When American astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969 and called it “one giant leap for mankind”, who knew we would talk about inhabiting Mars half a century later?  South African Adriana Marais, a theoretical physicist and member of the Quantum Research Group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, is one of 100 short-listed as part of the Mars One project, to set foot on Mars in 2025. She hopes to be a part of a permanent human settlement on the planet; man’s first step to becoming a multi-planetary species.
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<h4>What comes to mind when you hear the words ‘outer space’?</h4>
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I think of my ancestors, French Huguenots, who traveled for months by ship under perilous conditions to arrive as peasant farmers at the new Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. I think of the first Europeans who settled in northern America. I think of the first African explorers who ventured north on foot and discovered Europe. This is what we have always done as humans, we observe, we dream, and we realize those dreams through our innate urge to explore and our ability to shape our environment to our purpose. Settling on Mars and extending our transportation systems to outer space will be unique only in that the distance is further than ever before. Quite a bit further.
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<h4>If you were reborn, what would you choose to be?</h4>
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As a child, I read a lot and dreamed of being an Egyptian queen, a Greek philosopher or a Viking warrior. However, I am now utterly convinced that we are witnessing a most unique era in the four billion years that life has been evolving on Earth. Unprecedented developments in science and technology have brought the expansion of our imaginations and our world further than ever before within reach… And I would not choose to be reborn as anyone or anything other than myself!
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<h4>What is the most beautiful thing you have seen?</h4>
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I feel grateful that my volunteering to establish the first human settlement on Mars has made me appreciate the beauty in everything I see around me, even more than before. The ‘busy-ness’ of Earth is unique and beautiful, the only planet we know of teeming with life, full of all the people we love who mean so much to us, all the animals we share our habitat with, all the plants with which we have been living side-by-side with for so many eras… the smell of the air through the changing seasons, the feeling of the wind, sea and sun on skin, the feeling of the ground beneath bare feet.
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<h4>If women were allowed to run half the companies and countries in the world, what change would there be?</h4>
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A range of studies show that team diversity is often correlated with better performance. The gravity and extent of the global challenges we face today will only be solved through the collaborative efforts of all human inhabitants of this planet.
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<h4>What is your most valuable possession?</h4>
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I place extreme value in a good night’s sleep! There will be strict weight limitations for early settlers on Mars. I am prepared to leave all of my material possessions behind. All I will take is information: the electronically-stored pixels, musical notes and words that constitute all of my books, music, photos, movies, writing, emails and letters; my bits of memories of Earth.
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<h4>If you had 10 minutes to change the world, what would you do?</h4>
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I think the days of our current economic model are numbered, but I don’t think hacking into and destroying all financial systems, even if it could be done in 10 minutes, would be the solution. I don’t believe any meaningful and productive change can be made in 10 minutes. You would be lucky to see some meaningful change in your lifetime.
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<h4>Success is…?</h4>
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I want the ideas I had to outlive the memory of me. If I can encourage people to be proudly human, to question and to dream, then my job here on Earth or beyond will be done.

