troubled growth, emerging markets will continue to grow but less than they did last year, with advanced economies growing at 1.5%. The other understanding of the word ‘south’ is that the engine of the global economy is moving inextricably southwards. You see it in the growing share of GDP that emerging economies represent.”
Chinese growth figures in 1990 comprised 2% of global GDP; now it comprises 8% of global GDP, making it the largest economy in the world. In many ways the Chinese economy is the standard bearer for emerging economies.
For emerging economies, according to Lord Malloch-Brown, the future looks bright, especially in the medium to long-term, with a strong trend towards high rates of urbanization, growth in middle-class consumer spending and increased mechanization of agriculture.
But against this buoyant backdrop lies the reality that internally, social instability will remain a problem, with increased inequality and political unrest.
“You will see potential corruption around the controlling of resources, commercial land and also mineral and energy resources. Scarcity of resources will also play a big role, especially around water. These are some of the real challenges that emerging economies will need to face and address head on.”
With investors looking for increased opportunity in emerging markets, the question is, where is the smart money heading?
“Smart money is all over the place at the moment; assets in Asia are overpriced, in Europe prices are overvalued, coupled with economic instability in the Eurozone. Latin America is a strangely overlooked market, and then you have Africa which is a hugely attractive market. But the difficulty in Africa lies in acquisitions. You really need to buy or build a business that is Pan African. With the exception of South Africa and Nigeria, most African markets are not big enough to sustain a major foreign investment.”
Investing in Africa according to Lord Malloch-Brown is all about finding a sound business model that can work across the continent.
So far, investor interest in African assets has leant towards the financial services sector, telecoms and more recently, retail.  When it comes to investing in Africa, the devil is in the detail says Lord Malloch-Brown.
“When investing in Africa you need to ask yourself whether the asset is a well-valued, well-run business in its own market, and whether you can see the business rolling out into the continent more widely. These are the critical points to investing in emerging economies, especially in Africa.”
According to Lord Malloch-Brown, it’s all about operating and opening up capital to bigger African markets.
Lord Malloch-Brown’s career at the helm of some of the world’s leading international organizations, has given him a birds-eye view of development, matched with an  understanding of the challenges of grass roots implementation. He also believes fostering entrepreneurship in Africa is the only way to build the continent.
“I’m a big enthusiast of the continent; I chair a rice-growing and producing business in Ghana called GADCO which has very quickly positioned itself as the major rice producer in Ghana. The business follows a very clear triple bottom line. We make money, we create jobs and aim to be sustainable.”
Africa, according to Malloch-Brown, is an extraordinary growth story. In his current role as chairman of FTI Consulting, an international investment consultancy, Malloch-Brown aims to help channel private equity funds into the continent’s growth industries.
“Fostering entrepreneurship in Africa is not just about inculcating a culture of ‘win’,” states Lord Malloch-Brown. “It’s also important to note cultural differences that play a role in people’s ability and agility to pick up the skill of enterprise and risk taking.”
The prominence of the public sector as a major employer on the continent has had a dampening effect on the spark of entrepreneurship, but what has been an outstanding source of hope for the future of African entrepreneurs, is the quality and level of business school education found on the continent.
“What South Africa has in way of nurturing entrepreneurship are business schools and tertiary institutions that teach students to become enterprising—part entrepreneur, part social activists. That’s the beauty of entrepreneurs in Africa, you can’t be one without having a social conscience, and that’s where the real change for the continent lies.”
On whether one should be investing in Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown’s answer was a resounding yes.
“The short-term choice is financial services and communications, with the massive opportunity of the unbanked. In the medium-term there are going to be two revolutions across the continent, one in agricultural productivity and the other in increased urbanization. These two, will create astonishing medium-term opportunities.”
With strong investment returns, Africa continues to be a continent with immense potential and the smart money in the world appears to be heading south.

Is The World Economy  Heading South?

