A political science student felt so angry and so strongly about a statue that early one morning he woke and drove to one of the townships on the fringes of Cape Town. Here he picked up a bucket of faeces, heavy from the night before. He put the stinking bucket into his car and drove to the University of Cape Town (UCT).
For the last few hundred yards, Chumani Maxwele, put the bucket on his shoulder. He wore running tights and a pink construction hat and clearly had no respect. His destination was the green lawns and scented flowers of the entrance to the university. He took a deep breath and threw the manure into the face of one of the world’s most famous colonialists who had died more than a century before.
<div id="attachment_4680" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4680" class="size-medium wp-image-4680" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chumane-Maxwele-047-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Chumane Maxwele</div>
Maxwele was an angry Africanist who didn’t feel this face fitted in his continent; the face belonged to the statue of arch-imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, who died just down the road in his beach house at Muizenberg in 1902, and who donated the land to the university.
“The statue was a political symbol. Even when Rhodes was still alive and now dead, he represents a particular symbol of black people in pain, suffering and dispossession. If you look at the images of Rhodes, it’s all these African people lying with horses, his articulations and so on, you can tell there’s a direct relation between Rhodes and UCT, and UCT being controlled by white people. And there’s a direct relation with who controls the economy of the country and the state of black people. And yet the university takes so much pride in the man,” says Maxwele.
The bucket of faeces launched the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign. After a month of unrest and consultations at the university, the statue was transferred to a museum in Cape Town.
The anger from UCT reverberated across the country, with dozens of colonial statues defaced or destroyed by angry youth. Louis Botha, the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, survived two wars but couldn’t dodge the red paint of protesters outside Parliament in Cape Town.
Exactly two years after Maxwele started the campaign, FORBES AFRICA spoke to the man in Cape Town. He had just left the gym, dressed in blue and white shirt, tight blue jeans and black brogues. He kept his composure throughout but his emphasis to decolonize the university was as sharp as it was two years ago. He looked nothing like the rabble-rouser portrayed in the newspapers.
“The process of bringing the poo to the statue, it was within political education in this country. People talk about townships and health issues at the university level, and yet these things are really happening. Us black people, we are there, we know these things first hand. People keep the poo buckets in their rooms at night, and in the morning take them to the pavement. And kids play with them, no one cares. I thought I might as well bring one to the university, as a way of saying there’s a problem there but at the same time addressing the racial problems at UCT,” says Maxwele.
At face value, Maxwele’s campaign can be simplified as only against Rhodes’ statue but the man insists there’s more to it than meets the eye.
“There are a lot of complicated issues involved in Rhodes Must Fall. Coming to the university as a rural African student, you are sort of told to leave who you are at the university’s entrance. There’s so much institutional and personal racism going on. Part of my protest was to exhibit white arrogance and black assimilation into the university system,” says Maxwele.
“On the question of curriculum, what is being taught and who is teaching it, and how it is being taught. There’s no way you are going to talk about the brutal killing of black people with what it deserves as a white person. UCT doesn’t recognize apartheid.”
Maxwele says black students and academics have accepted they must assimilate to survive. They fear they’ll be excluded and persecuted like he was.
“It is not easy to be honest to your cause. I have been suspended by the university for two years in 2015 and 2016,” he says.
In September last year, the anti-statue feeling spread to the University of Ghana where students and academics petitioned for the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue. The protesters claimed the proponent of non-violence was racist and the university must replace his statue with an African hero.
The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, unveiled the statue in June last year at the University of Ghana campus as a symbol of close ties between the two countries.
Gandhi, a native of India, spent 21 years in South Africa as a lawyer and civil rights activist. More than half a century after his assassination in India, like Cecil John Rhodes, Gandhi’s legacy divides the world.
Ashwin Desai, a professor of sociology in South Africa and co-author of The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, wrote that Gandhi was never a saint, not even close.
“Some youngsters recently defaced Gandhi’s statue in Johannesburg for his perceived racism, while others demanded the defaming of Nelson Mandela, seen as a figure of excessive compromise who heralded disastrous economic policies…” says Desai.
The fervour and anger around statues grows. Many philosophers give reasons for this. The only certainty is if you put up a statue in Africa, be assured someone will want to tear it down.

Chumane-Maxwele-047

The Fight Over  Statues  Never Stands Still

Supra Mahumapelo, the Premier of South Africa’s North West province and staunch ally of President Jacob Zuma, is the man leading the way. He wants to build a statue on the remote spot where police arrested Zuma on his way to Botswana with uMkhonto weSizwe recruits, the armed wing of the ANC, in 1963. It would stand in the dusty rural town of Zeerust, in the north of the country. Zuma spent 10 years on Robben Island, after the run-in with police on this spot, but protesters don’t seem to care.
“We are disappointed the Premier wants to erect a statue, he’s spending more time in planning what he is going to do with the statue, rather than spending time dealing with corruption. We will call upon Barutsi people in Zeerust not to allow a statue on their soil. The statue of Jacob Zuma will go nowhere to solve their critical need for services, as water supply fails daily, waste water treatment plants lie unusable and broken, and the inhumane bucket system still plagues our people. We need service [delivery] rather than statues. We are saying the Premier must reconsider this and listen to the plight of the people. Mahumapelo’s priorities are clearly disturbingly skewed to praise Jacob Zuma, rather than to deliver to the people,” says Joe McGluwa, the provincial leader of the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA).
McGluwa says the Premier is acting as a law unto himself by planning to honor Zuma – who has been in power since 2009 and has 783 pending criminal charges.
“He spoke about celebrating the lives of all those who were in the struggle. President Zuma is still alive and there’s no need to erect a statue for him. Even worse, he has been linked to a number of corrupt activities. The president of this country, better known as JZ 783, doesn’t deserve a statue, he’s a broken president, he broke the law, he broke the constitution, he acted in contrast of his own oath. The honorable thing is to retreat from what they are doing.”
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), another opposition party in the province, acknowledged Zuma’s role in the liberation struggle, but they are also against the statue.
“Zuma is not exemplary and has multiple cases of fraud. Why must we honor him, why must we celebrate him? He’s broken his oath of office, he must leave that office for an honorable man to occupy,” says Betty Kedisaletse Diale, the EFF provincial leader.
“We will make sure that the statue is swiftly removed. It will not be erected while we are members of the legislature. We will fight it until the end,” she says.
The DA claims it has done its own cost analysis and demands the North West province reveals how much this statue will cost. The DA says there’s a tender out for R6 million ($457,000), but Mahumapelo denies this.
“Where the opposition gets their exaggerated figures, I don’t know. We said six meters, not six million rand. We can’t spend that money. It will be wasteful expenditure. The decision was taken in 2009, it was before my time. I have the responsibility to implement. We are going to honor the families who helped liberation fighters. We want to talk to those who are still alive to have audio and visual records of this historic event,” Mahumapelo told journalists minutes after his state of the province address in Taung.
Mahumapelo says it concerns him when people say they don’t want the statue because they want services.
“There must be a win-win situation. People must have water, but we cannot run away from the fact that in South Africa there were freedom fighters. We cannot erase the history of people who experienced torture. Other countries are honoring their leaders. Why shouldn’t we?” he asks.
Mahumapelo, who calls himself Supranomics, said the statue will create more jobs in tourism.
In Ventersdorp, 150 kilometers from Zeerust, stands another controversy.  A six-meter statue of struggle hero JB Marks cost R4 million ($305,000) and left his family irate. They say the North West government did not consult them.
JB Marks left South Africa in 1963 for Russia to lobby the international community to support the struggle against apartheid. He died in exile in 1972, and his body was repatriated and reburied in his hometown of Ventersdorp, on March 22, 2015. The statue was to be unveiled on the same date this year.
So statues appear destined to divide. In the North West province alone there are two statues, two issues, and two groups of angry people.

Give Us Water  Not Statues

African turned on African. Mobs looted shops, threatened lives and smashed anything they could get their hands on. There were languages from across Africa shouted through the streets of the capital of Pretoria on this confusing afternoon – one language was heard above the rest; the language of the boot.
By 11AM, in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, angry youths stood by the side of Townlands Road – rocks in hand. Earlier they had thrown rocks, witnesses said, at any vehicle entering where the so-called foreigners live. A police van stood by, just out of rock range.
For the mob, getting rid of fellow Africans, they call foreigners, was their aim; bigotry their game.
“All those who are selling drugs, nyaope (South African street drug), doing prostitution and human trafficking should voetsek (go away in Afrikaans). Would Robert Mugabe allow me to sell drugs in Zimbabwe? No, never! So why is our government failing us. This is war that’s not going to end. As you can see, it started slowly but let me tell you it’s going to get huge,” says Thembi Skhosana, a South African protester in Marabastad.
In many ways Skhosana epitomized the ugly threat on the streets.
“If our government doesn’t tell these people to go, people are going to die. [The government] is used to killing people, like they did in Marikana, so even now blood will be spilt,” she says.
Skhosana criticized the authorities for failing to clamp down on foreigners without permits.
“It’s best that we take the matter into our own hands. Police have failed. When they take bribes that means they’re also taking things into their own hands; we might as well deal with this our own way.”
On the other side, people also prepared to deal with things in their own way.
In Marabastad, Somali immigrants took up machetes, sticks‚ rocks and knives.
A Somalian shop owner, who sells groceries, Ali Abdul Hasen, came to South Africa as a refugee in 2006 to escape terrorist attacks.
“I came to South Africa for peace, stability and to provide for my family. When I came here I believed I would forget the sound of bullets, and killing each other. In Somalia there are terrorist attacks; you can get injured and die, but not from knives and axes to cut you into pieces,” says Hasen.
“They’re attacking us so we have no choice but to fight back. We have closed all our shops in the townships and came to this area, and now they’re attacking us here, again. We have to counter attack; it’s just tit for tat,” he says.
A woman wearing a peach-colored dress emerged waving a machete and shouting in her mother tongue. I couldn’t make out what she was saying but she wasn’t stopping for anyone.
Then we heard screams and shouting of enraged Somalians, everyone running to the left, chasing a young man in his twenties. When they caught him, the Somalis beat him up. We thought they were going to kill him. Police fired stun grenades to disperse the attackers. A journalist in the crowd was hit in the back by a rubber bullet.
Protesters looted the clothing and home appliance shop of Pakistani Muhammed Yaqoob. The floor was strewn with broken glass and debris. A dismayed Yaqoob walked gingerly over the broken glass, counting the cost of his empty shelves.
“I was at home when I received a call that my shop has been broken into. They took mattresses, shoes and blankets which amount to R50,000 (around $3,800),” he says.
“Life is better when there is peace. We are here to work for our families. And I believe that we are providing jobs, in this shop alone we have three ladies we hired. I’m also involved in feeding schemes providing food to local churches and giving blankets to street kids. But these are the same people who were among the group that stole our stuff,” says Zahid Afzal, chairperson of the area’s business forum.
In 2003, Afzal traveled 7,617 kilometers from Pakistan to Pretoria for business. He makes about R5,000 ($380) a week and sends half of it to his wife and two children. He’s contemplating going home, even if it’s not that safe there.
“Most of us are here because we are under threat of terrorism in Pakistan. There’s lots of bomb blasts happening in every part of the country. If this continues we have no choice but to go back home,” says Afzal.
About 40 shops have closed in Mamelodi and Atteridgeville, in Pretoria, and 12 houses were burned in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg. According to Brigadier Sally De Beer of the South African Police Service, about 136 people were arrested for looting and being in possessing firearms and drugs.
“I’m actually not willing to stay in South Africa as I can see the situation is like this now, I’d rather go back to Somalia. I’m sure if I’d be killed in my country I would be killed by a terrorist, not by civilians,” says Hasen.
While we were in Atteridgeville, police arrested South African protesters, confiscating a firearm as well as needles and drugs wrapped in a black shopping bag. By this time it was chaos.
“I was born to die. If I die today, it’s fine. But your mother will be killed first. F**k you,” shouted a man, believed to be a Nigerian, raising a middle finger to the mob.
“The dislike of foreigners in the use of foreign labor from Africa, India, and Europe to undermine black economic and political power during the apartheid period… this has conditioned people to see foreigners – particularly Africans, but also those from other regions – as a threat. This sense of threat has been exacerbated by public statements and actions from officials in all parties, police, and people in society at large,” says Loren Landau, from the African Centre for Migration &amp; Society at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Inequality and unemployment make it worse.
“Unless the conditions leading to these attacks change, violence will continue,” he says.
“Public education is a start, but this will not counter the incentives and benefits of violence for those who lead it. We will need the police to hold organizers responsible; to reconsider how we plan and manage our cities and to hold politicians to task when they demonize any group in our society, including refugees and other immigrants.”
According to the Nigerian Union South Africa spokesperson, Eneka Ezinteje, about 800,000 Nigerians are currently in South Africa.   According to reports, about 116 Nigerians were attacked in South Africa in the last two years. In 2016, 20 were killed.
How many Africans have to die before something is done?