Adriana-page

To Mars On A One-Way Ticket

These are the words from the chorus of Uber dadi, a hip-hop song written for Uber by Fuzile Nhlapo, one of thousands of Uber drivers across Africa.
On a hot afternoon in Johannesburg, Nhlapo walks into our offices in Sandton and, like most taxi drivers, he’s talkative and has many stories to tell.
He grew up singing in a boys’ choir in high school, in Tweeling, in eastern Free State. His love for music grew. After matriculating he moved to the Vaal to seek greener pastures.
“I had to hustle. My first job when I came to Vaal was as a storeman at a supermarket, then I became a merchandiser and then got a modelling job in Bloemfontein,” says Nhlapo.
The 30-year-old rapper did a series of studies, eventually earning a certificate in media studies, marketing and sports administration, before working for the South African Football Association (Safa).
In 2008, luck was on his side, when a friend didn’t pitch for work at Safa. The company offered him the job instead.
“I did sports administration and coaching courses. I was responsible for the Northern Cape regions until after the World Cup in 2010 and then I was without a job again,” he says.
Nhlapo desperately wanted to be an entrepreneur in music. He got his foot in the door by landing a job as a marketer at South African producer, Arthur Mafokate’s production company. Here, he got to learn the music industry.
“I was searching for a job but I was ready to go for my passion. It happened that I met Chomee, Arthur’s artist and we exchanged contacts. I then got Arthur’s number from his website and called him, I approached him as a groupie, but I knew I had a mission to work for him. But then one day Chomee called me and said Arthur was looking for a marketer.”
He applied and got the job.
“What I can tell you about Arthur is that he’s a great mentor. He hired me for a marketing job but taught me the ins and outs of entertainment. He played a big role in my entertainment career,” says Nhlapo.
He left to start his company, Black Excellence, with the aim to produce his own music. This wasn’t easy.
“I decided to open my own company, thinking that now I’m groomed enough, I can do this. I obviously made a premature decision and money was wasted because there were other aspects of business I didn’t take into consideration. I ended up getting deep into debt.”
He had to sell his car to pay off his debts.
“I was penniless and unemployed. A friend then got me a job as a merchandiser again, [but] I was not making enough money, I decided to quit.”
He ended up washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant for a small pay. Here, he met his future wife, from Zambia, who worked as a cashier.
Because life was hard in Johannesburg they returned to Tweeling.
“I was at home and someone called me and asked if I had a professional driving permit and license, and she said there’s a job for a shuttle driver and host at Emerald Resort &amp; Casino.”
He had to use his last penny to return to Johannesburg. While working at the casino, he heard, by word of mouth, about Uber, a technology company connecting riders with drivers, through a smartphone app. Nhlapo says being a part of the Uber network gives him the opportunity to be the CEO of his own cab.
“I started to research Uber and after a few weeks a cousin called to tell me about a guy who wants a driver. Since then, I have never been this happy and financially secure,” he says.
Nhlapo says he joined Uber because he could work according to his own schedule. It has also afforded him the chance to connect with people in a way that neither of his other jobs really had.
“There is more to Uber than transporting people from A to B. It gives us the chance to network and acknowledge other cultures because as black people we only know of our culture,” he says.
He jokingly says his communication skills have also improved, especially his English. He’s planning to release three songs; a hip-hop song for Uber and others, Kwaito and house.
“I’m mostly gonna play the songs in the car because I also want our riders to enjoy it,” he says.
This ambitious lad believes his songs will top the charts.
He says Oliver Mtukudzi is his favorite African musician. Like Mtukudzi, Nhlapo loves playing the guitar.
Unlike Mtukudzi, you can summon Nhlapo with an app.

Rapping On A Rough Road

At’s a regular weekday in Kigali’s lively central business district where single-storied shop tenements, with tables heaving with African artefacts, jostle with gleaming commercial towers. On the arterial street by the high-rise Bank of Kigali, vendors hawk cheap clothing, and shops smelling of dust and sweat sell colorful jewelry and bric-a-brac. Most have a cash-only policy, a far cry from the bank next door, which, in its sprawling air-conditioned halls, doles out digital payment solutions for Rwanda’s consumers.
<div id="attachment_28650" style="width: 616px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28650" class="wp-image-28650 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa.jpg" alt="" width="606" height="902" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa.jpg 606w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-300x447.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-600x893.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-202x300.jpg 202w" sizes="(max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px" />Daniel Monehin Division President MasterCard Sub-Saharan Africa</div>
But the services-savvy Rwanda is proving it’s ahead of most African countries on innovations, not just in the financial space, but in general. As laid out in its Vision 2020 strategy, it aims to include 90% of its citizens in the financial mainstream. ‘Cashless Rwanda’ are the new buzzwords in the corridors of power.
At the World Economic Forum held here in May, Rwanda’s government signed a deal with Mastercard, the technology company in the global payments industry, to promote the move to a cashless economy. High on Rwanda’s agenda is digitization of school fees and national healthcare claim payments.
At the announcement, Francis Gatare, CEO of Rwanda Development Board (RDB), had said: “We are confident Rwanda’s partnership with Mastercard will be beneficial to the country and its citizens as we are implementing our vision of becoming a knowledge-based service-oriented economy. I believe this can only be achieved as we embrace the fourth industrial revolution.”
The MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth has committed up to $1 million over the next three years to advance economic growth and financial inclusion in the land of a thousand hills.
The country, which famously triumphed over tragedy since the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, is now up for the challenge of embracing technology to overcome concerns like financial literacy and inclusion of the rural poor, who are mostly still reliant on cash.
How big is the cash economy in Africa?
“According to a recent McKinsey report, two billion people remain outside of the formal economy. Various studies confirm over 90% of retail transactions in sub-Saharan Africa are in cash,” says Daniel Monehin, who leads Mastercard’s business across sub-Saharan Africa as Division President.
“In Rwanda, only 42% of adults own a financial account, whether formal or informal… We know that government cannot achieve financial inclusion alone, and neither can the private sector – we need to work together.”
In September, Bank of Kigali, RwandaOnline and Mastercard launched Irembo – an online payment solution to make online payments safer, simpler and smarter.
RwandaOnline developed Irembo, including six government engines, allowing Rwandans to make online payments to any of these government entities through the use of debit, credit or prepaid payment cards. Residents can pay for driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and identity cards. The portal also allows travelers to Rwanda to apply and pay for travel visas.
<div id="attachment_28649" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28649" class="wp-image-28649 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="499" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM.jpg 750w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />Raghu Malhotra</div>
“At Mastercard, we don’t limit our thinking to ‘traditional’ versus  ‘new’ – we explore what is going to meet the needs of a market and its citizens as there is not one solution that can meet all needs. Rather our focus is on creating a ‘world beyond cash’, developed through partnerships and driven by advances in technology,” says Monehin.
Indeed, Rwanda’s aim for a cashless culture is good news for the city’s new innovators and entrepreneurs.
Afshon Wallace, the 26-year-old founder of 250 Taxi, a web-based transport solutions provider connecting riders and taxi drivers using a mobile app and website, launched earlier this year, says it’s encouraging. Wallace says he caters mostly to expatriates and is witnessing growth of up to 100%.
“The cashless payments ecosystem in Rwanda is still in its infancy. The government’s push for paperless payments through the smart Rwanda master plan has been a great boost and great sensitization programs are being carried out by many players,” says Wallace.
But there are myriad challenges.
“The population lacks the adequate financial awareness on cashless payments. We have had less than three percent of our users asking whether they can use cards.”
Wallace says compared to the M-Pesa service in neighboring Kenya that has seen great success, locally, mobile money is still to catch up.
Yet, products such as Tap&amp;Go (smart cards enabling cashless payments) on Kigali’s public buses are becoming popular.
“We have huge government support when it comes to e-payments,” says Patrick Buchana, the 26-year-old CEO of AC Group, who started Tap&amp;Go in 2015.
David Karuletwa, the Rwandan-Canadian COO of RSwitch, a financial interoperable solutions company, whose passion is financial inclusion using fintech, says Rwanda is primed to be a hub for financial services.
In 2010, RSwitch launched Rwanda’s first debit card issued by banks in Rwanda and later rebranded it to SmartCash card.
“Rwanda and the entire pan-African market are paving the way for financial inclusion using mobile banking and payment solutions,” says Karuletwa.
From paper to e-payments, cash to cashless, Rwanda’s bank notes are moving out of the wallet into the world of www.