A few minutes past midnight on March 2, 2006, Paul Melly received a call from one of his senior managers who had news no one wanted to hear and few could believe. The Standard Group head offices, the panting caller said, was being raided by a gang of armed and hooded assailants.
It sounded like a prank call, but April 1 was still 29 days away. If Melly had any doubts, two more phone calls from a senior journalist and a director confirmed that the media house he heads was under attack.
<div id="attachment_439" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-439" class="size-large wp-image-439" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Paul-Melly-3-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Paul Melly</div>
“It started as a nightmare scenario,” recalls Melly, who was vice chairman and strategy adviser to the company, which owns The Standard newspaper and Kenya Television Network (KTN). “Signs at the hour were that the Communication Commission of Kenya was dismantling our television transmission equipment. But then I told myself, a regulator can’t come at night. A higher hand than the regulator’s was involved and the magnitude of the event suggested a force that had some strong, invisible hand.”
If that was bad news, worse was to come. An hour later, Melly received more reports that another group had invaded Standard Group. This time, it was the newspaper printing press. The gang attacked and kidnapped staff, stopped the presses and was burning newspapers. A news gatherer was making the news, in the midst of a rare crisis. How could anyone handle such a disaster?
It was a world away from the optimism on the day when Melly joined Standard Group in 2004. His job description was clear: transforming a fledgling media house on the verge of losing money and public confidence.
The Standard Group is Kenya’s second largest media house, which runs The Standard newspaper, the country’s first private television station and magazine distribution. The newspaper and television station have won fans because of their independent approach to news. It is the scourge of government and its officials, and it splashes stories that its rivals dare not touch. In an exclusive eight years ago, it revealed President Kibaki had a second wife. A few months later, the Sunday Standard questioned Kibaki’s fitness and suitability to be head of state after speculation over the president’s ill health, following a freak accident on the campaign trail.
It was a tough row to hoe. The Standard, Kenya’s oldest newspaper that was started in 1902, struggled to win over new readers and KTN kept losing viewers to newer and more nimble broadcasters. Operational costs were on the increase, especially newsprint, and the struggle to secure the most talented journalists was draining the coffers of newspapers. At the same time, turnover slackened and profitability plunged.
With no training or experience in journalism, Melly was an unlikely choice for the highest management position in the group. He is a finance man, with a Masters degree in accounting and finance.
“Not being a trained journalist represented a strength in looking at things from a fresh point of view, challenging the status quo and always pursuing the ‘why strategy of asking why can we not do this or that’ without the inhibition of journalism experience,” Melly told FORBES AFRICA at the company’s new headquarters on the outskirts of Nairobi.
The position, he says, required leadership skills, which he had in plenty from the Capital Markets Authority, a government-run industry regulator, where he had worked for a dozen years, 10 of them as chief executive officer. He presided over reforms, including the demobilization of shares, which is the conversion into electronic form, and the automation of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), now called the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
Since December 2004, when he joined, he says Standard Group’s fortunes have improved. Turnover had grown from Sh1.7 billion ($20 million) to Sh3.1 billion ($36.5 million) by December 2010. Shareholders’ equity has increased fivefold, while profits have tripled, from near loss, to Sh453 million ($5 million).
“Figures speak for themselves,” he says as he takes me through the annual report for 2010. These numbers pale next to those of the rival, Nation Media Group, that turns over twice as much, with triple the profits, but they are big enough to toast with champagne at Standard Group.
Standard Group was far from ready when the hooded gang descended with AK-47s in hand. They stormed into rented head offices in the city center, arresting staff, confiscating computers and dismantling transmission equipment. At the printing works, they burned newspapers as they rolled off the press. Indeed, the events of Wednesday, March 2, 2006, played out like a Hollywood action movie.
“To say it was my worst day is an understatement,” says Melly.
The raid was executed with the precision of a commando operation and its magnitude showed it was not the work of casual criminals.
“Because the raiders were hooded and accompanied government security personnel with people of Caucasian origin, it immediately occurred to me it was sabotage on our operations,” Melly says.
There was speculation that the raid was aimed at pre-empting a negative story on senior people in government.
“It was just intimidation. The headline that day was ‘Champions of KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education)’ celebrating the performance of schools. Those who were burning them must have been ashamed because they were burning newspapers with positive content about our children. There was no content found in any of our offices that was being contemplated for publication or published. And if there was, arrests would have been made and people charged. That story was a conspiracy by those behind the raid to justify their actions,” says Melly.
When it comes to dealing with crisis, Melly says he takes one step at a time, avoiding hasty decisions. “You must analyze the situation with a reasonable level of clarity,” he advises. As he did that, he moved to reassure his colleagues and staff that all would be fine and they would prevail.
“I received calls from many people, but I did not make any attempt to call anybody in government or people I know. My desire was to gather more information as necessary rather than spread the panic. We needed to know, for instance, how many were the raiders, how were they dressed, armed, and find out if there were any hallmarks of government support. And given that they used government vehicles, the fact that some of our employees were being taken into police custody was enough to suggest that the operation was instigated by government.”
Standard Group lost advertising revenue in the newspaper, circulation, TV and editorial content in its news repository, crucial data on its magazine distribution division and hundreds of computers, all running into millions of dollars. Operations were crippled and something had to be done, and quickly.
As a leader, Melly had to think on his feet, answer anxious calls and maintain his cool.
By 6am, he says, he had in place a strategy, with key objectives of getting KTN back on air and repairing the printing press to have a paper on the streets the next day.
First, Melly rallied support among journalists, politicians and diplomats in defense of the freedom of the press. He assembled a legal team to assess the issue and free arrested journalists.
The key was to resume operations as fast as possible while assessing the damage.
“We managed the situation within a day. In the evening we were up and running and KTN had resumed operations. We acquired new computers and assembled new software. We managed to repair the damage to our press as we couldn’t get another media house to print for us. The Standard was on the streets the following day.”
Last but not least, what it took is courage. “When you are right, nothing can fail you,” says Melly.
“When I was growing up, my grandparents instilled in me a strong culture of determination and responsibility early in life. Being the first born, I started making contributions to family matters early, managing resources and leading others. More importantly, my grandparents always told me that in life you must go to the destination you have identified no matter the bottlenecks, and you must learn to overcome them the same way a river manages to overcome hills and barriers. However, you must not be reckless. Always be tactful.”
Melly says the team is now better prepared. The company has set up additional electronic surveillance devices allowing the station to be able to beam any future raid live on TV.
Looking back, he admits some failures.
“It took time for us to resume operations. At that moment we did not have an elaborate contingency plan. We took virtually the whole day. We have learnt the lessons.”
So why is he still restless?
“The mystery of it all is that I cannot, as the person leading this business, tell you why the raid was conducted. Because there was no shred of evidence that was provided either directly or indirectly to suggest that there was an illegality being committed or contemplated on our part as a media house or by any of our journalists, and I can only second guess that the overall objective was to dismantle a fierce independent media house in an attempt to cow the entire media in the country.”
If there is a next time, at least he will be prepar
<h3>What did he learn?</h3>
“I would want to characterize it as a defining moment not only in media operations and survival, but also as a major test on me in my professional career… Perseverance keeps you going, even in adversity.”
<h3>What did the government say?</h3>
The Kenya government confirmed it ordered police to raid the offices of The Standard newspaper and its sister TV station. The newspaper had been critical of President Mwai Kibaki’s handling of corruption scandals. The government had repeatedly accused The Standard of fabricating stories. Internal security minister John Michuki said the raids on the Standard Group in Nairobi were designed to protect state security. “If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it,” 
he said.
A police spokesman said in a statement hours after the raid that authorities conducted the sweep to collect evidence about a plot that threatened national security. Jasper Ombati, the police chief at the time, said the police had evidence that Standard journalists were being paid to incite ethnic hatred and write fabricated articles about the government. He said security officers acted on intelligence information about “an intended act” that would threaten national security. He confirmed that police officers routinely wore masks to hide their identities in sensitive cases such as The Standard raid. Little has been heard from the government since then.

The Day The Sword Proved Mightier Than The Pen

As a multitude of the wealthy and powerful of the mining world rubbed shoulders in Cape Town, the picture emerged of what this year holds for the industry in Africa.
<div id="attachment_434" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-434" class="size-large wp-image-434" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/6830715115_459e9c16cd_o-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Jonathan Moore, MD of Mining Indaba; Michael Katz, the chairman of ENS (Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs); Martin Kingston, executive deputy chairman of NM Rothschild’s local bank franchise and Trevor Manuel, Minister in the Presidency for the National Planning Commission at the Mining Indaba on Monday, February 6, 2012</div>
Mining represents 50% of total merchant exports in Africa south of the Sahara, says the World Bank.
From the scores of presentations, briefings and conversations it is clear that investors are still jumpy about the world economy and Eurozone contagion; they are nervous about resource nationalism—that is, people wanting a greater share of their country’s mineral wealth—and are wary of new mining regulations. The ruling African National Congress in South Africa proposes new taxes on mineral rights in South Africa, plus a windfall tax for returns over 22%.
Although South Africa’s former Finance Minister and now National Planning Minister, Trevor Manuel, conceded during the Indaba that “in the main the government has failed”, saying “we haven’t managed this process well”, he thinks the new tax proposals that were now being considered were a “sensible taxation” whose proceeds will be invested into broader development as the commodities boom was not poised to last forever.
As for beneficiation, which a lot of people thought would help create and sustain jobs, the minister thought it was a double-edged sword. Often beneficiation needed energy and capital that locals did not have.
“Nationalization is not a smart strategy,” Manual concluded.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-433" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/6830713659_56e40368fb_o-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />
Zambia Chamber of Mines head, Frederick Bantubonse, thought there were lessons other African countries could learn from his country, which nationalized mining for 30 years.
Before nationalization in 1973, Zambia produced over 700,000 tons of copper, says Bantubonse. When it rolled back the nationalization program about 10 years ago, the country was producing a mere 257,000 tons. It has now gone back to the pre-nationalization production levels.
But now indigenous business people are finding it difficult to enter the industry because of the big capital investment needed.
It was small comfort that the investors’ nightmares of nationalization appeared to be put to bed by public utterances by the powerful at the conference.
“This whole nationalization story is going to be difficult to wash off. Investors won’t put another dollar into South Africa, they would sooner invest in gold in Eritrea,” says one disgruntled delegate.
Robert Besseling, senior Africa forecaster for Exclusive Analysis, said: “Gold in SA is over. It is too deep and expensive to get out of the ground and there are higher taxes on the way. Power is also a problem and the national power generator, Eskom, is warning that from April there could be new power cuts.”
“The growth of South African mining is going to be in platinum, coal and manganese, but when you bring up the idea of nationalization… the mid-level investors from Australia and Canada I have spoken to here have extreme worries.”
Rajat Kohli, the global head of mining and metals for Standard Bank, believes the Chinese will be among the main actors in resources in Africa and these worries may pass them by.
“I think they have a long-term view; the Chinese plan 10 to 20 years ahead so they do not share the same sort of short-term fears as western investors,” says Kohli.
Africa will continue to be vulnerable to market volatility, but the continent is poised to ride the storm, says World Bank operations officer, Miria Pigato. Favorable commodity prices were only one reason she felt that way.
“This confidence also comes from governments’ more sensible fiscal policies, more accountability, new ways of doing business, a new breed of younger and energetic leaders,” says Pigato.
Another cause for optimism at this mining gathering was the numbers.  In the dark days of the 2009 recession, a mere 3,200 delegates turned up in Cape Town. In 2010, the numbers improved slightly to 4,400 and this year, there were 7,000 delegates.
The organizers are encouraged enough to take the risk of expanding the Mining Indaba to Asia to take advantage of the growing interest in mining in the region.
Jonathan Moore, the managing director of the Mining Indaba, said around 500 delegates were expected to arrive at the first Asian gathering at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on October 29.
Asked whether the name Indaba—which is an African word for gathering—will be understood in Asia, Moore says: “People there may not know what the word means, but they will know what the