There Will Be Blood, Brother

In the Africa I know, we sing and dance when we are happy, when we go to the battlefield, and in times of bereavement. We did it at the memorial service of 86-year-old South African female jazz trailblazer, Thandiwe ‘Thandi’ Klaasen on a warm January day. She died a week before, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Could we have celebrated the colorful and illustrious career of Klaasen without the music and renowned Sophiatown style, the multiracial suburb she lived in until it was cleared away by apartheid?
Born in 1931 in Sophiatown, Klaasen and her contemporaries used music to fight the oppressive system and patriarchy. Tired of being an appendage to male bands, she formed a female vocal quartet called the Quad Sisters that shot to stardom with a hit song Carolina Wam, in 1952. They influenced the formation of younger female groups, including Miriam Makeba’s The Skylarks.
On this Wednesday afternoon at the memorial service at Germiston City Hall, east of Johannesburg, songs intertwined with messages of condolences from politicians, musicians and family. One outstanding tribute was the family band’s adaptation of Louis Armstrong’s hit, What A Wonderful World.
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I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself Mam’ Thandi,
Was a beautiful soul, A great dancer
and entertainer, If you agree just clap
your hands, Say how did you do.
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This classic was followed by words of Lorraine Klaasen, the image of her mother.
“I was a good observer of my mom. When I grew up I wanted to be like my mother, I wanted to travel the world like my mom and make people happy with my music. And I am really living the promise I made to myself… Music made my mom very happy… She travelled with me as artists but she played that role of a mom…,” says Lorraine, a 2013 Juno Award winner for World Music Album of the Year in Canada.
“What I am going to miss about my mother is her big heart and courage to start something and see it to the end. She taught me to trust in God. She was hardly in hospital. She was a very strong woman and a disciplinarian,” adds her son Roger Phambane.
The snazzy great-grandma’s penchant for wine drew chuckles.
Klaasen’s spells of inebriation were rarely boring. A friend and protégé, Abigail Kubeka, told tales of cooking and empty bottles.
“After all, she was a mother, a housewife and everything. She loved cooking her mutton curry for her husband, Lucas. One day she didn’t realize a cloth fell into her pot. So, she dished out for her husband and Lucas was eating with a fork, but the fork couldn’t pick up the meat. He called her: ‘Thandi, what have you cooked? You said you wanted mutton curry, that’s mutton curry. Ja, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth,’” says Kubeka to raucous laughter.
Klaasen, among other things, was a magician. She would make a wine disappear in a second, says Nandipha Ndlovu, a granddaughter who called her a role model. Ndlovu is a young doctor in Germiston.
All the speakers agreed on Klaasen’s stoicism and resilience, mentioning how she survived the horror of 1977 when someone – maybe a rival – threw acid in her face. She was in hospital for almost a year.
“That day the fire was set to put an end to her rising star, but they were wrong. That was the day she was truly born. Everyone has got their turning point in their lives. We can rather choose to pursue it, chase your dream or you can turn back, or you can fail. But she didn’t choose to fail,” says Ndlovu.
She would tell people ‘they can burn my face, but they can’t burn my voice,’ says Khubeka.
She also used to joke that she never had one wrinkle in her face. Clearly she never lost the love and respect of her family, nor her sense of humor.

They Can Burn My Face, But They Can’t Burn  My Voice

We meet Dikgang Moseneke exactly three years after Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013. Dikgang, the retired deputy chief justice and the executor of Mandela’s will, is in a pink Polo golf-shirt, navy chinos and matching loafers; reclining in a floral sofa in his home study in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city. It may be three years after Mandela passed away, but Moseneke shows deep emotion as he relives the day the man, who mentored him on Robben Island, left him.
Upon entering Moseneke’s home, two large portraits of Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, the founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress and a fellow Robben Island prisoner, greet you. On the day Mandela passed on, Moseneke was at a year-end dinner for judges and his phone was off.
“Towards the end of the dinner I switched on my phone. There were these several messages from Mama Graca Machel (his wife) and Bongi Mkhabela (CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund), and they were all saying ‘Tata is gasping. You have to be here.’ I ran out of the dinner to [Mandela’s] house in Houghton. And the old man had just surrendered, he had just passed on. And Mama Graca was seated there crying and on the side was [Mandela’s daughter] Makaziwe. It was terrible. It was like a father who had passed on. I have my own father of course, but he was a father on Robben Island,” he says.
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Politics brought them together a lifetime ago. By the age of 13, in high school, Moseneke, born in Atteridgeville, a township near Pretoria, was engrossed in the African Students Union of South Africa (ASUSA) and later the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It was a risky passion under apartheid.
“Our headmaster at Banareng (Primary School), Mr Ramopo, had related to us the fables of James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, a champion of African nationalism, and in 1960 I had been horrified by the Sharpeville (massacre) corpses I had seen on the pages of the newspapers we read daily,” he says.
The headmaster had planted a seed in young minds.
“I hated oppression. I hated the difference and I still hate it now. I dedicated my life in trying to advance equality, to get African people out of bondage, out of oppression. The fact that we have failed to do it now makes me angry. Too few of us have come out of that terrible economic situation for African people. Even then, when I was growing up, I could see the differences between the suburbs and townships, the lawn and the dust, differences in our schools, we had great teachers but the facilities were inferior. Young people have a deep sense of what’s right and wrong.”
It was at the crack of dawn, in March 1963, when Moseneke was at the mercy of a dozen rough policemen who kicked open his front door, ransacked the house and took him away.
“Mercifully, they missed all the banned literature and leaflets that were meant to rouse the populace into a revolt that morning. I froze with fear, but I didn’t cry… They cuffed my arms behind my body. I was under arrest for terrorism, they told my crying mother, but they were not permitted to tell where I would be kept. They blindfolded me and we sped off into the darkness,” Moseneke says.
He faced a gruelling trial on charges of sabotage and treason, and spent nearly a year in solitary confinement in a Pretoria prison.
In July 1963, in the winter rain and piercing wind, Moseneke paid the price for his principles when the guilty verdict came out. The 15-year-old Moseneke and other political prisoners were chained in pairs and cramped in the back of a police van all the way from Pretoria to Cape Town, where they were ferried to Robben Island. In oversized prison clothes, he started a 10-year sentence.
Despite Moseneke’s group affiliating to the PAC, a breakaway of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), senior prisoners from the ANC and other banned political formations took the youngsters under their wing. Between toiling in the prison quarry, Moseneke studied English, political science and law through the University of South Africa. He co-founded the Makana Football Association, a prison league.
On the day he was released in 1973, grinning policemen came to his home and told him he was banned for another five years. This meant he was on curfew and couldn’t mix with more than one person at a time.
Mandela remained in prison but the bond between the two was strengthened.
“In fact, I went to see Mandela in Victor Verster Prison before he was released. I did a lot of assignments for him, very critical assignments in his life. And he relied on me in a variety of fronts; for example Mandela asking me to write the interim Constitution.”
Upon retirement in 2016, Moseneke published a book called My Own Liberator: A Memoir, in which he talks of his political rite of passage and time with Mandela.
“I have a chapter in the book where he says ‘Dikgang, I am glad I have found you’. He traced me down to the Kruger National Park, I was in the Malelane Lodge, hiding, and he said ‘Well, Dikgang I am glad I found you, you must come and run the elections’, so I became the deputy of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission). I made it quite clear I was not going to run for a political office. I am going to become a lawyer, and possibly a judge, but not a political leader.”
Indeed, Moseneke was true to his word. He stayed as a lawyer. Moseneke and George Bizos, the lawyer that defended Mandela in the Rivonia Trial, represented Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his ex-wife, when she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, for the abduction and murder of a 14-year-old Stompie Seipei. Moseneke was on Mandela’s defence team when he divorced Madikizela-Mandela in 1996. Madikizela-Mandela hired Moseneke when she was fired by Mandela in Parliament for visiting Ghana without permission.
“I won that case against him. Winnie was reinstated. But that didn’t tear us apart, it got us even closer. When the Mandela Children’s Fund was formed, he asked me to chair it, which I did for 16 years non-stop. It was one of his first loves, the children. That’s why we opened the hospital which was conceived under my leadership, and Bongi Mkhabela ran with it. I retired from the Children’s Fund and allowed for a new leader. Otherwise, I would have been like President Mugabe and stayed on forever.”
“This day, I am still the executor of the will. Mandela said: ‘Dikgang will you look after me when I am not here?’ It was big ask, from a big man. I said ‘yes Tata’.”
Moseneke is one man who can say he was close to three South African presidents but he cannot be accused of being a lackey to the powerful.
When Thabo Mbeki took over from Mandela in 1999, he appointed Moseneke to be the judge of the Constitutional Court and as Deputy Chief Justice, in 2005, a position he retired in.
“He asked me to go to Zimbabwe to monitor the (2002) elections; I wrote a report which Mbeki didn’t quite like. It wasn’t made public until the courts ordered that it be revealed. I said the elections weren’t free and fair. Even though we were close but he came to know that Moseneke was independent,” says Moseneke.
Mbeki, who wrote the foreword for his book, had told Moseneke if he had not been recalled in 2007, he would have made him the chief justice.
“Our world view has a lot in common, he’s by and large an Africanist, he believes in African renaissance and the greatness of African people, and the need for them to rise again. I believe in the