From Wallet To www

It was Ernest Hemingway who lured Dan Olofsson to Africa. “I read all his books,” says the Swedish technology entrepreneur who heads the consultancy Sigma, and they lodged in his imagination.
So when he and his wife, Christin, decided in the early 2000s to build a winter home someplace warmer than their native Scandinavia, they considered the Caribbean but eventually set their sights farther south. “There’s fantastic wildlife and nature in South Africa,” the 65-year-old Olofsson says. “You don’t have that in a lot of places.”
Their plans grew to include a guest lodge at what is now the well-regarded Thanda Safari Private Game Reserve, which opened in 2004. (“Thanda” is Zulu for “love”.) Soon after, the Olofssons set out to acquire a private-island counterpart to their safari lodge and settled on one in the Shungi Mbili Island Marine Reserve in southern Tanzania. After years of negotiation and sustainability-minded construction it was rechristened Thanda Island and welcomed its first paying guests in August. The property, which has five bedrooms and rents in its entirety for $10,000 a night (for up to 10 people), is roughly 20 acres ringed by coral reefs in protected waters that teem with sea life, including whale sharks, dolphins and five species of turtles. The closest inhabited land is Mafia Island, home to more spectacular marine life, trustworthy dive centers and traditional villages. Thanda Island’s hospitality director, Antigone Meda, likens it to Zanzibar 30 years ago – and while Zanzibar now has 200-room hotels, Mafia has about 200 hotel rooms. (Thanda guests who don’t helicopter in from Dar es Salaam fly to Mafia, where Thanda staff greet them and ferry them over in a sleek mahogany boat that would do James Bond proud.)
The Olofssons envisioned the island as a private paradise where they could escape with their three children and eight grandchildren. But the Tanzanian government wouldn’t let them buy it unless it would contribute to tourism in the country and protect marine wildlife. The couple complied but remained committed to building a private family home. And here they were inspired by another 20th century American icon.
“We were at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port around the Fourth of July three or four years ago,” Olofsson recalls. “Looking around, we liked the New England style. Our South African property is more Zulu style. Here we wanted something different, and we decided on New England.” The resulting house on Thanda, with its white wainscoting, peaked rooflines and pastel palette, mixes the American and the Scandinavian, with a few African flourishes like bird’s-nest lamps in the living room and colorful fabric on the chairs in the library.
<div id="attachment_32044" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32044" class="wp-image-32044 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="768" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Water world: The exotic rim-flow pool on Thanda Island was designed by owner Dan Olofsson, who has a degree in engineering</div>
The design is intentionally hard to classify.
Olofsson invested millions – “Less than 10,” he clarifies, though he is unsure of the exact amount – to build something that exists in very few places in the world. That’s in addition to the island itself, with its perfect white sand and clear turquoise waters just feet away from the house.
The Olofssons were very hands-on with the villa and two freestanding beach bandas (open-air bungalows, which allow the island to accommodate groups of up to 28 people), with Christin designing the interiors and Dan, a civil engineer by training, collaborating with the architects.
He was also the visionary behind the villa’s most striking feature, a glass rim-flow swimming pool that gleams with blue mosaic tiles and rises up from the deck to form a luminous cube. “This pool was quite exciting to design,” he says. “I felt like I was just out of university, even though that was 40 years ago.”
The food is far better than might be expected in such a remote location. Much of it is caught nearby. Staff will harvest some of the abundant oysters on demand and serve them with champagne.
While importing luxury foods and wine comes with a carbon footprint, the island was designed to be self-sufficient. It’s constructed with sustainable materials, and there’s a field of solar panels and a desalinization plant. The house and all its infrastructure were also built in such a way that would allow them to be taken apart and leave no trace on the island.
That eco-consciousness is important to Olofsson, who has invested heavily in conservation in the marine reserve. Thanda is working with the Tanzania Marine Parks department and a leading NGO, Sea Sense, on research projects involving sea turtles, whale sharks and coral reefs. It’s a continuation of the commitment Olofsson, the biggest Swedish philanthropist in Africa (and plenty generous at home), made when he established the Thanda Foundation in South Africa in 2005. Among other achievements, its Star for Life arm has put 110,000 children through HIV-prevention education programs.
“We are at a point in our lives where we’re able to give back to society, and I think when you’re there, you have to do it,” he says.
While Thanda has made a point of hiring most of its staff from Mafia Island and is working to improve education there, marine conservation is the main focus. Not that guests would suspect that much of the wildlife is on the endangered species list. There are frequent turtle and dolphin sightings on the boat ride from Mafia, and it’s not uncommon for guests to find themselves swimming among half a dozen whale sharks, the biggest fish in the sea.
That, it turns out, is Thanda Island’s greatest luxury: the access to such an ecosystem – and a solicitous staff to make it easier to commune with it. (They’ll even drag a copper bathtub onto the beach for a sunset soak.)
“Being a big family on an island to yourself,” Olofsson says, “there is a special feeling to that.”
And if it’s a rainy day, there’s still plenty to enjoy – Thanda Island is home to what was the largest Hemingway collection in Sweden, now sitting on shelves spanning 20 feet in a clean, well-lighted place.