The Trouble With  Mining In Africa

David Adjaye believes that African skylines are set for an explosion of growth as the continent’s resurgent economies look for new expressions of their increasing potency and self-confidence.
Speaking at his studio in North London, the architect says that the continent needs to define its own vision for urbanization and ensure that its architectural revolution reflects Africa’s cultural, geographical and climatic contexts.
Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, Adjaye traveled extensively in his youth, following his father’s diplomatic career through Africa and the Middle East. It was that exposure that was to later inform his work when, after studying fine art, he found architecture and became fascinated by the relationship between buildings and their environment.
<div id="attachment_425" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-425" class="size-large wp-image-425" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/js57_Peace-Centre0144_RT8-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Nobel Peace Center, Oslo. The Canopy is a temporary installation by David Adjaye that serves as a gateway between Oslo City Hall, where the Peace Prize Ceremony takes place, and the Nobel Peace Center.</div>
“I realized that by having been brought up in very different contexts—cultural, religious and social contexts—I had somehow developed an appetite for learning more about how the built environment worked with that, and how it reflected that architecture in its human sense.”
Today, Adjaye is one of the world’s leading architects—in 2007 he received the Order of the British Empire for his services to architecture. His portfolio includes the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, which is scheduled for completion in 2015.
For a 2010 exhibition at the Design Museum in London, Adjaye traveled to cities across Africa, photographing the buildings which, although in varying states of development or decay, show startling commonality.
Today Adjaye runs through his own potted history of African architecture: Colonial builders erased much of the pre-existing urban culture in Africa, replacing it with tropical versions of European architecture. Upon independence, new leaders embraced a vision of the future that was still largely European.
“I think the early leaders on the continent felt that modernity was the way to embrace or celebrate a sort of new world of empowerment for their nations. So you find a lot of modernist experiments, but modernist experiments that could not avoid the specificity of the geography and the climate. So you have what I call a kind of tropical modernism,” he says.
When the money and ambition began to wear thin, this modernism was replaced by economic pragmatism, driven by international donors who made their architectural choices based on their own financial imperative, and using their own approved contractors and designers.
<div id="attachment_426" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-426" class="size-large wp-image-426" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/nma_b110127_f-1024x722.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="334" />National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.</div>
“So you have very odd late ’70s early ’80s buildings that sort of appear, that have nothing to do with the context; they’re just blips,” Adjaye says.
With debt relief and the mineral-driven boom of the late 1990s, which gathered pace in the early years of the new century, African leaders began a new drive for modernity. With this financial independence and growing economic self-confidence has come a stronger sense of cultural identity across the continent, which is manifested in the creative arts.
“I think you see it in literature, fine arts, performing arts and architecture, they’re all in line. They all lead the image of what nations want to project of themselves.
“This image of most of the countries on the continent getting rid of their debt and suddenly discovering vast minerals and negotiating this, means that there is an opportunity to really explore the idea of modernity for these nations. And architecture comes to the forefront of that, because architecture is the image of the city and the future. Architecture is the image of the city as it sees itself. The story of the city is written in books, but it’s also written in buildings.”
The notion of buildings-as-ambassadors has gained currency in the past decade with the successful reinvention of the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the state of Qatar.
“It totally worked,” Adjaye says. “It gave the Emirates a skyline. For my father’s generation, the Emirates was a horrible desert and a place you never went to.”
Where the Emirates initially failed, he says, was specifying what its own version of modernity was. It is a trap he is keen for Africa to avoid. Buildings need to exist in their context, rather than just mimic the current, internationally dictated interpretation of Western modernity.
“I think if there is much more criticality about the way in which buildings are built to their climate, you get a much more unique skyline,” he says. “That doesn’t require more money, it just requires more desire on the part of the patrons to insist on a response that makes things specific, rather than insisting on an approach which is just novel.”
Africa’s modernity, Adjaye says, should be dictated by the same geographic features that defined its early cultures. This means ignoring the artificially imposed national boundaries and shaping regional identities from the unifying climates and cultures across the continent, but also avoiding the “colonial trap” of what he calls “Disney-fication” of culture.
For inspiration, Adjaye looks to New York.
“I love the Rockefeller Center. It’s not a cheap building, but it’s an efficient building. It’s a building that strove to understand the time that it was in, which was the ’30s… It talked about density in the city, it talked about networks, it talked about interconnectivity. It talked about living in the heart of the city. It gave a model which was not iconic in terms of imagery but iconic in terms of place, and it’s still a fundamental part of New York.”
That specificity of place and time has created a building that is more than functional—an artifact that helps to define the city it is in.
“There’s something compelling about coming over that bridge from Brooklyn or Newark, New Jersey, and seeing that skyline. It’s like… it’s so powerful. It’s original. That’s the vision we need in Africa. What is the model of living in Africa that nowhere else in the world you can have? The person who cracks that, cracks the game. Not the person who imports the model that we’ve seen before.
<div id="attachment_424" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424" class="size-full wp-image-424" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/iStock_000015967621Small.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="800" />New York City, Rockefeller Center, GE Building, viewed from 5th Avenue.</div>
“You’ve got to make a model that makes people say ‘I want to go to that city in Africa because it’s just so great. The life there is something I can’t have in London. It’s contemporary, I can have my life there, but it’s completely unique.’ That’s a hell of a thing.”