The Young Rebel With A Cause That Shone Through Tears  And Violence

For years, I’ve been a silent observer of the World Economic Forum (WEF), reading about it on the internet, editing reams of copy on it or watching it on TV. But one question has always remained in my mind. What drives thousands of people each year to a small alpine town in Switzerland to live out Professor Klaus Schwab’s dream, who founded the forum in 1971?
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After traveling almost 13,000 kilometers from the tip of Africa to Davos, a semblance of an answer began to emerge.
The answer was not to be found in the sub-zero temperatures that left the entire body numb with cold nor in Responsive and Responsible Leadership, the theme driving the WEF Annual Meeting 2017. Instead it was to be found in the Congress Centre, or on the streets and hotels of Davos-Klosters.
It was to be found among the people – the 3,000 delegates that gathered for the event and the thousands of support staff.
The draw card – the opportunity to mingle and be seen with the most influential and powerful people in the world. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, crossed my path several times at Davos. Mauritius President Dr Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, after sharing her plans for attracting investors to her country on a cold winter’s night, agreed to a photo with me.
Singer and songwriter Shakira shared her passion for early child development advising us that “today’s babies will drive tomorrow’s business. Their capacity to contribute will shape tomorrow’s societies, will solve tomorrow’s problems”.
Anne-Sophie Mutter, one of the world’s most famous violinists, entertained the crowds. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Finance Minister of Nigeria and Board Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, discussed plans to immunize up to 300 million more children all over the world by 2020.
The allure of Davos is that it gives delegates a platform to discuss the most pressing issues of our time, such as the refugee crisis, climate change and can-women-have-it-all?
It offers an arena to do business deals with the richest, to form new contacts and exchange business cards. It provides purveyors a glimpse into where the world stands, shifts in geopolitics and the ironies and contradictions of the world. It allows those present to see who controls the vast majority of wealth and intellectual capital and how this has changed.
WEF 2017 was a world in which the largest bankers, infamous for the financial crisis, such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, could be heard offering their views on Trump making America and stock markets great again, while Ugandan-born Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director at Oxfam, was decrying that eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, according to a new report published by the agency.
It was an arena that brought into stark contrast the plight of Africa, and the developed world when simultaneously it hosted a panel discussion with CNBC Africa on Powering Africa, while meters away, some of the leading minds in technology were debating what role artificial intelligence should play in our futures; and that the 48 countries that make up sub-Saharan Africa generate almost the same amount of electricity as Spain.
Davos 2017 was a gathering where UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May declared that Britain’s decision to leave the European Union was not a rejection of its friends in Europe but simply a vote to restore its “parliamentary democracy and national self-determination. A vote to take control and make decisions for ourselves”. Juxtapose this with Xi Jinping’s attendance. Jinping, the first Chinese president to attend WEF, led the country’s largest-ever delegation to the ski-resort town to make a statement that China wants to assume a global leadership role as the world struggles with isolationism, populism and polarization. In a speech at the event, he stated: “It is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is no justification to write economic globalization off completely. Rather, we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impact, and deliver its benefits to all countries and all nations.”
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– Vanek is news editor of CNBC Africa and CNBCAfrica.com; she lives and breathes business and financial news, and is now slowly developing a passion for artificial intelligence.

Why The Richest And Most Powerful Go To Davos

The dirt road to Christopher Mazibuko’s house in Louieville, in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, is rocky, quiet and roamed by skinny goats.
Mazibuko lives in a single room, made of mud, in Louieville, 20 minutes from Lily Mine that took the life of his wife.
On this bright Sunday afternoon, Mazibuko is wearing casual clothes. He sits on his doorstep; with friends sharing a beer – maybe alcohol eases the pain.
It has been a year since the fatal accident at the Vantage Goldfields-owned Lily Mine, near Barberton, where three people – Mazibuko’s wife Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi and Solomon Nyarende – were buried in rubble.
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Lily Mine began as an oxide open pit operation, in 2000, and became a shallow, underground operation.
It has been a year since we last saw Mazibuko. On that day, soon after the tragedy, he was sitting on a small bench, cradling his seven-month-old daughter and five-year-old son. There was the agony of both hope and despair in their eyes.
Mazibuko will never forget his last day with his wife, one of the three entombed in a steel container, 80 meters underground, after a crown pillar collapsed at the open pit gold mine, on February 5, 2016. He shakes his head and sheds a tear.
On that fateful day, Mazibuko, who also works at the mine, was on leave.
He woke up early to prepare a lunchbox for Nkambule and walked her to the bus station. Little did he know that it would be their last walk together.
“She didn’t want me to make her a bigger lunchbox because she thought she’d return home in the afternoon,” he says.
At 7:30AM the bus came to fetch her and the two waved goodbye for the last time.
Around 8AM Mazibuko received a phone call from Nkambule, telling him that she had arrived safely.
“She asked me if I had seen the R200 ($15) she left for me under the mattress to buy the baby food,” he says.
Ten minutes later, before Mazibuko could go to the shop, a neighbor came rushing to his house telling him that he heard that the mine had collapsed.
Mazibuko didn’t believe it and accompanied the neighbor to the mine with the baby strapped on his back.
What makes it more tragic is that Nkambule was supposed to be on leave, but a colleague asked her to stand in for her.
It was a normal day, around 8AM, 115 people had clocked in. Ten minutes later, to the sounds of machinery grinding into life, Nkambule and the lamp room operators had just handed workers lamps.
“I was in the last container; we were having a casual conversation. Then we heard a loud sound, almost like a tyre bursting,” says Henry Sono, an eyewitness, who worked at the mine for 16 years.
“Everything happened so fast. We saw the ground shaking and sinking before swallowing the container with the three trapped. We watched in fear as there was nothing anyone could have done. I left my glasses, my wallet and everything because I had to run for my life,” says Sono.
“I’m confused because everybody who was underground got out but a container that was on the surface sank, why?… And I think they died the same day and same time. There’s absolutely no way you can be trapped underground for a year and still come out alive.”
Rob Devereux, a business rescue practitioner, says it might still take up to a year to retrieve the container. Rescue operations can’t start until enough money is raised.
“We need R130 million ($9.7 million) to develop a decline shaft and then we’ll assess the situation and decide the best way to retrieve it. We sent cameras down and it is extremely dangerous, especially for the rescuers. So, it might take us about more than eight months to get to the container,” says Devereux.
The three missing workers were all breadwinners. Mazibuko will have to raise the children alone.
“At the moment the children are with their aunt because I can’t take care of them, I can’t even buy myself food. The kids have even forgotten about their mother,” he says.
About 600 workers have been left without jobs since the mine collapsed.
In March last year, Mineral Resources Minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, promised families of the trapped a R200,000 ($15,000) compensation and workers who survived R50,000 ($3,750) each. They claim they’ve seen nothing.
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Workers and families are hungry and confused.
“The mine and unions don’t communicate with us. They should tell us what’s happening. I’m slowly losing hope of ever getting my wife out,” says Mazibuko.
The mineworkers last got paid in March last year. Sono has 12 children, he says it’s tough.
“The mine says it doesn’t have money to pay us. We are hungry; we can’t even support our families. They sometimes give us food parcels but it doesn’t happen every month,” says Sono.
At the mine, a young strapping man in a khaki uniform, black boots and a rifle slung over his shoulder, guards the locked gate at the entrance. All the families want is the return of the bodies so they can mourn.

The anguish Of Those left behind

Anger Over This Mine   That Became A Tomb

Sure, optimism shone forth in Cape Town like the late summer sun bouncing off Table Mountain, as more than 6,000 powerful people, including more than 20 government ministers, headed for the biggest mining gathering on the planet.
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There were more mining companies this year, up 50% on last year, after more than five years of decline. The keen-eyed investors were back and looking for contenders across the continent. A fruitful place to be for the brave, like the motorbike riding maverick Mark Bristow who has spent the last 20 years making money digging gold in mines from Mali to Cote D’Ivoire. Two decades ago many fellow South Africans may have laughed at Bristow for taking risks far from home, in what many see as barren land for mining, but now they’re laughing on the other side of their faces. At the Mining Indaba, Bristow’s Randgold Resources announced it had increased gold production, for the fifth year in a row, plus it was debt free with more than $500 million in cash. Many mining companies would kill to be in that position.
Among the investors looking to blaze a trail across Africa is the Lagos-based African Finance Corporation that began life, in 2007, with a fund of $1.1 billion and now has assets of $3 billion, according to one of its directors, Osam Iyahen. It is a public-private fund, 42% owned by government, that invests in: oil; gas; resources; infrastructure and power. In January, it broke ground on a $200-million bauxite mine in the Boffa region of Guinea Conakry, just 15 kilometers from the coast, with plans to ramp up to 15 million tons.
“I think there has been a rebound in the industry this year,” says Iyahen in Cape Town.
“Last year was a bit of a disaster. People were not interested in talking about transactions; all they were worried about was protecting their downside. There was a lot of sulking going on.”
You could be forgiven for thinking the host nation is still sulking. South Africa, the biggest mining country on the continent, has been like a boxer on the ropes since the power cuts and global financial collapse of 2008. More than 60,000 jobs have been lost since 2012; capital expenditure ground to a halt and the South African industry lost R38 billion (about $2.8 billion) in 2016 alone, in a year when mining output fell 4.8%.
“We have to get our house in order in South Africa, capital is a coward and it goes to the place where there is least risk. We have to remember mining is a global game now and it is easier than ever for foreign investors to move capital around. Our grandchildren will live with the legacy of what we do now,” says Kieran Whyte, a lawyer and partner at Baker McKenzie, who specializes in energy and infrastructure.
The last few months of 2016 were better as commodity prices lifted, according to the Chamber of Mines, especially the risk haven of gold in the wake of the unpredictable, to put it kindly, presidency of Donald Trump.
“I think we are seeing the green shoots here, we just have to watch out for frostbite,” says Roger Baxter, the CEO of the Chamber of Mines, with a smile on the first day.
Baxter was alluding to two cold fronts: the first, the fact that South Africa – that mined more than a third of the world’s gold – is no longer the king of mining. In fact, in these troubled economic times, more and more nations, from West Africa to South America, are ready to accept foreign investors with open arms. A sign of the times is that, on the eve of the Mining Indaba, analysts in Cape Town were extolling the virtues of the copper, gold and coal mining nation of Chile.
The second frosty front is regulatory uncertainty. The South African government, which has met six times with the Chamber of Mines, has been working on amendments to its mining law since December 27, 2012. It promises to gazette the amended Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) by the end of March; the Chamber of Mines feels it could be April.
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What is likely to be in the bill could cause conflict. It is expected there will be greater ministerial discretion and set in stone that all mining companies have to have 26% black ownership at all times. One of the problems is black shareholders, once they have passed their lock-in date, often cash in their stakes by selling to white shareholders, thus diluting the empowerment stake.
The Chamber of Mines, which represents almost all South African mining houses, disagrees strongly with this. It feels that once mining companies have borne the cost of financing black shareholdings it has done its job regardless of dilution. If this so-called “once empowered, always empowered” principle is accepted, many of the country’s biggest mining houses will be compliant overnight.
“I have never seen the Chamber of Mines so aggressive. Normally they get along to go along, but it seems the worm has turned,” says one mining insider in Cape Town.
It is all likely to end up in court where mining lawyer Peter Leon reckons they have a strong case.
“All they have to do is challenge section 100 of the MPRDA. This gives the minister the power to promulgate the act, but doesn&#8217;t give the minister the right to rewrite or amend the act. That would blow it out of the water,” says Leon.
There appears to be little sign of a U-turn by the government over an issue that could further confuse and deter investors.
“We don&#8217;t want to encourage a place where courts take the place of government. We don&#8217;t agree with the norm that if you don&#8217;t agree with us you take it to court,” says South African mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane.
It’s a cold front that could mean a Chile future.