FO091316_018

Isle Of You

When Maria Hiwilepo was seven years old, she would walk barefoot six kilometers to school. In those hot days, meandering between bush, trees and mud, she would look up to the sky and see a different world. Airplanes, with their engines roaring high above her, were a rare sight in the bush village of Ohainengena, in northern Nambia, far from technology and the modern world. For Hiwilepo, the sky and the world beyond her small village held inspiration.
“It was a childhood dream. I always wanted to fly. I grew up with a curiosity. How did they work? How did they stay up there? Why up there? Where I grew up, it was very prestigious to be a teacher or a pastor or a nurse. I would see helicopters, I would see things flying and hear their sounds,” says Hiwilepo.
This is the remarkable story that took Hiwilepo out of the Namibian countryside and into the world of fashion and flight. She turned her dream into reality and became an international commercial pilot, flying the planes she saw as a child. That’s not all.
“It was a different world, of what I know the world to be now&#8230; It would be perfect to live in a world where I could fly my own aircraft, land it, go to a shoot, and then fly home again,” she says.
Hiwilepo’s village was so small she could tell who had gone to school by their footprints in the sand.
“It was always just hot. I remember the heat because I remember always been so thirsty walking home from school,” she says.
“I really loved school. I remember refusing to get out of bed to help clean the house, but if my dad woke me to go to school it didn’t matter. Up ‘til today I love to learn.”
When Hiwilepo finished school, she was 15 years old. She had a scholarship waiting, and was on the cusp of reaching her dream. Then they told her she had to be 18 years old to become a pilot. Hiwilepo went off to the University of Namibia to study computer science and economics instead.
It was here that modeling, which she had been doing since she was 10 years old, paid off, when she won the Miss University of Namibia pageant, which gave her a year’s free tuition. Walking down the runway turned into her second dream. From there, she stepped into the international limelight as a finalist in the 2008 Face of Africa.
“African families think modeling is more of a hobby than a career. It’s important to go to school and get the paper that says you can work as this and in the meantime you can model. My parents believed this was a hobby.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-32028 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/0021.jpg" alt="" width="712" height="950" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0021.jpg 712w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0021-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0021-600x801.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0021-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px" />
Around Cape Town, Hiwilepo uses her model name Amira Eli. She is now the up-and-coming fashion model who has walked the catwalks for designers like David Tlale.
“[Tlale’s shows are] always an entrance. The choreography is always so wow. He has that energy.  I remember a show I did with him and the pair of shoes I was to wear went missing. [Tlale] grabbed a pair of size three, and I’m a five, and shoved them on. I was in pain the whole away down to the run way. When I was on the runway, I couldn’t feel the pain, I forgot all about it.”
It’s an even tougher life flying planes from Windhoek to Frankfurt, but Hiwilepo does it in style, with a pair of the trendiest aviators on hand. She is also one of the rare few female pilots that can fly an Airbus A330 and a helicopter.
“I’ve done flights, where the entire cabin crew is girls. I’ve also done flights and I’m the only girl. Back then it was worse, but it is a male-dominated industry. The stereotype is: people prefer older pilots over younger pilots; men over females; and white skin over black. It’s there, it will always be there. But if you choose to let the stereotype consume you, then you are a victim. I wasn’t raised like that.”
And how does Hiwilepo juggle her two very different lives?
In between shifts, Hiwilepo flies down to the boardwalks of Cape Town to pursue her budding model career. It is the reason why FORBES WOMAN AFRICA is able to meet up with her off the runway and in a coffee shop at Greenpoint, in Cape Town. She dressed up for the occasion – her helicopter jumper suit was in a handbag next to her, just in case, she says.
“In my mind I have already landed before I have even taken off. I’m at my best when I am prepared. Am I well rested? Am I fit physically? That’s me preparing for my flight. With modeling, the preparation is different. I have to look my best, I have to take care of my life and I have to look my best.”
Of all the places, Hiwilepo rates Cape Town as the most beautiful. She may not get as much time here as she likes; by the next day, Hiwilepo was piloting an Airbus to Frankfurt; living her dreams over the skies and on the catwalks of Africa.