The Quest For A True African Skyline

With austerity afflicting many Western markets, it may come as some comfort that so much of the money that flows into Africa from around the world each year comes from Africans. The members of the African diaspora remit around $40 billion back to their home countries every year. With interest rates in the West at historical lows and inflation still high, deposited money is losing value.
Guinean-American Eric Guichard grew up between West Africa and the USA. He worked in the international financial sector and then in the fund management industry. Now based in London, Guichard is working to position his latest venture—Homestrings— in the middle of remittance flows.
Global remittances reached record highs in 2012, totaling $351 billion. “Where it hit me was when I saw the actual global number in transfers and how disorganized that market is—no one is really looking at that mass as a potential source of patient capital,” Guichard says.
A George Washington University study showed that the majority of remitters wanted to use the money to invest at home. In fact, many already do through informal mechanisms—transferring the money to a relative, who then puts it into property or a small business.
Those informal structures work, but are inefficient and rely a great deal on trust. The remitter loses control over the money once it is out of his or her hands. There are a growing number of managed investment funds that target emerging and frontier markets, including in Africa, but few have subscription levels that are accessible to the average retail investor.
Defying the characterization of the members of the African diaspora as poor, the George Washington University report shows that many have above average incomes and significant annual investment portfolios, transferring tens of thousands of dollars each year. They are savvy and the majority use the internet not only for news about their home countries, but also to look for money-making opportunities.
“Being from Africa, and being one of those remitters, I knew that if there was a platform that gave me control and empowered me to choose where I wanted to put my money, I would potentially put all my discretionary capital in that platform,” Guichard says. “If I could choose to invest in this bridge, this healthcare clinic, invest in those sovereign bonds, partake in Actis’ real estate private equity funds at thresholds that are achievable by me, of course.”
Guichard built a platform to do just that. Homestrings is an online portal that connects the diaspora to opportunities back home.
Systems that collect and pool cash from individuals to pump into projects in the developing world already exist—Kiva, for example, has funded a large number of initiatives. However, it is still not permitted to gather cash for investment returns.
Homestrings allows qualified investors to sign up and see investment opportunities—initially projects for co-investment and private equity funds listed on an online portal. There are currently 18 funds listed, targeting Africa, the Caribbean and India. The first “Diaspora bond”, a local currency instrument for international investors, was added this year, with Kenya the first to list.
The result is a traditional mutual fund structure meshed with crowd-funding platforms and online retail systems like Amazon. When social media features are added to it in the next few months, users will be able to review investment opportunities much like Amazon users can rate and discuss their purchases.
“Ultimately, the ideal would be that there are deals that are proposed by the investors, vetted by the members, then organized by Homestrings—a completely self-directed investment platform,” Guichard says.
“Our experience since the launch in August has been quite uniform. We’ve seen registration rates of about 50-100 per month, and that’s with no social network push,” Guichard said. “That’s pretty remarkable for us, the level of interest is that high, and it’s primarily reflective of the three major diaspora groups—Kenyans, Ghanaians and Nigerians, working mainly in professional jobs as doctors, lawyers, financiers.”
Those professionals—of which there are now around 500—have an average of $25,000 to invest per year, according to the company’s own surveys of them.
With the first diaspora bond now listed, and two more—Ghana and Ethiopia—in the pipeline, Guichard is excited about the prospect of financing much-needed infrastructure in Africa, and about offering individuals access to bonds that are normally the preserve of large institutions or local high net worth investors. For their part, governments in Africa have increasingly turned to local capital markets to raise finance for specific projects.
For an international buyer, the process would be long and arduous, requiring regulatory clearance in the destination country and a brokerage account.
“There exists no formal network where people can systematically do due diligence and then invest in their own country’s sovereign bonds targeted at specific projects without going through all kinds of bureaucratic difficulties,” Guichard says.
Homestrings has set up the requisite accounts in Kenya and interested parties just need to register on the platform.
Real estate will be the next step. Guichard hopes to connect developers and investors on Homestrings, systematizing what is already a major use of remittance money. Currently, the process of buying and building at home is long, costly and relies heavily on trust. By allowing professional developers to link up with diaspora capital, and then allowing the diaspora to buy units once they are built, Homestrings takes a great deal of risk out of the system.
“I think the basic proposition is an empowerment proposition,” Guichard says. “You can sit here and look at real estate in Notting Hill, plug in your laptop, use your wi-fi and choose what real estate company you want to select, and look at their catalogue of investments.”
At the heart of the prospect, Guichard claims, is a whole new way of profiling customers in the financial industry.
“We started out with the fact that the way the current financial industry is organized, you are looking at individuals based on age, based on zip codes, based on professions, and based on levels of income, which we see as being a horizontal definition,” he says. “But if you were to look at people in terms of their affinity, in terms of their ethnic allegiances, in terms of their desire to stay connected to where they’re from, then you have a whole new definition of financial services.”
There is also, he says, the potential to change the way that development is financed—crowdsourcing, for profit, long-term capital to drive economic growth in Africa.