Beware, It’s Chile Out There

For 96 years, Richard Maponya has been battering down barriers of prejudice and proving that a black man can do anything.
His journey began in the dusty streets of Lenyenye, a township in the Limpopo province of northern South Africa, where he was born. He moved to Polokwane, where missionaries trained him as a teacher. With a qualification under his belt, he moved to Johannesburg, in 1948, in search of a teaching post and greener pastures. This was during the early days of apartheid and it wasn’t easy for a black man to do anything.
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“Back in those days, you had to register your presence if you moved to a new area. I had moved to Alexandra township and I went to the pass office to register,” says Maponya.
There, he found an Afrikaner man looking for people to work at his potato farm in Delmas, 65 kilometers north east of Johannesburg. Little did he know he was going out of the frying pan into the fire.
“He asked for my documents, looked at my pass and all my documents and said ‘this boy would fit in well with the group I am looking for’. I told him I was there to just register in the new area but he took my pass, paged it and he spoke in Afrikaans with another gentlemen with him and said ‘this man is 28 years old’… He took my pass and altered my birth year from 1920 to 1926. He also took my birth certificate and never brought it back to me. I think he wanted a group of people who were about 20 to 22 years old or so.”
On that day, Maponya lost his identity forever.
“I have employed lawyers to fix that but even in the archives of our government, they don’t have any records, so I walk as a man everyone thinks was born in 1926 yet I was born in 1920. This is one thing I never talk about, you are the first journalist I’ve ever disclosed this to,” he says as he reveals the pain of his past.
Like the bags of potatoes they were going to carry, Maponya and a group of young black men were loaded in a truck and taken to the fields to work.
“During those days, black people were terribly ill-treated. We had no rights whatsoever; I was lucky my uncle worked for a liberal Englishman who rescued me from being abused while digging and loading potatoes. They gave me a small job of washing dishes and my uncle’s boss came to pick me up a week later… I stayed with him for a few days and then went back to Alexandra.”
As we meet, 69 years later, Maponya has swapped his matchbox room in Alexandra for five mansions in Africa’s richest square mile, Sandton. When we compliment his beautiful Victorian-style home, he says, “Have you ever been to my other homes?”
It is hard work, smart decisions and some laughs, like this, that have helped him make millions. Even though he is suffering from flu, he talks to us.
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Maponya’s journey into entrepreneurship began 70 years ago when South Africa was no country for budding black entrepreneurs. The tough times steeled him for his long journey to become a legendary businessman.
Rattling along in the back of the potato truck, he never thought of a life in retail but then came an interview for a job in a department store.
“They were offering me more money than a teaching post would and the gentleman who interviewed me liked me from the word go,” he says.
Even more money was coming his way. Within months, he was promoted to a fashion buyer for the store. His boss, Mr Bolton, a kind and intelligent businessman, he says, taught him about fabrics, how to select clothes, and customer service. The two worked hand-in-glove for three years; turnover increased and Bolton was promoted to CEO of the group in 1951. Maponya thought he had struck gold.
“When he got promoted, he called me to his office and thanked me for helping him reach that point. He said ‘unfortunately I can’t promote you because you have a ceiling over your head, you cannot oversee white people. All I can do is maybe make you baas boy but that doesn’t really help you with anything,’” says Maponya.
The dapper looking 31-year-old Maponya nodded his head and muttered a courteous response, expecting little else to follow.
“I was very surprised because Mr Bolton continued to speak. He said ‘I am going to let you buy clothing samples here so that you can sell them after hours and on weekends so you can make a bit of money’.”
And he did. Before long, Maponya began to recognize the budding businessman in himself. His after hours hustle paid off.
“I realized people didn’t have money to buy upfront and I started a wear and pay system and it worked so well. People would take clothes and pay for them at month end and I was making a lot of money,” he says.
After a year of good business, Bolton was diagnosed with a brain tumour and was forced to retire. With him, he took Maponya’s business.
“The person who took over from him didn’t want to hear anything about it. He redirected the stock they gave me and gave it to Indian hawkers.”
It was a blessing in disguise. Maponya was angry. To be big, Maponya thought he had to risk big. He resigned from his job to pursue the uncertain world of entrepreneurship. He started buying clothing from wholesalers. The business flourished.
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Maponya applied for a trading license for a shop in one of South Africa’s biggest townships, Soweto, but was turned down. He went to Mandela and Tambo, a law firm run by South Africa’s struggle heroes Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. At the time, it was the only black-owned law firm in the country.
“Nelson was still a very powerful speaker. He was so powerful that, I would say, he could say to a mountain, move and it would move. They fought for my license but we didn’t succeed in getting a clothing store. But, they got me a license to trade daily necessities,” says Maponya.
At the time, there was no milk delivery in Soweto. There was also no electricity for fridges, so people bought milk for the day. Maponya saw a gap.
“I was shocked. People ate breakfast with milk everyday but had no place to buy close to them. I opened a little dairy there. I started with 10 boys cycling the neighborhood on bicycles everyday selling milk, cash, door to door.”
It was from these humble beginnings that his empire grew. The business moved extremely fast from 10 to 100 men cycling and selling for him; then, big business woke up.
“Clover saw the potential of selling milk in the townships and they started coming with big trucks to sell. They took the bulk of my clients and I realized I couldn’t compete with them,” says Maponya.
With the wisdom of knowing when to let go, Maponya gave up the milk-selling business for Maponya’s Supply Stores, a backstreet store that grew into a massive retail empire that was to make him a household name.
“I started with a butchery, then a fruit and vegetable store, and then a grocery store with two tables inside where we sold cooked food,” he says.
Maponya’s Supply Stores expanded across Soweto.  Growth meant problems.
“I struggled with getting the right people to manage the stores. The only stores where people were making profit are the ones where my wife and I were operating. The other stores would break even or run at a loss.”
It became frustrating, again, he knew he had to let go.
He closed the stores he and his wife couldn’t manage. This encouraged him to look for other opportunities. There was a long list because there were no services in the township. So, he built Mountain Motors, the second black-owned garage in Soweto.
“It surprised everybody. Some say it was the biggest in the southern hemisphere. We were selling petrol in an unbelievable manner. We were getting support from every black person in Soweto. We were selling over a million liters per month,” he says with a smile.
Mountain Motors became the first black-owned garage to have a motor vehicle dealership. Like all his other businesses, it took off.
“Later on, I was invited by BMW to take over a dealership in Soweto. That made history. I would get orders from people from America. It was history that a black man would sell cars those days… I would get an allocation of about 30 cars per month and I would sell all of them in a week… I would borrow cars from other dealers and sell three times my allocation per month,” he says.
It meant, when new stock arrived, he would return the cars he borrowed and would spend two months without stock. He tried and failed to get his allocation of cars increased. Paying staff, when there were no cars to sell, was hard.
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“As an entrepreneur, you should always know when you have made money and the business won’t be worth your energy anymore. It doesn’t mean it has failed, it means you have dug everything you can from it and it is time for something new that may make you more money,” says Maponya.
Again, following his own advice, he closed down the motor business and went on the hunt for a new venture. It ushered in some of his worst days in business.
“I applied for a casino license. I qualified for everything they required [besides the skin color] because it was still during apartheid. When we went for an interview, they asked me if I have R10 million, a lot of money at the time, and I told them I don’t have it in my pocket but I can make means… they said its either you give it now or lose the license… the licence was awarded to white brothers. This is a frustrating and terrible thing I chased and never succeeded.”
As painful as it was, Maponya used his canny and shrewd characteristics to go after his lifelong dream – a world-class shopping mall in the heart of Soweto. It took him 27 years of sweat, court applications and fundraising.
“You won’t believe it if I tell you I started building it on the 28th year… I even went to Parliament to make a presentation but I kept being turned down… They said the people of Soweto would never support a mall in Soweto because they want to shop in the city where there are brighter lights and I told them it’s not true… I have been fighting and fighting but I said as long as they don’t put a bullet on my forehead I won’t stop,” he says closing his eyes to emphasize his point.
In 1979, Maponya acquired land for the mall, in Soweto, on  a 100-year lease and, in 1994, the year South Africa got its independence, after several attempts, he acquired it outright. But the battle was only just beginning.
Various attempts to finance construction failed, until Maponya’s holding company entered into a joint venture with Zenprop Property Holdings. The sweat and pain paid off and on September 27, 2007, Nelson Mandela, the man who had been in prison for as long as it took Maponya to build the mall, cut the red ribbon to open Maponya Mall.
“It was the highlight of my entire life. It was a tough exercise to get money. I could have met about half of that but I needed help. To see this come to life made all the pain I have ever gone through in business worth it,” he says.
Today, the R650-million ($48.7-million) mall has more than 200 stores and a cinema; it is also one of the largest shopping centers in South Africa and one of the growing Johannesburg attractions.
“I am very proud of the mall. It can stand anywhere in the world and compete. I am proud I have built something for the people of Soweto because I have always wanted it to be an economic hub.”
A world-class mall was not the end, merely a milestone. The Maponya Group is also in the poultry industry. They count Pick n Pay and 24 hospitals, in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, among their customers for eggs. They also grow vegetables.
Maponya still has filling stations. He also intends to build another mall in Soweto. Maponya Group’s ventures also include property development, horse racing, retail, automotive sales and liquor.
“I wasn’t born to be an entrepreneur, I learned to be one. I don’t think anyone is born to be an entrepreneur, you learn. I looked at the young boys of my age, when I was young, managing their father’s businesses and I had to go and say ‘baas’ to small boys like that? No, I was not going to allow it. I told myself I am going to create a business for myself and also create jobs like they do,” says Maponya.
While this unfair advantage inspired him, he was also inspired by many black small businessmen; among them was the late Richard Baloyi.
“When I was staying in Alexandra, Baloyi was the only richest black man I had ever known. He owned buses. That man inspired me, he was my role model. When I looked at him, I said ‘I want to be rich like that man, one day I will be richer than that man and indeed I did it. If he was still alive, he would shake my hand and say ‘boy you have done it’.”
Maponya’s success has earned him many friends. Apart from being married to Mandela’s cousin, Marina, he calls Mandela, his lawyer back in the early 1950s, his greatest friend.
“Mandela asked me to pick him up at the airport when he was released from prison because he knew I owned a car dealership. I picked him up at the airport and that was the most frightening time of my life. We were chased by people on foot, helicopters, motorbikes and cars. Everyone just wanted to touch Mandela. They could kill him just trying to touch him,” he says.
According to Maponya, Mandela was scheduled to sleep at one of Maponya’s houses in Sandton but there wasn’t enough security. They booked a place to sleep for the night. He says the most frightening part was when he drove Mandela to FNB Stadium, in Soweto, the next day. People were streaming from all areas for a chance to meet him. The stadium was packed.
“We managed to go in but coming out was a nightmare. There were more people outside than inside. We realized they will squash us and never allow the car to move.”
Mandela was picked up by a helicopter bound for Orlando Stadium, where there was another crowd waiting.
“When we were on our way to Orlando Stadium, we could see all the people from FNB Stadium running to Orlando Stadium.”
“I drove him after that to a few meetings but I realized I can’t cope with his schedule… I gave him a BMW 7 Series as a gift and a driver who drove Mandela from that time until he died,” he says.
To top that, Maponya has dined with the Queen and calls Bill Clinton and the Oppenheimers friends.
At this time of his life, Maponya has a lot to be proud of but still has more up his sleeve.
“I am 96 years old now and I am not going to retire. The day I retire would be the day you say to me ‘lala kahle’ (rest in peace), then that would be my retirement. I would know I have done my piece. People who retire are lazy people. You retire and do what? Bask in the sun? I am not that type of a man,” he says.
Mentoring young people is a big part of Maponya’s life. Monalisa Sam says she was lucky to be mentored by Maponya. The two crossed paths when Sam was a general manager for Maponya Mall Property Trust in 2007. A friendship was forged in the two years she worked there, before she left to co-found Tungwa Retail Holdings in 2011, a company run by black women.
“Mr Maponya has been such a big part of my journey. I think he is probably one of the most underrated elders in business in the sense that young people don’t know the lessons they can learn from him. There is so much pressure on achievement and success that we forget to build a legacy which is what Maponya did. His life story is so important for young people in business,” says Sam.
You have to admire Maponya for doing what many can’t. He could have chosen the easier path instead of pushing his way into business in a white man’s world. Easier still would have been to stick with what he was trained to do – and teach.
Maponya has been the first in many things, but this is not the last we will hear of him.