Amira-Eli_JC-2-of-4

Landing An Airbus A330  And The Best  Modeling  Assignments  In Africa

It’s a story as ripe and rare as vintage wine, also an unlikely story of an entrepreneur who spent most of his life without laying eyes on a vineyard, but now he owns one.
He grew up among poor farmers in Zimbabwe’s dry province of Masvingo. This is the life and times of Tongai Joseph Dhafana, a Zimbabwean winemaker.
“My parents farmed to pay my school fees. After I completed my ordinary levels I moved to Gweru to work at Sino-Zimbabwe Cement Company,” says Dhafana.
“My first salary in Zimbabwe was 1,099 Zimbabwean dollars but by the time I left in 2009, it was in millions,” he says of his country’s decline.
His rise was difficult and often he felt as crushed as his grapes.
“I relocated to South Africa in 2009. I stayed at Musina refugee camp for two weeks looking for documents that would ease my travel. In Johannesburg I stayed at the Central Methodist Church.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5227" src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Joseph-Dhafana-with-Roger-Jones-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
The Central Methodist Church in central Johannesburg is famous for sheltering refugees. The church opened its doors under the leadership of Bishop Paul Verryn during the xenophobic violence of 2010. It was one of the few refuges from violent mobs roaming the streets looking for Africans from other countries.
Like many in the church, he came up with a quick idea to get out. His destiny lay in Cape Town, a place that would teach him the trade and thrust him into the global stage on his way to becoming a millionaire and a bon viveur.
“In Cape Town I worked as a gardener and was promoted to washing dishes and soon became a bartender. It is in the bar that I would taste my first glass of wine on my birthday.”
This sip of wine was the foretaste of a new life.
“Seeing smiling faces sharing a bottle of wine triggered my curiosity and interest to explore the miracle of wine,” he says.
“Other than smiling faces, I was also fascinated by the vine and the journey the grapes travelled from the winelands to some of the most expensive hotels across the world.”
In 2015, he entered a wine competition that would transform the unknown Zimbabwean into a wine ambassador of Africa’s most industrialized economy.
Dhafana was part of Team SA, which won the 2015 South African Wine Tasting Championships, and travelled to France to compete in the World Blind Tasting Challenge.
“I competed in the blind wine tasting competition with 200 others and booked a spot in the top 20 at Taj hotel in Cape Town. In the finals, I was in top three which secured my ticket to France for the world blind wine tasting championships. We came 12th out of 20, the best result South Africa has ever scored,” he says.
Now he has his own company, Mosi, which make the Mosi Rouge and Fraternity. His wines are sold in Sweden and the United Kingdom. The name Mosi is derived from his home country’s Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfalls – meaning the smoke that thunders – the original name of Victoria Falls.
He has also gone to school to improve his knowledge of winemaking.
“I am balancing my studies with my business. I thought I had found wine when I started the business of wines and with each day I am realizing that wine found me.”
The optimism that took him from his home of Chirumhanzu, one of Zimbabwe’s forgotten districts, is still with him as he looks to a future of wine and millions.
“Our prospects are very positive, and for the 2017 vintage, we are estimating numbers in the region of 10,000 bottles.”
A single google search for his name will take you to a number of wine websites demonstrating his growing influence.
His success has not alienated him from his countrymen who are also seeking fortune in South Africa. The Zimbabwean community in South Africa recently honored his toil with an upcoming entrepreneurship award.
His passion stretches to his closing signature of his email: “In water you see your own reflection; in wine you see the heart of another”.
In an industry dominated by white males and household names, this means a lot for a former refugee who once looked into water and saw only despair.