Bringing It All Back Home

It was 2001. Billions and billions of dollars were up for grabs in what South Africans call “black economic empowerment” deals. That is, swift deals, selling black South Africans equity, often at a discount, in a bid to redress the imbalances of the past in white-dominated industries like mining. They are worth a fortune and were taking place right under Sipho Nkosi’s nose.
Standing by, while others prosper, is not quite the mark of a man who is ambitious by nature. Growing up, he says, he never thought he would do any job other than that which was the preserve of blacks at the time—being a clerk, teacher, priest or something like that. It took other people to persuade Sipho Nkosi to throw his hat in the ring.
<div id="attachment_430" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430" class="wp-image-430 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/AV_00014794-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Sipho Nkosi, CEO of Exxaro Coal at Inyanda Coal mine in Witbank, South Africa</div>
Once he made that decision, though, he never looked back. Eleven years later, he is an astute, if not shrewd, captain of industry leading a cash-flush $9 billion conglomerate. To say nothing of the estimated R1.6 billion ($208 million) personal fortune he has amassed in the process.
It all started when Anglo American, the mother and father of mining in Africa, together with Anglo-Australian multinational BHP Billiton—the biggest miner in the world—put some of their South African coal assets up for sale.
Having occupied some of the most senior positions a black person could occupy at both companies, at the time, Nkosi thought he was the ideal person to lead a consortium, a diverse group that included some of the best black brains in mining, among them the country’s foremost nuclear physicists, geologists and mining engineers.
Months later, Eyesizwe Coal—Nkosi’s company—would win an open tender for an assortment of underground and open cast coal operations.
The consortium would quickly raise R600 million ($78 million) for the business, but as Nkosi and the company would soon discover, raising money was only the beginning.
The hard part would come when he had to appease disbelievers, including “rebel” white workers and their “skeptical” black counterparts.
“They all thought black folk, no matter how educated, would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to run a mining company,” says Nkosi.
The FORBES AFRICA team meets media-shy Nkosi in his makeshift office, at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town. More than 7,000 delegates, including the richest and most famous names in mining, are here for the annual gathering, where major decisions are made.  In between deal-making meetings and the consideration of proposals from prospective suppliers, Nkosi recalls how he got here.
He still vividly remembers Eyesizwe’s first strategy session, after taking over the Anglo-Billiton assets. He was chairing the company’s SWOT analysis session when one of the (white) mine managers stood up and said: “Sir, with all due respect, you guys know nothing about mining. We suggest that you go to Johannesburg and allow us to run the mine for you.”
It was the first time in the new environment, that Nkosi’s trademark calmness was put to the test. While his partners thought the white guy needed to be reminded of who was the boss now, Nkosi didn’t think it was the time, or the occasion, to take offense. So he didn’t.
Months later, at a year-end function, Nkosi was standing next to a (white) CEO of one of the vendor companies when a (black) worker approached, proceeded to greet the other CEO and asked him: “How could you give this business to these guys? What do they know?”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-428" src="/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/TTS1922-1024x680.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />
In both instances he didn’t take offense, but said to himself: “My job is to win these people over. I will focus on excellence. All the time.”
Nkosi first silenced his critics in 2006 when, a mere five years into the challenge, he was one of the chief architects of the successful merger of Eyesizwe Coal with Kumba Resources’ non-iron ore assets to form Exxaro. The transaction was hailed as the deal of the year, singled out for being head and shoulders above the rest in terms of black management participation, the level of economic interest held by black people, as well as the extent of voting rights held by black people.
The following year, Nkosi took over the running of the merged entity and, five years on, it is not only the second largest coal producer in South Africa but also the biggest diversified domestic mining company in the country. Yet Nkosi is still not satisfied.
He now wants Exxaro to be up there with the world’s mining greats: Rio Tinto; BHP Billiton; Xstrata and the Anglo Americans of this world.
Ambitious as he admits all this is, he wants to start by growing Exxaro—which already has a presence in the continents of Europe, America, Asia and Africa—into a $20 billion market cap world player by 2020.
He already has shareholder approval for spending R9.5 billion ($1.2 billion) on a mine in Limpopo, in the north of South Africa. The Grootegeluk mine will supply over 14 million tons of coal a year to Medupi, a new coal-fired power station being built by the country’s electricity utility, Eskom, in response to the electricity shortages of recent years.  That’s apart from another R2.4 billion ($313 million) power station project in South Africa’s east coast province of KwaZulu-Natal, as well as a handful of beneficiation projects and new coal mines.
Nkosi wants to double Exxaro’s coal output to 80 million tons a year, while increasing the company’s portfolio of non-coal interests.
In January, Exxaro announced that it intended to pay $338 million in cash for a takeover of Democratic Republic of Congo iron ore company, African Iron.
Suggested to him that he seems to be moving, well… rather aggressively, he quickly retorts: “I used to have a boss, (former Kumba Resources CEO) Con Fauconnier, who used to say ‘Sipho, don’t ever grow yourself to death. At the end of the day you must cut your cloth to fit you.’”
Nkosi, it would seem, has indeed taken Fauconnier’s advice. Last year he closed down the company’s zinc plant, Zincor.
“It was not making money at all,” he says. The unions, and the government, were not impressed.
South Africa-based mining research company Avior’s senior analyst, Clinton Duncan, is one of those who believe that Exxaro is in fact “undervalued” and is “bullish” in terms of its share performance. Hence, he doesn’t think Nkosi will have a problem fulfilling his driving ambition.
Coal accounts for 33% of Exxaro’s earnings, the analyst points out. Nkosi’s battle plan, on the other hand, includes doubling Exxaro’s coal output to 80 million tons a year—a good move, Duncan says, considering the fact that about 77% if South Africa’s primary energy needs are provided by coal.
The day after our interview, Susan Shabangu, South Africa’s minister of mineral resources, announced that coal was a strategic resource for the country and that the government would do everything in its power to help its miners. Days later the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, announced a range of support initiatives his government had come up with, including the provision of rail transport connecting coal fields to power stations.
Add to that the fact that populous nations like India and China’s ever-increasing energy demands are going to continue for some time, and you will certainly realize that Nkosi’s plan makes a lot of sense, says Duncan.
But what about environmental concerns, I ask? Put to him that the marked rise in environmental awareness and activism, across the globe, could restrict the world’s use of coal, Nkosi responds: “We know that at some point the world is going to insist on clean energy.”
So what’s the plan?
Exxaro’s venture into solar, wind and methane gas was only a matter of time, he says, although all he’s prepared to disclose, for now, that the outcome of the company’s commissioned feasibility studies into the possibility of Exxaro setting up renewable energy companies has pointed in one direction: that Exxaro would be able to “make huge sums of money in renewables”.
“By the way, South Africa’s search for alternatives started a long time ago,” Nkosi says, relating the story of how, back in the seventies when faced with an oil crisis, the country started manufacturing oil from gas. Worldwide too, mining has been constantly evolving, he adds, citing examples of countries like Japan and France, which had long started moving away from coal to gas.
Looking into alternatives, though, does not mean Exxaro will abandon coal anytime soon, Nkosi says: “South Africa will, for all intents and purposes, continue to use coal. We don’t have gas. We have coal in abundance, and it’s cheap.”
Reminded of recent incidents where Greenpeace activists upped the ante with Eskom and mounted a campaign against the electricity utility, Nkosi is unperturbed. Exxaro is hard at work trying to find environmentally friendlier ways of mining and utilizing coal, he says calmly, insisting the business was working hard at ensuring that it was carbon neutral and would be able to mitigate its carbon footprint.
It’s all part of Exxaro’s commitment to doing business differently; by showing that it cares as much about profits as it cares about its people and the environment.
In December, Exxaro paid out R1 billion ($130.5 million) in bonuses to 9,694 members of its staff, 90% of whom were black low-level workers and managers. The employees were rewarded because they “worked very hard and pushed the company to where it is today”, Nkosi said at the time, adding that the company wanted to debunk the myth that “the fat cats at the top” only cared about making money for themselves.
Frans Baleni, the general secretary of South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers, is at the head of South Africa’s most powerful union with hundreds of thousands of members, which has had many industrial disputes with Exarro. He says there aren’t many captains of industry out there who are able to stay true to themselves and be as mature, tactful and down to earth as Nkosi.
“You can’t fault him on that,” Baleni says, “unlike other mining bosses who can be abusive, arrogant and self-absorbed”.
“Nkosi makes you wonder whether you are not the one who is wrong—even when you know you are so right. Even when he says go to hell, he says it in such a manner that it doesn’t hurt,” says Baleni.
Nkosi is not so gentle about saying it in a gentle manner when it comes to the belligerent pro-nationalization lobby that is the ANC Youth League. When Nkosi once commented that nationalization was “antiquated” and “discredited”, the governing party’s youth was very hurt, publicly berating him for his “misleading, pathetic” lies. But Nkosi, who was president of the Chamber of Mines of South Africa at the time, took the rebuke in his stride.
If it so happens that he crosses paths with the youngsters again, he would still tell them.
It has got a lot to do with his mantra, the one that carried him through those first days, weeks and months of his foray into the tough life at the top of mining, where reputations can be lacerated in the board room.
“People had quite a lot of nasty things to say about this Zulu boy who knows nothing about this industry,” says Nkosi.
“When there’s negativism, always kill it by massive success.”
And there are few companies on the African continent that can claim to be as massive and successful as Exxaro.

I Want $20 Billion  And The World By 2020

Boxing is already big business and now TV moguls in the United States have found a way to increase revenue even more through pay-per-view (PPV)—the system where a television audience can purchase a sporting event, to view via private telecast. Everyone ordering the event can view it at the same time. The sporting event—in this case, boxing—can be purchased at the punch of a button using an on-screen guide or an automated telephone system.
These days, the success of a boxing event is judged by the PPV sales. A boxer is gauged by his ability to pull in the armchair fans, as well as his record in knocking out opponents.
The undefeated Floyd Mayweather jnr said in a statement after he defeated Oscar De La Hoya: “I give the fans everything I have with the best competition and exciting fights. I must be doing something right as they keep buying my fights and I appreciate their tremendous support. It feels good to be able to generate such a great interest in the sport.”
So how have the numbers been looking for blockbuster fights?
Mayweather’s fourth-round knockout of Victor Ortiz to reclaim the WBC welterweight title on September 17, 2011, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, generated 1.25 million buys—translating to $78.44 million in domestic PPV revenue, Golden Boy Promotions announced after the fight. HBO PPV sales tied for third place in the all-time non-heavyweight PPV sales.
So how do these numbers compare with Mayweather’s rival, Manny Pacquiao? The Mayweather-Ortiz sales equaled those of Pacquiao’s 2008 fight with Oscar De La Hoya and matched those for the Pacquiao-Shane Mosley fight in May 2011. But PR sales for Mayweather-Ortiz beat both in revenue generated, only because it sold for a higher price of $59.95.
Comparing Mayweather with Pacquiao in terms of common opponents, the undefeated American is miles ahead. Mayweather’s blockbuster PPV figures for the 2007 fight with De La Hoya tops the charts with a record 2.45 million buys. The Mayweather-Mosley fight in 2010 brought in 1.4 million sales.
The only time that Pacquiao has edged Mayweather in terms of common opponent was with Juan Manuel Marquez. The promoter, Bob Arum, announced that the controversial Pacquiao-Marquez III fight brought in 1.4 million sales, well above the figure of 1.1 million for the Mayweather-Marquez fight in 2009.
The Pacquiao-Marquez III fight, near the end of 2011, was supposed to increase the stakes for the much anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao bout. The Filipino was supposed to annihilate the third division Mexican world champion to set up the mouth-watering matchup with Mayweather. Had that happened, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was expected to break all-time records and become the biggest grossing fight in boxing history. If the Mayweather-Ortiz fight totaled $78 million with 1.25 million PPV sales, the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout would easily gross well over $200 million with PPV sales, for the first time surpassing the three million mark.
With talks of a rematch between Pacquiao and Marquez in May, we may have to wait a little longer for the biggest clash in our lifetime. Let’s hope it happens before both boxers are way past their boxing, and PPV-pulling, prime.