‘As Long As They Don’t Put A Bullet On My Forehead  I Won’t Stop’

Kenya is rallying behind Ambassador Dr Amina Mohamed to be the next Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, and Africa has warmly received her nomination. Elections were set to be held on January 31.
With a stellar diplomatic career of over three decades, Mohamed, a Kenyan, is known as an excellent strategist with proven negotiation and managerial skills, having demonstrated solid leadership in every domestic and international post she has held.
She is the serving Chair of the 10th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference which is the topmost decision-making body of the WTO.
Mohamed rose through the ranks in Kenya’s diplomatic service from legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kenya’s Missions to Geneva and New York, to the highest level of Ambassador/Permanent Representative, Kenya Mission, to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva from 2000 to 2006.
She served as Director, Europe and the Commonwealth and Director Diaspora from 2006 to 2007 and was Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs in 2008.
In July 2011, she joined the UN as Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) based in Nairobi.
In April 2013, she was appointed by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta as Cabinet Secretary (Minister) for Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Kenya.
Weeks before the AU Commission elections, Mohamed spoke to CNBC Africa. Excerpts from the interview:
Q: You’ve had many firsts as a woman in leadership in Africa; just walk us through your journey?
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A: The first time I did something that I guess laid the road-map for whatever else came after was when I was elected to chair the International Organization for Migration Conference which is a council for migration. At that time, Kenya was actually the only African country that was a member of the International Organization for Migration. And when I was approached, I told them that the only reason I would agree to be put up as a candidate for the chairmanship would be if they would open up the organization for Africa, and would be able to attract more countries into the organization.
So we reached an understanding and I chaired it and during my chairmanship, that one year, I brought in a few African countries, and the rest is actually history, because now I think the largest group of countries that are members of the IOM are African countries, and from then on, I think in especially the kind of job that we do as ambassadors, you are called upon to show your commitment to the continent by agreeing to chair different bodies.
And so I was fortunate, I was privileged that the African group in the cities that I served in saw it fit to elect me over and over again, and so it’s something that I enjoyed doing, I was committed to doing and I think the record is not a bad one.
Q: You are now running to be chairperson of the AU Commission, tell us about the drive behind this decision?
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A: Kenya has put up my candidateship for the position of Chairman of the African Union Commission. Why am I running? I think we have a lot of value that we can bring to the table; we are also at a good time in the history of this continent. The first thing that comes to mind is the framework that we have. We have a framework that was agreed on by all African countries that needs a faithful implementer to put in place.
It’s a framework called Agenda 2063, for inclusive growth and sustainable development and it has a number of amazing aspirations for the continent. I think it’s actually time for East Africa because of the track record we have also set as a community, as an East African Community in what we have done.
We created a model for others to emulate and so there’s just a feeling that it was time for us to run for this position and I would be a good candidate for that because again I can bring people together, I have never come across a challenge that cannot be resolved, I look at challenges actually as opportunities. And I believe that we all know what we need as a continent to move us forward. One should look at the leaps we have made.
We are a young continent, we have done amazing things, we – many of us – have come up with new constitutions, constitutions that are based on our own realities, not on realities that come from elsewhere, also we look at our own specificities, our own individualities as countries.
For us as a continent, it’s actually excellent that we have such a young population.
It’s a young population that’s creative and innovative that are drivers of the economy and they are also the future and the present and therefore whatever they do, they know what they would like to put in place, for themselves and for their own children and for posterity I guess.
So we actually are in a situation where we can lead and not follow, because the problem is ours, the challenge is ours and it’s a wonderful opportunity to use, to propel the continent to the greatest possible heights.
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Q: Briefly take us through what an AU Commission led by you will focus on, looking at the challenges Africa is facing…
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A: I think industrialization, without any doubt. It is the only one that has the ability to reduce poverty, create the jobs that we need and to move the continent [forward]. And I think following that, trade, because trade brings us together, which is a unifier if you like.
We need to make sure that our infrastructure, whether it’s land, sea or air, is seamless. It doesn’t take a day, it’s a process but we need to get on with it. We need to remove the obstacles that are low-lying fruit… they can be removed easily.
One of those is allowing the easier movement of people, business people, of capital, services and goods. There is no reason why Kenya should import; and I am using as an example, if we did not have the dairy sector and we needed butter, milk or cheese, there is no reason why we should import that from 10,000 miles away; if we can just go across the border, into the next country and import from our neighbors.
The only reason why that has been difficult is because of the infrastructure deficit that we are faced with and we need to address that and address it quickly.
In this country we have tried to do it, in the region we have tried to do it with the SGR, with the road infrastructure that we have put in place, with the modernization with the port that has been done over the last few years, with the modernization of our airport, so those are the things we need to do across the continent so that our young people can move from one country to another, bring ideas, bring creativity, bring innovation, but also find jobs.
So apart from industrialization, and obviously there you have to address the infrastructure deficit, trade and the need to trade amongst ourselves; the intra-Africa trade is at 13%, and there is no reason for that. It should actually be at least at 30%; we should, eventually have 60% of trade within the continent.
This is where the population is, this is where the fastest growing middle-class is, and obviously with that, you have a consumer market, so this is where most of the trading should actually take place.
&nbsp;
Q: The outgoing AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has been very vocal about peace and security. Share with us your vision…
&nbsp;
A: She’s also been very passionate about agriculture, because agriculture has the ability to transform communities and societies very quickly and there’s a need therefore again as a reason of the youth to make agriculture trendy and productive for the youth.
But you know you cannot undertake development unless you actually have a peaceful, stable and predictable environment. You must have peace and security, without it you can’t have growth.
And so it’s been actually a rallying call of Madam Zuma, to silence the guns and we’ve agreed that we would try to do that at least by 2020, if we can’t do it sooner. I believe that if we all came together and are always committed as she is, we should be able to do that before the 2020 deadline.
Africa does not manufacture ammunition except for a few countries. Africa is resolving most of its conflicts and there are very few countries today, of the 54, that are still engulfed in conflict, in fact there are probably less than five that are engulfed in active conflict, and therefore we are at a place where we should be talking about a peaceful Africa, a secure Africa, a growing Africa, a resilient Africa.
So it’s one of the priorities. We actually addressed most of the issues that were connected to decolonization, that peace and security became a big issue and we started addressing it.
I think if we are focused we can actually deal with it, it’s been successful in the majority of countries and of course there will be hiccups, back and forth, but I think a majority of the countries have gone beyond the stage where conflict is a daily affair, so we need to continue working on it and I think we should be able to get it done.
&nbsp;
Q: What’s your vision on
driving governance?
&nbsp;
A: We have a very comprehensive and all-inclusive agenda. And that is also an issue that is in our Agenda 2063; we are more transparent, we are more open. Again, we are a young continent, the youth is very demanding, we are involving more and more people in leadership – apart from the youth, the women that are coming in jobs now.
So I think today Africa is at a better place, in terms of the rule of law, in terms of governance than it has ever been, and I think the only way forward is to keep improving that.
And as I said before, we [Kenya] enacted our constitution in 2010. Immediately after its enactment – I was in Justice, Permanent Secretary there – we got a dozen requests from countries that wanted to come and look at our constitution and see whether there was anything they could borrow from there that would fit their own circumstances. Because at the end of the day, the instrument is only as good as its implementation.
And you will only implement something that you are really comfortable with, and so the whole purpose of coming to study and look at what we are doing is, ‘will this fit into my own circumstance, is it something I can do now, is it something that can be delayed a bit’.
As you know, our own constitution had transitional clauses, what we needed to do now, what we could a little later; some of the provisions could only actually be fully implemented in five years, six years, and 10 years. So we had actually time periods in the constitution for implementation of different provisions.
So I think it’s the same everywhere, but the governance situation on the continent is better than it’s ever been and I know it’s going to continue improving.
&nbsp;
Q: Your bid has been warmly
accepted across a good number of countries, over 25 African countries. What are your expectations as we head towards January 2017?
&nbsp;
A: We are campaigning, I was told by one of our leaders that campaigns are personal, you must ask for a vote and that if you don’t ask for a vote, even your own brother can vote against you, so we are going across the continent asking everybody for their support and trying of course to obviously convince them that we have a good candidate. They have been very receptive, very warmly received, wonderful arrangements put in place for us… we are encouraged by the reception and the support that seems to be coming across as well.
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– Gitonga is a news producer at CNBC Africa and interviewed Mohamed at the CNBC Africa studios in Nairobi in November, Kenya; for the full text of the interview, visit
www.cnbcafrica.com.