The Refugee Turned Winemaker

It’s easy to momentarily forget about the company closures, job losses and business failures that have become all too common in Zimbabwe in the past few years when you look at the entrepreneurial success of Zimbabwean pastor, Shingi Munyeza.
Gifted with a passion for the services industry, Munyeza has shuttled from being the biggest investor in African Sun – the largest hospitality group in the country – to a new franchised restaurant venture that is thriving.
His choice to sell his stake in African Sun may appear to lack logic, especially considering that he was chief executive officer of the hotels venture for 13 years.
“There are three reasons why I exited African Sun, namely to allow for a new anchor shareholder who had deeper pockets to both invest in the company and expand the business – I did not have such deep pockets – and to allow a new management team to bring fresh ideas,” says Munyeza.
But it is the third reason that really compelled him to exit the business that runs hotels including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and the iconic Elephant Hills Resort in Victoria Falls.
“I wanted to pursue other entrepreneurial opportunities without the limitations of a corporate office, hence why I started the current ventures and more to come.”
The idea to move into the franchised restaurant industry sprouted in Munyeza’s mind in 2008 “after seeing a niche market in this sector of hospitality” when he was still CEO of African Sun. This led to the creation in 2013 of franchised restaurant units under regional and international brands such as Mugg &amp; Bean and News Cafe.
“I funded the initial stores from personal equity and then brought in two regional banks to co-fund this through debt instruments. In total, we now have nine outlets and are working on another three over the next 12 months,” says Munyeza.
This area represents a niche market for Munyeza and he says this is for the high-end market that has been exposed to these brands in other countries, such as South Africa. The approach is to have “regional and global standards and to ensure that these are maintained at all costs”.
Munyeza appears to have done his homework and many reckon that his efforts have been aided by his vast experience in the industry.
“My worst day was my best day since I started these ventures in food franchises. It was on November 3, 2013, when we opened our first franchised store, Mugg &amp; Bean. We had such an overwhelming response from the market that we ended up closing the shop because we could not cope.”
“The worst part was we failed to deliver to customer expectation because we underestimated the demand from the market on both our service and product. It was the best day because without any above-the-line advertising the shop was continuously busy from morning ‘til we had to close at 4PM, when we should have closed at 10PM,” he says.
But being a Christian businessman, whose ventures count alcohol among the products offered, has led to critics saying his business goes against Christian principles. He, however, shrugs off the criticism, saying the business is for the greater good of the community as it employs people and offers services that are required by society.
Since he is a man of the cloth, he must know the passage in the Bible where Jesus admonishes a rich young ruler, telling his disciples: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
“It is very possible for a rich man to enter heaven. The point is always the love of money which hinders people to heaven. Money must always resource the purpose that God gave you and in itself must never be the purpose that God gave you,” says Munyeza.
He gives examples of some of the richest men in the bible, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Joseph of Arimathea, as well as some the disciples during Jesus’ time. He believes that he has been predestined to be both an entrepreneur and an evangelist.
But he has not been spared the struggles of any other entrepreneur and this includes the economic hardships in Zimbabwe. But, he believes that entrepreneurs are born to emerge out of difficult situations and he explains that he has failed more than he has been successful in his entrepreneurial life.
“I have failed seven times out of the 10 times I have tried to get into ventures. I’ve always had the faith and hope to get up and try again,” says Munyeza.
At the start of each day, Munyeza reads from the Bible and prays before reviewing the previous day’s sales reports. He then moves on to digest and watch news headlines before sitting in meetings. “From there on it becomes a fight in the jungle,” he says.
It’s a fight he seems to be winning.