How To Make $200 Million By  Getting People To Punch Buttons

On New Year’s Day, Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, announced the end of the country’s 19-year-old fuel subsidy. It meant the fuel price soared by 116% (to 150 naira from 65) overnight. Before then a liter of oil was cheaper than a 350ml can of coke.
The reason, according to the government, is that the subsidies have strained the country’s coffers.
The people were angry, with labor and civil society groups organizing nation-wide strikes. Protestors stormed Nigerian airports to prevent operators from checking in more than 500 passengers—a mere sideshow in what was to prove a massive and violent protest.
On any given day, traffic on the Lekki expressway, where it meets Ozumbo Nbadiwe Street in Victoria Island, Lagos, resembles a writhing dragon, seeking escape. The mass action left these streets  deserted. Protestors shut down petrol stations, banks, shops, schools, offices and ports. Barricades went up and tens of thousands took to the streets.
The protests turned violent; a curfew was imposed in the Kuduna and Niger states. Borno state was placed under a state of emergency. Fourteen people were injured in Kano as the protestors clashed with police. The police used teargas and live ammunition to disperse the crowds. In the confusion the authorities put the death toll anywhere between three and 22.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil exporter and the fifth largest provider of oil to the United States. Its economy relies heavily on oil, with production of approximately 2.5 million barrels per day with a target of increasing to three million bpd this year.
The reported $7.4 billion a year that will be diverted from the subsidies is to go towards investment in infrastructure. This is the idea of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme. Pouring the money into infrastructure projects in power, transportation, roads, water and petroleum sectors. The creation of a downstream sector could lead to job creation and a large stream of revenue on the way to lending Nigeria middle-income status.
For the 160 million people in Nigeria, the long-run benefits of the subsidy removal are as naught, compared to rising food and transport prices.
Wole Famurewa, a presenter at CNBC Africa [in Nigeria] says:  “The price of bread was up by 10% after the first week. ”
This is what the people, most earning less than $1.25 a day, now face.
Several reports indicate that the strikes cost the economy between $600 million and $1 billion dollars per day, with worries over the Nigerian oil supply pushed up global oil prices. The fifth day of the strike came with a threat by workers to completely cut output on Januart 14 if fuel price was not put back to 65 naira ($0.40).
The last oil strike was in 2007, when outgoing president, Olusegun Obasanjo, raised fuel prices, doubled value-added tax and privatized refineries.
The Department of Petroleum Resources said: “Both parties know the importance of the negotiation and we are quite confident that they will come to an agreement.”
At this point, the labor movement had declined an offer by the government to reduce fuel prices to 100 naira-a-liter and Nigeria’s House of Representatives passed a motion urging government to return fuel subsidies.
The mass action in Nigeria takes place against the backdrop of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). PIB seeks to deregulate and decentralize the oil and gas industry to make it more efficient. The process of transforming the Bill into law has stalled for more than five years. Civil society argues, the solution for government should not be in the removal of subsidies, but decentralizing and deregulating the industry to be more efficient and profitable.
A possible compromise could be to phase out the subsidies, rather than scrap them. On January 16, the government agreed to a fuel price of 97 naira ($0.60) and the strike was suspended.

Uproar  In Nigeria

It has a claim to being one of the most photographed houses in Africa. It was the first house in Africa to be featured in the prestigious US Architectural Digest in November 1996; it appeared on the cover of Marie Claire and hosted a photo shoot for the St. John Collection for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.
The African Heritage House is the fruit of years of sweat and toil by Alan Donovan, who has dedicated his life to collecting, promoting and preserving art from Africa. The house resembles the mud mosques of Timbuktu and the Grand Mosque in Djenne, Mali, which he saw on his first journey across Africa in a VW bus in 1969.  He came to Africa in 1967 as a food relief officer for the US State Department during the Nigerian-Biafra war. In the midst of war, death and suffering, Donovan fell in love with Africa’s art and culture.
<div id="attachment_388" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-388" class="size-large wp-image-388" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Donovan-008-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />O It has a claim to being one of the most photographed houses in Africa. It was the first house in Africa</div>
Donovan is an art collector, designer and proprietor of the African Heritage House. Forty years ago, together with his wife, Sheila, and Kenya’s second vice president, Joseph Murumbi, they co-founded African Heritage—Africa’s first Pan African gallery in Nairobi, Kenya. According to a World Bank report, African Heritage became “the largest, most organized retail and wholesale operation of its kind in Africa”, and a major source of African art and crafts from Africa to the rest of the world. In its heyday, it had 51 outlets selling around the world.
Donovan is famous for staging Kenya’s African Heritage Festival, an extravaganza that went around the world showcasing Africa’s rich art and culture. Many of the models in the shows wore jewelry designed by Donovan, and went on to become stars in their own right. One of them was Iman, the most famous model to come out of Africa; there was also Khadija, who was fashion maestro Yves St. Laurent’s first star model from Africa.
Donovan has collected artefacts, masks, paintings, textiles, ornaments and sculptures for the last four-and-a-half decades.
A visit to Heritage House is strictly by appointment. Donovan gives a personal tour of the three-storey house, which takes at least one hour.
The African Heritage House in many ways is a story of Donovan’s life. The design of the house was inspired by the mosques in Timbuktu, Mali, Emir’s houses and palaces in Nigeria, and Ghana’s mud houses of Navrongo. The latter are round or rectangular mud houses painted in geometric designs of ochre, brown and ivory hues. These features can be seen in the exterior of the house. Before commencing construction, Donovan also visited the mud palaces of Morocco and learnt how builders make bricks with straw and mud. In the end, Donovan opted to build the house with stone blocks covered with dyed plaster.
In the house,  Donovan has hoarded his African collection: ceremonial daggers from Nigeria; Turkana headdresses made of  ancestral human hair; Bapende masquerade dolls from Zaire; Kente cloth worn by the Ashanti royalty; Kenya’s Kamba beadwork; necklaces from Egypt made of rare quartzite clay; beads worn by a Shango priest in Nigeria.
Among the fascinating items are Ibeji dolls made by the Yoruba women of West Africa who have a very  high incidence of multiple births. The children of multiple births—called Ibeji—were thought to share one soul. If one of these children died at birth, the mother would carve a wooden effigy for the dead child. The mother would feed the doll like the living child. Ibeji dolls have become one of the most popular pieces of African art and can fetch up to $10,000.
Donovan also has a large collection by some of Africa’s great artists, including a six-foot wooden piece called Three in One by East African pioneer sculptor Francis Nnaggenda. Vice president Murumbi lauded Nnaggenda in his opening speech for African Heritage beseeching the then Mayor of Nairobi, Margaret Kenyatta, and the Nairobi City Council to buy Nnaggenda’s mammoth works on behalf of the people.
“I own five of this man’s works and I am the only African who ever bought a piece from him. Otherwise, Africans should not get upset if their artists and art leave Africa,” said Murumbi.
The words fell on deaf ears and Nnaggenda went into exile in Texas for decades before returning to be Chairman of Fine Arts at Makerere University in Kampala.
<div id="attachment_389" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-389" class="size-large wp-image-389" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Donovan-028-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Alan Donovan with a traditional headdress, worn by a Karomojong warrior from Uganda</div>
One of Nnaggenda’s towering metal sculptures, called “Woman at the Gate”, stands sentry at the Murumbi grave in Nairobi City Park.  Thieves in search of scrap metal for the burgeoning scrap metal trade tried to dislodge the mammoth sculpture from its stone plinth, not knowing that the sculpture could fetch several million shillings if it were kept intact rather than a few thousand shillings as scrap metal. Nnaggenda sculptures are very rare now because the artist is quite old and there are only a limited number available. Thus, his pieces will always increase in value. Some of his works sell for over $50,000.
Donovan also owns a magnificent collection of Tinga Tinga art by disciples of the late Edward Saidi, a Makonde artist. The original paintings by Saidi can sell for up to $20,000 or $30,000, and are especially sought after by Japanese collectors.  There is also a painting by a Haitian artist who “liked to paint animals”, says Donovan.
Inside the House, Donovan has pottery by Magdalene Odundo, who is based in London. “Odundo is Kenya’s most famous artist abroad but little known in Kenya,” he explains. She takes at least one month to make a pot. They are so few they can fetch over $50,000 each.
Then there is an amazing painting by Twin Seven Seven, a West African artist, who was one of seven sets of twins born to his mother; all the babies, but him, died at birth. Seven Seven died two months ago; he was a phenomenal artist, musician and dancer. His works only recently started to attract international attention at galleries in Europe and the US. Since his death, prices of his works are among the top tier for contemporary African artists who break $100,000. His former wife, Nike Seven Seven—who has had  seven exhibitions at Nairobi’s African Heritage—also sells works for around $40,000. Other works in the house are paintings by Charles Sekano, a jazz musician and artist from South Africa who lived in Nairobi, and Ancet Soi, a pioneer artist from Kenya, who won a calendar award in the 1960s. His works are highly sought after and may sell for several thousand US dollars, along with the flamboyant works of Jak Katarikawe, a well-known Ugandan artist living in Nairobi.
For a long time, artefacts, masks, jewelry and textiles from Africa have not been accepted as art, but Donovan has helped to change all that. He says a sturdy prejudice exists from the West when it comes to African objects which is not there when discussing objects from other parts of the world. In his book, My Journey through African Heritage, Donovan writes: “If the object has not been seen in a museum or a book on African art, then it is not ‘African’, regardless of who created it. Besides, if the object is not something to hang on the wall or adorn one’s table, it cannot be ‘art’.”
After living amongst the Turkana in northern Kenya, Donovan wanted to exhibit their items as “art”, but when he tried to exhibit his collection in American galleries in 1970—after successful showings in Nairobi—he was told  that they were “artefacts”, “utensils” or “functional” items.
“The Turkana do not need paintings on their walls or their donkeys. Their instincts and talents in producing their phenomenal designs is clearly art. Period. Why would I want to pay three million US dollars for a painting of a Campbell’s soup can, a ‘functional’ item reproduced by American artist Andy Warhol? This artefact may have been characteristic or pivotal in a period of Western consumerism, but is it art?” asks Donovan.
Is there money in collecting and selling African art? I ask. After a few seconds of silence, Donovan says yes, but adds a disclaimer about the types of art on demand.
“The value of many art pieces is based on their originality and age, and some of the things being sold now are not original,” he says.
The business of art is a thriving business in Africa. For example, an African Grebo female mask from Liberia costs $149; a framed Kuba cloth from Congo sells for anywhere from $100 to $1,500; a Bamileke Stool from Cameroon is worth $1,500; and a storage chest from Zanzibar can sell from $4,000 or more, depending on age, beauty, size and condition.
Donovan reiterates that art is indeed a viable business in Africa.
“Investment is not as important as the expertise. It is the affinity for the cultures and materials. Investment depends on the intended outlets; for instance, a huge chain of department stores or one exclusive gallery,” he says.
What will become of Donovan’s outstanding collection of art, crafts, textiles and artefacts in a house based on the vanishing mud architecture of Africa? Donovan seems puzzled. He discloses to me that he is in negotiations with several foundations and organizations and is also speaking to other private investors about plans to add suites and a hotel based on African traditional architecture.
What lessons has Donovan learnt as an art collector? “Sadly, many items in my house have disappeared and others will soon follow. As local demand for traditional items dries up, artists and craftspeople are forced to seek out new markets. Africans have embraced new religions and modern ways, their traditions have changed, some have vanished and we may lose in less than half a century what took ancient cultures millennia to create,” he explains.
“If you are interested in your heritage, you should collect it and cherish it as much of it is being lost as we speak, and in some cases even before we knew it existed.”
As for the house, he hopes it will remain intact as a museum for future generations.
&nbsp;