‘Our Strength Lies In Coming Together’

It is a hot, windy summer’s day in Road Port, Harare. A Coca-Cola can blows merrily down the street. The can has freedom many others here envy. This place is seized by an oppressive gloom. It is filled by a crowd of people pushing, shoving, shouting, buying and selling. There is dirty water flowing down the street and litter fills the potholes. Yet, this grubby place is seeing more trade than Zimbabwe’s biggest banks. Here, the black market is king and the new bond notes are pawns that can be sacrificed.
“The bond notes came recently and we are business people so we have already seen an opportunity to make a bit of money. We don’t see bond notes as having any sort of value, if you have 100 bond notes, I will give you US$70,” says Tapiwa Makoni, an informal money trader.
The Reserve Bank may say bond notes are 1:1 to the US dollar; the free market says no.
“People are already getting desperate for US dollars, especially when they are traveling out of the country. They are happy to get any real currency from us at whatever rate,” he says.
It all began in May, when the Reserve Bank Governor, John Mangudya, announced the bond note. Mangudya argued the notes would ease the cash crisis that saw the US dollar become scarce. It was going to come in gradually.
“The Reserve Bank has established a US$200 million foreign exchange and export incentive facility which is supported by the African Export-Import Bank to provide cushion on the high demand for foreign exchange and to provide an incentive facility of 5 percent on all foreign exchange receipts, including tobacco and gold sale proceeds,” says Mangudya.
The bond notes don’t seem to be helping much; as they too are restricted. The withdrawal limit of bond notes is $50 per day and a $150 per week.
Despite the introduction of the bond notes – that were touted by authorities as a solution to the liquidity crisis – there seems to be little improvement.
“There is a shortage of bond notes and there seems to be less US dollars on the streets. We used to get US$100 a day, but now my bank gave me only US$50 and 25 bond notes. The money is not enough because I need cash for my buying and selling business,” says a Harare trader who refused to be named.
Neville Mandimika, Africa Strategist at Rand Merchant Bank, says the bond notes are non-convertible.
“It is by decree that it is 1:1. The problem we are facing now is that because of the misunderstanding, fear and mistrust currently circulating in the economy, the US dollar is beginning to trade against itself because actual cash is more valuable than money in the bank because of the cash shortages. So [1:1] is of theoretical value but on the street, the market is saying otherwise,” says Mandimika.
According to Mandimika, the panic and kneejerk reaction has seen people holding on to their US dollars and moving it out of the country, which mitigates against the cash crisis being eased.
“That’s why the campaign by the authorities has been to reassure the market that this is not a fully-fledged return of the Zimbabwe dollar… The bond notes will spur inflation but not hyperinflation; at least we are not there yet… Everyone is trying to adjust.”
People have to adjust to it. If you have banked money in US dollars, you may get it in bond notes. This is not a currency and can’t be traded for another currency. Mandimika says Zimbabwe is likely to continue decelerating on a multi-quarter basis because of the debilitating liquidity crisis that continues to grip it.
“The continuation of the liquidity crunch has fueled the rise of the parallel market (US dollars are trading at a premium to the bond notes) which will likely add to the inflationary pressures. Although the latest inflation prints (November 2016), shows the year-on-year figure is still negative but month-on-month numbers suggests renewed inflationary pressure. This will likely be the trend for this year in the absence of a more permanent solution to the liquidity crisis,” he says.
It means the bond notes have been met with mounting anger and questions of legality. The city is full of protest banners mounted on brick walls, advertising billboards have #NoToBondNotes plastered all over them. Peaceful protesters are thrown into jail. One of them was Fadzayi Mahere, an advocate of the High Court and Supreme Court of Zimbabwe.
“Peaceful demonstrations are a constitutional right under Section 59. A demonstration had been organized by another entity, we believed in the cause. Unfortunately the organizers got abducted so the demonstration couldn’t happen,” says Mahere.
Once Mahere and her friends got news of the abduction, they decided to sit peacefully in the park. A handful of police came and ordered her and seven others into police vehicles.
“[Our rights weren’t read to us] in fact, we weren’t informed of the charges we were facing at that time. As citizens we are required by the law not to resist arrest so we went with them to the police station&#8230; We weren’t told about what charges we were facing until later on in the evening. We were asked to pay an admission of guilt fine and as a matter of principle, I was not prepared to admit guilt… the charges we were faced with were unfounded and trumped up,” says Mahere.
This meant spending the night in a filthy cell at the Harare Central Police Station. The tiny cell is cold and dark. There are no mattresses and blankets are infested with insects. The toilet is broken and water and urine floods the floor where some have to sleep, and no sanitary towels available.
“This is degrading to anyone. No one should be subjected to such conditions, even if you are held in cells pending trial. It was a long night. I am grateful I was in a group so there were moments of humour,” she says.
Mahere says, as unlawful as their arrest was, so are the bond notes. She says the term “bond note” is not defined anywhere in the Reserve Bank Act or the Banking Act.
“Bond note is not a term of conventional economics but an invention on the part of the Governor. It is clear that the law does not empower the Governor to create this, with respect, fictitious money,” says Mahere.
&nbsp;
However, Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, argues, in a statement, that under existing legislation, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has the power to issue bond notes.
“I need to highlight that under existing legislation the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has power to issue Bond Notes in terms of the provisions of Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act Chapter (22:15). The Export Incentive Scheme could also have been introduced through Section 2 of the Exchange Control Act (Chapter 22:05) which empowers the President to make regulations relating directly or indirectly to exchange transactions and the control of imports into and exports from Zimbabwe, and payments,” says Chinamasa.
Mahere, however, argues that the Reserve Bank Act authorizes issuing Reserve Bank vouchers, not bond notes, when there is a shortage of currency of any denomination to pay civil servants or employees of the state.
“The shortage must be shown to require urgent action in the interests of public order or the economic interests of the state. The justification given by the Governor for the creation of bond notes is, therefore, inconsistent with section 42B of the Reserve Bank Act. The Governor’s justification for the curious move relates to foreign exchange stabilization and an unsatisfactory attempt to ease the cash crisis.”
“Within a few months, because we are such an import driven economy, when people are trying to replenish their stock, we will see what happens, we will see what our government does when it has the scope of printing money. We have seen that in 2008,” she says.
Mahere adds that her problem is not the bond note itself but the refusal by government to address issues at their root and attend to the fundamental causes to economic problems in Zimbabwe.
According to the Reserve Bank, the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe, fuel companies, representatives of the various business associations and the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe agreed on the use of bond notes as a medium of exchange in the country. Most traders are accepting the bond notes but worry about their future.
“I hope this will not be a repeat of 2008 where government will start printing money that is actually worthless. I have to buy my stock in South Africa because no company makes the hardware I sell here. I heard some petrol stations are already rejecting it,” says Clive Moyo, a cabinet and coffin handle trader.
The argument goes on. What is clear is people are buying and selling pieces of paper they aren’t sure about.

It Is Bond Belief

It’s a Thursday afternoon in November, with the summer sun baking the pavements, and everything in sight. Being a weekday, South Africa’s famous Vilakazi Street, home to two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, in Orlando West, in the historic township of Soweto, is not too busy – there are fewer tourists compared to the usual.
I am looking down the linear street, no more than a kilometer, filled with history, craft and commerce, not to mention an assortment of tourists.
It’s a far cry from the street it was in the apartheid days, days before its most-famous resident, Nelson Mandela, was whisked off to prison for 27 years. His home here, number 8115 or Mandela House, which he said is marked with an ‘X’ in his mental geography, is a museum now, the street’s biggest draw. Mandela had returned to this house when he was released from prison in 1990.
Vilakazi’s other famous resident was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel prize-winning social rights activist who also opposed apartheid.
I strap the camera around my neck, put on my sunglasses and become a tourist, walking from one end to the other exploring the street; it almost feels like I am not in Soweto, this is one of Africa’s world-renowned pieces of real estate.
It takes me less than a minute before I see an urban building to my left, The Box Shop, a shop created primarily for locals but with international tourists streaming in and out.
Launched as a fashion store in 2015 employing about 11 staff, it has extended its retail offerings to furniture and food – mouth-watering delicacies such as mogodu (lamb or beef tripe).
Sifiso Moyo, marketing director of The Box Shop, is one of the store’s four founders who decided to open the store on Vilakazi Street.
“It was a combination of things that made us pursue Vilakazi, we looked at the Gauteng government mandate in terms of revitalizing townships, so we looked at how we are going to align ourselves with that strategy and contribute positively to the dream of township revitalization,” says Moyo.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-32129 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Vilakazi-Str-065-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Vilakazi-Str-065.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Vilakazi-Str-065-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Vilakazi-Str-065-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Vilakazi-Str-065-768x511.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
I walk again for three minutes, and stop, as I see a gentleman with a snake around his neck. I step closer to make sure I am not imagining things.
It is a snake, a real one, a Red Tail Boa. After introducing myself to the gentleman, he directs me to the house to meet his mother, Lindiwe Mngomezulu.
Her business is offering tourists the Soweto Live Snakes Show. The inspiration for it came when she joined a snake club in Edenvale, east of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her daughter, Lwandle, had forced her mother to part with R5 to see snakes at the Soweto Arts Festival. Curious, Mngomezulu asked how they could join the club. They were told to visit on Saturdays.
“Love. I wouldn’t have them [the snakes] without love. But the business started when my daughter was seven years old, when she first held a snake. As a mother, I gave her support; wherever she wanted to go where there was snakes, I took her, only to find that I have an interest too,” says Mngomezulu.
I am speaking to Mngomezulu in her living room, which is almost like a mini-zoo – to my right is a monkey, behind me, a parrot, and next to her, a hedgehog. I am a little uneasy knowing there are pythons in the next room, which was once one of the bedrooms in the small home.
The mother and daughter started volunteering at the snake club cleaning the enclosures of 300 reptiles including crocodiles; shortly after, by 2009, they were bringing snakes to the township for snake shows, so it could generate revenue for them. At first, business wasn’t good because they didn’t know how to charge, but worst of all, the community was not in agreement with the idea of snakes in their township as they thought the mother-daughter duo were practicing witchcraft.
“The entrance fee was R5, we didn’t know what we were doing, and people were scared,” says Mngomezulu.
Not long after, Mngomezulu bought her daughter her first pet, a Corn snake, and called it Pikinini because it was small. But the fact remained; they were not making money and had to return the borrowed snakes to the club.
That was when Mngomezulu decided to buy her own snakes to start her own mini snake park. After the Corn snake, it was twin pythons and a boa.
During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Mngomezulu went back to the club and borrowed snakes for a show in Soweto, the day of the final game, which drew visitors from all over the world. This time, she made wads of cash, enough to share with the club.
Sadly, in 2013, three of Mngomezulu’s snakes died because of pneumonia. Her four-roomed house in Vilakazi Street wasn’t warm enough for the snakes.
Today, thankfully, business is okay, and Mngomezulu can more than afford a loaf of bread. She is now extending her house to accommodate more snakes and tourists. The entrance fee is worth it. People come in to touch the snakes and pose with them for photos.
“Our show is not just a show, it’s an educational show, we educate you about the snakes we have, because I take care of them, we grow them, train them. They are used to cameras, noise and people,” says Mngomezulu.
Not only does she make money on Vilakazi Street, she also has her snakes starring in films and the small screen, namely a South African TV show shot in 2015 titled Ngempela.
Although her show also includes her other pets: a monkey, parrot, bearded dragon lizard, hedgehog and a yellow anaconda, Mngomezulu says the fear of snakes can drive people away.
“When one stands at the gate and fears going in, others get scared too,” she says. The tour guides are also an issue; they don’t spend time at the Soweto Live Snakes Show which affects her business.
I don’t get to watch the show, so I move on to the house next door, a space selling art.
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Thamaga Montjane is CEO of JHTCE (Joining Hands To Create Employment). He says the challenges he faces are people going only to one end of Vilakazi Street and not going further up – to this spot where his shop is.
I can relate to it. As I was walking towards Mandela House, I could see more action – more cars, more color, more tourists thronging the stalls there – than here, by Montjane’s shop.
I speak to one of the vendors a few feet from Mandela House. Bongane Ngcobo sells t-shirts, caps and African art. An entrepreneur in his own right, he says he makes about R4,000 ($282) on a good day and about R200 ($14) when it’s not so good.
As I stroll further down, the street is getting busier. I am drawn to a group of idling youngsters outside an art gallery named Shova Lifestyle Origin.
Thabo Modise, the owner here, started off selling t-shirts in the streets of Soweto; now he owns the gallery and the boutique next to it.
“It is a lifestyle boutique, where we have local fashion designers showing their work and we have a gallery for locals to do the same,” says Modise. He is an entrepreneurial success on Vilakazi Street.
The ambience of the street gets more vibrant as the afternoon progresses. I go across the road from the gallery, to Sakhumzi; a popular restaurant in Soweto, right next door to Tutu’s house. I step in to speak to a few tourists gulping down drinks and South African food.
“It feels awesome being here, we went to the Mandela museum and it was great, proper energy, real place,” says Tavis Wright, a tourist from England.
Lorenzo Grifantini, a tourist from Italy, says there is life and movement in the street and the people look happy.
Not too far from where I am seated at the restaurant, I spot more tourists savoring the local food.
“I didn’t expect a vibrant and classy restaurant like this here, I’m really surprised and I’m loving the food. I had tripe, it was very delicious,” says Adrian Seigs, also a tourist from Europe.
At the end of Vilakazi Street is Kwa Lichaba, a busy car wash corner on the opposite side.
Eventually, what was meant to be a 10-minute walk for me with my camera, turned out to be an hour-long expedition.
On the journey, I learned that the street boasts more South African tourists than foreigners and that hawkers could possibly make more money on a daily basis than a business with a counter, cash register, tables and a door.
As I look at the street again, I think of Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, the South African Zulu poet, author and linguist who died in 1947, and after who the street is named.
Little did he know that school children would be fighting for education on that street, that Winnie, the former ANC Women’s League president and ex-wife of Mandela, would be arrested on that very street, that Nobel accolades would arrive all the way from Sweden to this street in Soweto, or that today Vilakazi Street is more about preserving history – and making money off it.