It Is Easy For A Rich Man To Enter Heaven After All

It’s a simple question. Why did you choose the car you are driving right now?
Well, you probably thought about what you want to use it for. A Mercedes Benz CLA would not be a great choice to negotiate the Baster Voetslaan Pass in the Eastern Cape.
But the opposite doesn’t always seem to apply where the most rugged 4x4s are piloted by the fairer sex on the school run and, in the most extreme situations, to mount Sandton sidewalks.
And you may be severely limited by the health of your bank balance in this ailing economy, where even the well-priced Maserati Ghibli may be out of reach.
So here is one of the main factors motivating your decision – styling.
According to international market research company, JD Power, styling is one of the biggest reasons customers select their chosen wheels from the showroom floor.
A surprising number of potential buyers will even walk away from their favorite model if it doesn’t come in the color they want! And that’s after surveying tens of thousands of new vehicle owners about their final verdict.
Sure the number-one selling point is reliability&#8230; not only of the engine and drive chain, but of the infotainment system.
But is there any clear leader of reliability in the premium luxury segment where the Teutonic trio seem to offer similar standards of highly advanced engineering?
With this background of new age selling points there are signs that Mercedes are not only winning on the Formula One track but are also more racy in the Style Wars.
The design philosophy for the past eight years has been “sensual purity”. It is the concept of Gorden Wagener and the driving force behind his international design team who are responsible for all brands and products within Daimler AG.
“The key is not to make it right for everyone. The key for any luxury brand is keeping design authentic, and true to its roots,” says the man who worked as an exterior designer for Volkswagen, Mazda and General Motors.
“You also have to be way ahead of your time. We’re already thinking of the next decade from 2020 to 2030. This isn’t about asking what things will be like. It’s about creating the future.”
You don’t have to look too far for examples. The new C-Class Coupé demonstrates how far the Wagener team will go to embody that “sensual purity”.
The word coupé is often an excuse for leaving out a couple of doors and removing the window frames. But this is a total redesign with flowing lines that are captivating to say the least.
Wider, longer and lower, the coupé provides a striking and sporty silhouette. Gently dropping from the imposing trademark Merc front end, through more muscular shoulders, to the totally refashioned rear, which has been inspired by the S-Class Coupé.
The effect is enhanced by the wide, horizontal tail lights and the tailpipes nestling in the bumper.
The trade-off, as with the CLA, is headroom in the back seats. Six-foot passengers riding to Cape Town may not feel the love.
Upfront you will drive in encapsulated splendor – the seats are especially supportive and the trendy controls and trim are highlighted in silver chrome.
I sometimes wonder if it is not time for a quiet revolution with car interiors with a more logical and minimalist approach to controls.
A car that may be leading the way in a new approach is the Audi TTS. You want to change the ventilation flow? Well the controls are on the air ducts! And there is no pop-up screen requiring a sideways glance for your navigation. It is squarely displayed in front of you on the instrument cluster between the rev counter and speedo.
But the ever expanding Mercedes stable (there are more than 40 models on offer) is focusing on the stars above right now.
Last year was the “Year of the SUV”… now they are raising the roof in the “Year of Open Top Driving.”
The C-Class Cabriolet hits the local market in October and I can already visualize the smooth operators of the Cape snaking past Clifton beaches at the wheel of this ultra stylish multilayer soft-top. It certainly was one of the star attractions at the Geneva Show.
And you can even enjoy open-air driving on brisk mornings thanks to the standard Airscarf system that blows warm air through the headrests and the Aircap wind deflector that rises from the windshield frame to counter the Cape Doctor.
But hold on to your wallet. There is also an S-Class Cabrio on the horizon which will be the first open-top luxury four-seater from Merc since 1971.
Before the cabriolets hit South African roads, there is the imminent arrival of two stellar roadsters. The legendary SL is back with a curve tilting function that will definitely handle the bends and to coincide with its 20-year anniversary, the SLK is to be relaunched with a new name, the SLC, along with enhanced looks and dynamics.
Mercedes-Benz are not just keeping the new models flowing into the country. They are one of seven manufacturers who invest heavily in the economy and employ around 5,000 staff.
“Our business model positions us as a net exporter, with approximately 90 percent of all local C-Class production units exported to more than 80 markets globally,” says Executive Director, Florian Seidler.
“As such, we are well positioned to manage currency and global market volatility.”
“We are expecting a subdued economic cycle ahead which will be countered with a continued product offensive with new products to meet the needs of our customers,” says Seidler.
Looking at the open-tops waiting to be unleashed and the tenth-generation E-Class waiting in the wings, that could be a massive understatement.