Home Is Where The Art Is

This is the story of businessman Ronnie Apteker, his money and his expensive passion. A man sharp enough to get in early on the internet boom in Africa’s biggest economy; a man wise enough to have sold out before the market became crowded, three years later, for $55 million. He doesn’t know how much he is worth, but does admit he never has to work again.
This is also a man who has lost nearly $7 million in 11 years, chasing the elusive dream of fathering a blockbuster movie.
“I would be far wealthier if I had done nothing for the last 11 years, but my life has been richer for the risks I have taken… I love story telling. I love magic and I love trying to inspire people,” he says.
This month will see the release of a film he thinks is a winner that will compensate for the years of pain and losses. It is a low-budget film called Material, set in the gritty inner-city district of Fordsburg in Johannesburg and starring South African stand-up comedian Riaad Moosa. He says it could be a cheap and cheerful international hit like Bend it Like Beckham or Billy Elliot.
It all started in the early 1970s in Cape Town, when Apteker’s father won a 16mm film projector in a game of backgammon. From then on, Sunday night was film night at the Aptekers.
“The whole neighbourhood in Cape Town used to come in and see them. You remember those leather cases with the handles. In our rented house we used to watch Dirty Harry, The Dirty Dozen, The Guns of Navarone, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I grew up in a movie-watching home. I watched more movies by the time I was 13 than most people watch by the time they are 30,” he says.
Apteker’s working life took a different turn. It was the internet, not movies, that became his bread and butter. In 1993, he founded Internet Solutions in the days when 99.9% of South Africans didn’t know even what it was.
“People used to phone us and say the internet is broken, or they used to ask who they can email. I used to give them my email address and they used to email me because they had no one else to email!” he laughs.
The internet made Apteker a fortune before he was 30. Then he tried a much harsher business—movies.
“If you build a cheap house, you can sell it for half price and get some money back. If you make a bad movie, you may not sell one ticket and lose everything. You can even end up owing money. It is not a normal business, it’s like a casino.”
Apteker started writing scripts in 1996 and the first film came in 2000—a 95-minute movie shot in Los Angeles called Purpose, the tale of the battle for the soul of a young entrepreneur working in California’s Silicon Valley.
“A lot of people said it reminded them of The Social Network, but sadly, it wasn’t as good,” says Apteker.
The film didn’t do well. It cost $8 million and Apteker was lucky enough to claw back $3 million by selling it to distributors Lakeshore International.
A string of homegrown movies with limited success followed, including: Jerusalema, The Flyer and Crazy Monkey: Straight Outta Benoni.
Fast forward to the latest offering, Material, starring South African comic flavor-of-the-month, Moosa. In many ways, the film mirrors his own life. In a nutshell, Material is the story of a father who wants his son to stick to his day job—that is, running the family store—instead of telling jokes on stage.
In real life, Moosa also gave his day job the slip. He trained as a doctor at the University of Cape Town and carried out his internship at Natalspruit Hospital, near Johannesburg, before settling down to practise as a GP in Cape Town for a couple of years.
The draw of the stage proved too strong and in the evenings, Moosa was cracking around the small theatres of the Western Cape. He had no illusions and already knew what it felt like to “die”—as the actors say—on stage.
“It used to happen a lot when I was younger. The most difficult time was when I was doing magic in high school. It was comedy magic. I had studied at the College of Magic in Cape Town. I was supposed to make a ball fly across the stage—there was a wire involved. There was a dude taking photos with flash and every time the flash went off, you could see the washing line across the stage. I was trying to make it dramatic and it was obvious. I heard one little girl say: ‘There is a wire there, mum!’ At that moment, I thought ‘I had another eight minutes to go of this sham.”
Material is Moosa’s first foray into film and he identifies with his character. “I am really proud of it. I think when people watch, they will laugh and cry. They will be challenged.”
So what happens if Moosa makes it to Hollywood and the big time? He pledges not to let success go to his head.
“What is this fame thing? One minute you are normal, the next minute you are shaving your head on the cover of Heat magazine. One minute you are normal, the next you are getting an 18-year-old pregnant. I prefer driving home at night and getting shouted at by my wife… I shouldn’t let it go to my head; I think through medicine you face reality head on.”
Apteker believes any success would be a good thing and refuses to give up his movie quest, whatever the cost.
“It is an obsession. I have got to get this right. It is like you either get this right or die trying. There is no middle ground in love, there is no middle ground in art. There is no middle ground when you are an entrepreneur—you either win or go home in a coffin,”  he says.
<h3>Well, Is It Any Good?</h3>
There is mistrust when it comes to homegrown cinema. Everyone has waited long for the great African movie—maybe, just maybe, Material is it. So says Rea Bantseke, who went to the preview screening in Sandton, near Johannesburg.
The story is simple. A young Muslim man wants to become a stand-up comedian, but has to do it behind his family’s back because it clashes with their culture. The movie examines clearly the struggle of a Muslim family to uphold its traditions in 21st century South Africa.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-369" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC01754-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="356" />
I was looking for the mistakes and the glitches, but there was nothing. The movie is shot beautifully and it makes you feel like you are part of the family. The story flows and is well told.
Everyone will have something that they can identify with in this movie. It will make you laugh, it will make you question, it will bring a tear to your eye.
This unique movie is hard to classify as a genre because it fuses drama, romance and comedy. It is likely to appeal to all ages. Material will leave you with hope that if this story can see the light of day, there must be many more.
&nbsp;