Vilakazi-Str-043

Pythons And  Peacemakers Down Vilakazi Street

When does a country become synonymous with its community?
Just visit Rwanda on the last Saturday of any month, and you will see it here, in this hilly East African country, where the masses – from ministers to farmers, shopkeepers to entrepreneurs – rub shoulders to become one harmonious, homogeneous entity, laying roads, digging the earth, planting trees, and cleaning gutters and drains, holding broom, shovel and spade.
The only thing that counts is the richness of the earth, the fresh mountain air and a united mission to keep the streets green and immaculately clean as a contribution to nation-building and improving the living conditions of the country’s 11.5 million citizens.
It’s on one such Saturday that FORBES WOMAN AFRICA is invited to travel upcountry to Rwanda’s verdant Rulindo district, past Kigali’s bustling traffic and up the winding roads when the city’s modest skyscrapers appear no match for the country’s magnificent hills.
It’s the day the country observes Umuganda, a home-grown initiative that requires people from all walks of life, villagers and city-folk, to congregate for community work, once a month, from 7AM to 11AM.
Today, most of the action is in this northern province, where schoolgirls in blinding yellow and pink uniforms, rural women in colorful African dresses, and men in gum boots, form neat lines to take their turn planting saplings in the fertile earth.
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Today, they are also awaiting a special visitor, who will dig the earth with them, under the hot mid-morning sun.
The earth is an apt way to introduce Imbuto Foundation – the word ‘Imbuto’ meaning ‘seed’ or ‘fruit’ in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s local language. And the special guest is none other than the President of this foundation, Jeannette Kagame, also the nation’s much-loved First Lady, wife to the country’s dynamic President Paul Kagame.
There is collective silence and adulation when she arrives, wearing denim pants and shirt and a yellow cap, getting to work right away with the shovel. A stone’s throw away, in a classroom, young girls aged 10 to 12 are seated in a circle on straw mats, ready to welcome her.
They call this ‘the circle of friendship’, and around them are their mentors, young women themselves, aged 18 to 25.
Today is also the launch of the third year of Imbuto Foundation’s successful 12+ program in the area.
The program, in line with the national plan under the Ministry of Health, has achieved significant milestones, reaching 52,000 girls nationally over the last two years.
The girls are taught about savings, discipline and confidence, in tandem with Imbuto’s motto to ‘engage, educate and empower’. The 10- to 12-year-olds are also taught about sexual health, ground-breaking by itself, as sex is still a taboo topic in the communities, and the girls are equipped with the knowledge about their bodies early, before they transition to adolescence.
In the classroom, the girls pass around a ‘speaking ball’ to each other, taking turns to voice their opinions in Kinyarwanda. They speak with supreme confidence – unfaltering even in the presence of the First Lady – drawing their hands on the charts in front of them, promising to never break their circle of friendship. Her Excellency listens to them keenly, before they pass the ball to her, and she politely introduces herself.
Her next stop is further down the dirt road, for a community gathering after Umuganda, where she is expected to speak to the thousands gathered on the hills, patiently waiting under cheerful umbrellas for a glimpse of their First Lady.
Greeted with music, ribbons and flowers, there is rapturous applause from the crowd when she arrives. The cool country breeze complements the convivial mood. The district mayor speaks about how the previous phases of the 12+ program have influenced the girls to open bank accounts, start kitchen gardens, and importantly, stay in school.
A 10-year-old girl, Amina Merci Dieu, steps up to the podium to speak about how she built a vegetable garden, sold the vegetables she planted and persuaded her parents to open a savings account. She speaks without fear, walking up to hug the First Lady when she is done.
I am seated next to Assumpta Ingabire, Director General in charge of Local Government Inspection, who was formerly with Imbuto.
“Our First Lady is such an inspiring role model. You can share your problems with her and she always sees things in a positive way,” she says, smiling.
Such memories and milestones are significant as Imbuto celebrates its 15th year in 2016.
“Imbuto does not work in a vacuum, it works in line with national priorities, working with communities. Without our communities, things would have taken forever [to rebuild],” says Sandrine Umutoni, Acting Director General of Imbuto Foundation.
It’s a pertinent point, as the country has had to reconcile and persevere to rebuild itself after the horrific genocide against the Tutsi that killed a million of its people in 1994. The only way it could turn around was by involving its communities.
Imbuto was initially launched as PACFA (Protection And Care of Families against HIV/AIDS) working to help families and genocide survivors with AIDS. It changed its name to Imbuto at the end of 2007 incorporating a holistic model for individual development, focusing mainly on educational projects.
One of Imbuto’s flagship programs is a girls’ education campaign called Best Performing Girls (BPG).
“The girls who graduate from high school get training in IT, and also get laptops, which the First Lady hands out every year in March,” says Umutoni.
“They call her ‘mother’,” she adds. “In Kinyarwanda, when they call a person that, it means the person has accompanied you through difficult challenges, guiding you, counseling you, and providing support at specific moments in your life.”
Imbuto also organizes a Youth Forum Series every year. In addition, the foundation works with 22 cooperatives across 13 districts, introducing women to income-generating vocations. With the money, they pay for school fees and medical insurance and enter new entrepreneurial activities.
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The week that FORBES WOMAN AFRICA is in Kigali to follow the First Lady’s activities, is when the King of Morocco is also visiting, to sign an MoU with Rwanda on specific health and education projects. The Princess of Jordan, Sarah Zeid, is also visiting this week.
In between her packed schedule, the First Lady also attends a meeting with members of the 20-year-old Unity Club that she heads. The club brings together current and former members of cabinet and their spouses to promote unity and reconciliation in Rwanda. They also honor the country’s ‘torch-bearers’ every year in November, for outstanding social service.
The meeting with the Unity Club members, which I am also invited to attend, is at Imbuto’s temporary office in the President’s office complex in Kacyiru. Their office on the same grounds is being renovated. The complex is in a stunning manicured setting with frangipani trees, hibiscus flowers, ferns and foliage.
The First Lady is dressed in a smart beige and black suit and sits at the head of the mahogany table in the meeting room. She listens patiently and intently, speaking softly in Kinyarwanda as the ladies consult the files in front of them. She offers solutions and better approaches for some of the issues raised. It’s an in-depth discussion that goes on for over two hours, the seriousness interspersed at times with jokes by the First Lady – she clearly has an effortless sense of humor.
One of the ladies at the meeting is Radegonde Ndejuru, the First Lady’s advisor, who has been with Imbuto for 10 years now.
“We have a family spirit at Imbuto. Her Excellency is always so respectful. Her text messages to everyone starts with ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’. We put passion in everything we do as that is the way she does it. She also has a phenomenal memory and shows great attention to detail&#8230; I always ask her: ‘do you sleep enough?’ She is here in the morning, reads a lot and what I admire is she always follows through projects,” says Ndejuru.
In March 2016, at the 5th Kigali International Conference Declaration General Assembly in Algeria, the First Lady was presented an award along with United Nations’ Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in recognition of their contribution to women’s empowerment and their fight against gender-based violence.
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Rwanda is a global model for gender equality. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2016 ranks Rwanda fifth globally for closing the gender gap in various spheres. The country has the highest representation (64%) of women in Parliament.
As part of gender mainstreaming, there is a Gender Monitoring Bureau in every institution in Rwanda, as the country works towards achieving a middle income status by 2020.
The First Lady works with a team of young, spirited, hard-working women, who exemplify the qualities of their leader. It is clear they have a great admiration for her work.
Before we settle for the interview, Mrs Kagame, as she is also called, begins by asking how I am, with a disarming smile. And that aptly sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. It’s easy to see how this mother of four has won the hearts of Rwandans.

DSC_2230

A Day In The Life Of A First Lady

Naked, shackled and suffering from severe head injuries is how South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko died in a prison cell. It was a death that changed South African politics forever.
The Steve Biko Foundation says it was at this moment, on that cold Sunday on September 12, 1977, the country was robbed of its “foremost political thinkers”.
Kwandiwe Kondlo, a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Johannesburg, says that South Africa would be a different place if Biko was still alive. He says Biko would have made President Nelson Mandela reconsider his approach to introducing democracy to South African.
“If Steve Biko did not die, there is a probability that he would have actually forced and influenced the African National Congress (ANC) to change their approach. He would have been a factor that compelled the ANC to rethink its strategy of national liberation,” says Kondlo.
“Biko was not ANC, he was not PAC (Pan Africanist Congress), but he was standing for a movement of black solidarity. He sought to make known the deliberateness of God’s plan of making black people black,” says Kondlo.
Biko was one of the founders of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO), a body for black, Indian and colored students in the country. SASO evolved into the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in the early 1970s. Biko’s ideologies were instrumental in people rekindling their pride in being black, and culminated in the Soweto Uprising in 1976. The student riots against Bantu education led to other protests spreading across South Africa and greater pressure on the government to end apartheid.
Now, almost 40 years since Biko’s tragic death, his philosophies could be as important as they were then.
Strike Thokoane, Deputy President of the Azanian People’s Organization (Azapo) – a political party formed out of the ashes of the BCM – believes that if Biko was alive today, South Africa would not be struggling to curb racism.
“If Biko was alive today we would not have [Economic Freedom Front leader Julius] Malema saying black people must occupy land, instead we would have transformed the question of the country’s economy and not have the Ruperts and the Guptas running our country. We would definitely have a transformed society but more so, a transformed leadership,” says Thokoane.
Biko was often jailed and in 1973 he was forbidden from writing or speaking publicly because of his ideologies rejecting apartheid. He was also restricted to King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape. The arrest that led to his death came because he was stopped on his way to Cape Town. Despite this oppression, Biko continued to rally for black solidarity and a self-reliant black nation.
His son, 45-year-old Nkosinathi Biko, recalls a conversation he had with an elderly woman who described his father as a “warm feeling”. Nkosinathi says this is the most accurate way to describe not only what Biko means to him, but to others around the world.
He says that warm feeling is the core of Biko’s teachings; it is a strong sense of self.
“Once you have that, you have won 90 percent of the struggles that you face because hopefully with that sense of self you can then organize yourself as an agent of change,” he says.
Biko’s belief in black consciousness could be as important today as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.
“I think the young people of today, particularly the university students, are now seeing the benefits of the philosophy of black consciousness because while those who went to what we’d call ‘black universities’ think that things are better, the ones who went to the lily-white universities of Cape Town and Wits, have come to realize that the teachings of [founder of PAC] Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko are actually needed,” says Thokoane.
“They are saying ‘I have access to Wits and UCT, but when I step outside and I go to my hostel room, I am in a room that is filled with the trappings of poverty, and when I go home I am immersed in poverty’,” adds Nkosinathi.
“No struggle in the world is not born out of people’s lived reality, and no struggle disappears unless those conditions are changed,” he says.
Biko’s rise to prominence started in student politics. What he fought for is being resurrected by South African university students today.
“Not so long ago, we were defining our young people as a lost generation; I guess we were saying they don’t care about anything of substance. Now the young people have woken up,” says Nkosinathi.
In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town (UCT) led the #RhodesMustFall movement which campaigned for more transformation at the institution and for the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil John Rhodes. That was followed by another nationwide student campaign, #FeesMustFall, where students are demanding free education.
The students at the frontline of the protests often wear Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe t-shirts.
Kondlo says they connect with black consciousness after realizing the ideological bankruptcy of today’s politics.
“We say we are liberated but at the level of ideas, we are so bankrupt, much more bankrupt then before 1994,” he says.
Nkosinathi was six years old when his father died. He says he is inspired by his father’s legacy.
“It was most embodied in what would become known as the Black Community Programme, which was the community development arm of the Black Consciousness Movement. So he and his colleagues would take these ideas they were talking about and give them a practical expression, like with health and education projects, as a way of demonstrating it isn’t just pie-in-the-sky ideas,” he says.
Biko rallied to bring tangible change to black communities. Before his death, he was to meet with then ANC President Oliver Tambo to discuss uniting the ANC, the PAC and the BCM, to promote black South Africans without isolating white South Africans.
This was difficult as both the ANC and PAC were competing to be regarded as the voice of black people in the country.
“The problem they had is Biko never wanted to define himself as ANC or PAC, but he defined himself as ‘the people’ and was saying they want one united voice of the liberation struggle. Both parties actually had a lot of headaches over how to relate with Biko,” says Kondlo.
The police headquarters at the Sanlam Building in Port Elizabeth, where the activist was assaulted before being transported to Pretoria where he died, is now called Steve Biko House. The abandoned and dilapidated building is a poor attempt to remember a man who gave his life trying to gain freedom for his people.
After a visit to the Sanlam Building, Professor Bill Rolston writes that “as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed, Biko’s head was rammed into the wall of the interrogation room by the security police who then manacled him to the metal grill of the door and left him there, unconscious and foaming at the mouth. They then tried to revive him by putting him in a bath of cold water…”
The government then lied to the world by saying Biko died from a self-imposed hunger strike. Helen Zille, the former leader of the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, exposed the truth while working as a journalist for the Rand Daily Mail.
“I just knew a very great injustice had been done and I shared my commitment with my editor, Allister Sparks, to get to the truth of the story and I was pretty much driven by that. There were moments of great trepidation when I would go and confront the doctors but I was determined to get the story,” says Zille.
Biko’s murder might have silenced him but it could not silence the world. English musician, Peter Gabriel, wrote the song Biko for his self-titled album in 1980.
“I think it’s a song that was able to capture the imagination of audiences that would have otherwise perhaps not been interested in the plight of the South Africa,” says Nkosinathi.
Thokoane believes that South Africa’s politicians should embrace black consciousness.
“Black consciousness is about a self-love towards a society of black people. As a leader, you won’t only bring those who are in the same political group as you, or who carry your surname, black consciousness would say, ‘let’s stand together and fix things’. They had an approach to reject the white man’s crumbs that are falling from his table,” he says.
There are some populist politicians emerging in South Africa that are influenced by Biko. The founder of Black First Land First, Andile Mngxitama, says the members of his movement call themselves Bikoists. During a lecture titled How Biko Helps Us To Think Black, member of Black First Land First movement Neo Mokatsanyane says, “Biko might have suffered a physical death but his spirit, through his liberating ideas, have become immortal.”
Kondlo says with poverty, unemployment and inequality rife in South Africa, black consciousness isn’t being fully realized.
“We still feel we need leaders who are not only politically bold but also theoretically and intellectually,” he says.
Almost 40 years since his death, it’s intriguing to imagine what South Africa would be like if Biko was still alive. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

Steven Biko

If Steve Biko Were Still Alive…

Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane took over as South Africa’s new Public Protector on October 14, the day her predecessor Thuli Madonsela famously ended her seven-year term.
Although Mkhwebane describes her first day in office as one of her best, she says she was thrown in the deep end when she had to present the State of Capture report compiled by Madonsela.
We visit Mkhwebane on a rainy day in Pretoria in the office of the Public Protector, where, on the wall now is a framed photograph of Mkhwebane, alongside South African President Jacob Zuma and his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa.
She appears wearing a charming smile and a red dress with a leopard print blazer.
Mkhwebane grew up in Kwaggafontein, a dusty village in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, born to a farmworker who was an unskilled laborer for Sasol; her mother was a housewife.
When only 17, Mkhwebane became a mother, and had to go in and out of court to seek child support from her then boyfriend.
She had initially wanted to become a social worker, but the courtroom visits actually influenced her to study law.
“It exposed me to another element of assisting, at first I wanted to work in court and be a judge. Having my first child at a young age encouraged me to be educated,” says Mkhwebane.
After obtaining a degree in law from the University of the North, she followed it up with a Diploma in Corporate Law and Higher Diploma in Tax Law from Rand Afrikaans University. She has worked as a Director of the Country Information and Cooperation Management Unit for the Department of Home Affairs.
Today, as the new Public Protector, she is in the media glare. She has big shoes to fill.
“We had Pastor At Boshoff of the Christian Revival Church welcome the staff, so for me that was the highlight. It was like homecoming because I had worked for the office before and [was] meeting old colleagues,” says Mkhwebane, who in 1999 had worked at the Public Protector’s office as a Senior Investigator and Acting Provincial Representative.
Just before taking over, Mkhwebane says she only met Madonsela for a brief 20 minutes, although, she wishes she had more time with her because she had to present the State of Capture report in Parliament the following week.
“I dealt with it, because I never prepared that report but I owned it. It’s one of the performances which the former Public Protector has achieved.  She was excellent in that and whatever was in the annual report I had to present it as my own,” she says.
One of the most high-profile cases in recent history was Madonsela’s investigation of Zuma’s estimated R246-million (approx. $17.3 million as per current exchange rate)public spending on the security upgrades of his home in Nkandla in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
“I met her only once on her last day, I was supposed to receive the handover report unfortunately she had slept in the office busy preparing it and in the morning when I arrived, she wasn’t here so I only met with the CEO and other senior managers,” she says.
“I’ve got nothing against her; she’s got nothing against me. When we met, I thanked her and told her that I will take over from her and [take] the office to greater heights.”
Mkhwebane’s appointment came with its share of controversy when the Democratic Alliance (DA) claimed she was a spy for Zuma. Mkhwebane denies this.
“I’ve never had an interaction with President Zuma besides meeting him when he visited China for a state visit; I was responsible for communication when we were arranging the local media for interviews, that’s when we were in the same room but not even interacting. The DA is making a frivolous allegation that I’m a spy and they are not bringing any proof after I indicated several times that they need to disclose their sources who are lying to them.” Despite the unsubstantiated claims, she is pressing on with her work, tackling criticism head on.
“It sometimes builds you as a person. I’m not one to act out of that and be emotional and angry. I analyze what I’m criticized for and what I can learn from it. And you won’t satisfy every person,” she says.
The first thing she noticed after assuming office was staff morale was an issue.
“There are people who haven’t signed their performance agreements for the past two years and some have taken the institution to the CCMA, what do you call that?” says Mkhwebane.
The next seven years in office, she hopes to empower ordinary people to stand up for what is right and hold leaders to account.
Madonsela will be remembered for her fight against corruption. Time will tell if Mkhwebane will live up to the admiration many hold for the Public Protector’s office.

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