Who Would Spend  $7 Million On A Dream?

The old man would be proud. David Phume has grabbed, with both hands, the chances proffered by a democratic South Africa.
Walking around his Johannesburg offices, Phume shows pride in his work—the fruit of years of slog and training.
They call him South Africa’s first black animator and he’s been doing it since the tender age of 17. Phume is a down-to-earth, charismatic creative who is not afraid to dream big.
“It all started when I was 12 years old. I was tinkering and was fortunate enough to be exposed to high-end animation software.”
Phume studied 3-D animation at Boston Media House in Johannesburg, then went to San Francisco and trained under professionals from international studios like Pixar, Reel FX and Sony Pictures Imageworks.
<div id="attachment_346" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-346" class="size-large wp-image-346" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/6-1024x680.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />David Phume</div>
It would have been easier for Phume to slide into a career in the United States, but instead he chose to bring his skills home. He founded Penthouse Motion Pictures, a broadcast design and animation studio, in 2005.
These 3-D films are incredibly complicated and expensive, especially on the scale Phume wants to create. The two-hour, 34-minute Spirit of Mandela pilot took him three years to complete, while holding down a day job. He hopes to turn it into a full-length blockbuster to be shown in more than 100 countries.
“I have always wanted to animate an African story and this [Nelson Mandela’s life in prison] is one that resonated with my soul,” he says.
Phume may have to find another story to tell on the big screen. You cannot simply take the story of a world icon, like Mandela, and do with it as you please. Phume went to ask permission from the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The Foundation was established on August 19, 1999 to protect and develop the former president’s legacy.
Phume found out the rights are not the Foundation’s to give. The Foundation spends close to R2 million ($240,377) a year to protect Madiba’s intellectual property and says various bodies are entrusted with rights pertaining to him. Some lie with his lawyer, others are guarded by the state, the Foundation, his family, or the man himself.
But the only person who has the rights to his life story
is film producer, Anant Singh, a man Phume has yet to speak to.
Even if the rights were there, making an animated film is expensive. Movies like Megamind, Wall-E and Smurfs came together on budgets of between $110 million and $180 million, taking 4.1-35.7 million man hours. Interestingly enough, it is said that the more detailed, reflective and silent the film, the higher the budget.
In the South African animation industry, strides are being made with films like Jock of the Bushveld, released in July 2011, and the impending release of Zambezia, as well as the production of Khumba, from the Cape Town-based Triggerfish Animation. Zambezia was screened at the American Film Market on November 6 and the company is in talks with the Americans for distribution. If the trailer is anything to go by, there is a lot of talent and potential in Africa.
Gustavo Corrêa, the training centre director and 3D Max instructor at Learn 3D Computer Animation Training Centre in Johannesburg, says: “To put together a complete 3D animation production you need a talented and relatively big team of people, working full-time for five to six years; you need money for salaries and infrastructure way before reaping any return from the end product. In that way, you need serious investment from either government and/or the private sector to sustain the business while in production.”
While Phume works out his next move for a film and funding, he is in production with an animated television series for Tshwane TV, a community television channel broadcasting in Pretoria. Phume is the executive creative director and has won a Promax BDA Africa Gold Award for the channel’s promo.
Who would have thought more than 20 years ago that a young black child in South Africa would grow up to become a creative director of two companies, an executive board member of a multimedia body and chairman of the Miss Tshwane pageant? Twenty-nine-year-old David Phume is living the life that Nelson Mandela sacrificed 27 years for—and loving it.
<h3>A Handshake For Your Thoughts</h3>
One man owns the rights to one of the world’s greatest stories. Anant Singh is a world renowned South African film producer and the proud owner of Nelson Mandela’s life story. Since 1984, he has notched up more than 75 films, including Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country. Mandela has referred to him as “a producer I respect very much&#8230;a man of tremendous ability”.
<div id="attachment_347" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-347" class="size-large wp-image-347" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/113941062-678x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="716" />Anant Singh</div>
FORBES AFRICA (FA): How is it that you hold the rights to Nelson Mandela’s life story? Anant Singh (AS): I started writing to Mr Mandela, while he was still in prison, about making a big-screen film about his life. I felt then, as I do now, that the journey he had been through was compelling. 
FA: What does it mean to you? AS: It is indeed an honor and privilege to become the custodian of the Mandela legacy and his amazing journey. It is also a very daunting challenge which I am up to. His life story is complex and vast, and the adaptation to a motion picture has many challenges. However, I feel confident that we will be able to tell Mr Mandela’s story in an effective and powerful way. The benchmarks are the epic films, Lawrence of Arabia and Gandhi. 
FA: Is there a formal written agreement or was it all settled with a gentleman’s handshake? AS: It was a combination of the two. He initially granted me the rights verbally with a gentleman’s handshake, and thereafter a formal, written agreement was concluded as is necessary for the legal aspects of the rights for a film adaptation of an autobiography. 
FA: What are you planning to do with the rights? AS: As you may know, I have been developing the film, Long Walk To Freedom, which is based on Mr Mandela’s life. We are currently in pre-production on the film. 
FA: Do the rights cover film and animation? AS: The Mandela story lends itself to multi-faceted components of the various mediums of film, animation and stage. We feel that there is potential to integrate all of these. We have all of these rights. 
FA: A young animator hopes to create a 3-D animation film on Mandela’s imprisonment. Are you open to sharing the rights or selling them? AS: As with film, animation requires an extremely intricate storytelling technique. It is also very expensive to produce; in fact, more so than a regular film, if done well. We are very happy to look at initiatives that would be able to complement the motion picture and which are able to do justice to this powerful and epic story. Animation, however, has to compete with the big Hollywood studios of Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks. World-class animated films are produced on budgets of over $200 million.

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