Stylin’

When a veteran American comedian and actor Jon Stewart retired as the anchor of The Daily Show late in 2015, after 16 years at the helm, his producers scrambled to offer the job to everyone from Chris Rock to Amy Schumer. They settled on the fresh face from South Africa, with an unusual accent, to dissect and satirize the complex United States political scene as it heads for this year’s elections.
Months before the first show went to air, on September 28, American journalists were skeptical. They didn’t believe Trevor Noah could fill Stewart’s shoes in a show that once captured 3.57 million viewers when Barack Obama breezed through on the cusp of his 2008 election victory.
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Bad reviews followed and Noah’s viewership has fallen compared to the days of Stewart. Seven months on, before a press gathering on set, to mark his 100th show, the 32-year-old from Soweto is unfazed.
“It makes sense to me, if my ratings weren’t down I would be offended on behalf of Jon Stewart. It would make sense that people are going to see the king on his way out, when you’re building a new legacy you need to do exactly that. That means building on a new legacy. Television as a whole is down in America. The biggest thing you have to acknowledge is that there are multiple streams of viewership that are happening now,” says Noah.
Despite the drop in popularity among American viewers – the Nielsen ratings report a 37% decline – it broadcasts to 170 countries, compared to 163 when Noah took over.
“These ratings aren’t disastrous, but considering that politics are the bread and butter of late night television, Noah’s numbers are disappointing. Given this preposterous election season, the material practically writes itself. In Jon Stewart’s 2011-2012 season, his nightly average was 1.7 million viewers,” says Hayley Cuccinello a New York-based TV critic.
The show also generates an average of 67 million monthly streams across digital platforms, in 2016, up 22% against 2015.
Noah says the rise of the web is changing people’s viewing habits as millennials switch from television to the internet. His critics agree that these millennials are supporting Noah.
“I like Trevor’s show, I think his take is unique and he is not necessarily copying Jon Stewart. He is kind of doing his own style, maybe a little bit more humorous and characterizations. He is inspired by Jon but he is not just doing imitation of him. The brand of The Daily Show itself is enough to get people interested, especially online, I think Trevor is doing a good thing with social media. I personally don’t watch it on TV a lot but watch it on Facebook and YouTube clips, so I think social media has helped him reach out to people, not necessarily on TV, he has to branch out on other outlets,” says 24-year-old Nader Salem, from New Jersey.
Indeed, the audience at Noah’s 100th show on April 28, in Manhattan, had many people from afar. There were a number of South Africans, supporting their own, including the South African Broadcasting Corporation correspondent in New York, Sherwin Bryce-Pease, and Sunday Times’ entertainment writer Azizzar Mosupi, who flew in for the show.
“We are SAA (South African Airways) employees. It is mandatory for every African in New York to make time for the show. We love Trevor. He is an inspiration to every African child. He is the living proof anything is possible,” says Zanda Setlaleleng.
“I watched Jon Stewart and I have been watching Trevor Noah as well, I didn’t realize today is the 100th show, I am glad I am here tonight. Trevor is very different from Jon but pretty great too. He has a very different view of things that I think people can learn from. I appreciate his sense of humor. Hundredth show on my birthday, there you go,” says Fiona Charlton, a visitor to New York from Britain.
On the night of the show, Noah ran to the stage, fired up, in a black tailored suit and tie. He made the house rules clear to the cheering audience: “This thing is like a sex tape – people watch to get off on seeing both people having a good time… So, you have to give me your all because I am going to give you mine.”
Noah prides himself in a diverse team of scriptwriters who advise him on issues of religion, nationality and gender.
“There’s nothing off limits, it’s just what are you trying to do with a joke. Even before The Daily Show I always liked jokes that bring people together, and jokes that build the nation. In South Africa I made jokes about the president, to his face, for many years. He knows me, people in Parliament know me. That never stopped me from engaging with them and them engaging with me. There’s an implicit understanding. The worst thing that can happen is when somebody takes your joke to hurt another person or group when you didn’t intend to do that.”
Noah stepped into the comedy scene through a dare. In the early 2000s, he was a regular at the comedy clubs in Johannesburg. One night the host called for newcomers to take the microphone, his drunk friends pushed Noah on stage.
That night, Noah slayed them in the aisles and never looked back. In a few years, he would become the country’s favorite comedian, playing to packed houses, and the host of Tonight With Trevor Noah on M-Net across Africa.
Noah says South Africa will always be home and he keeps tabs on the political scene. He is not eligible to vote in the US elections he comments on nightly, but on August 3 he will be one of many South Africans casting their vote at the embassy in New York for in the municipal elections back home.
“Over the years travelling, performing comedy all over the world and now doing The Daily Show, I have learned if you stay true to yourself and if you are proud of who you are and where you come from, that in itself becomes the mantle. I love telling jokes about South Africa and Africa, I will go for the disparaging comments that people think are stereotypes of the continent. I myself, in many ways, a complete juxtapose of what people think of the continent. I am a South African, you can smell it on me,” he says.
Noah grew up crammed into a small house in Soweto, where he shared a room with his stepbrothers and cousins where he peed in a bucket in the mornings. His mother, a Xhosa woman, had a child with his father, a Swiss-German, which was against the law in apartheid days. Noah recalls his mother had to dress like a domestic worker and his father had to walk on the other side of the street to avoid the attention of police on family outings.
“I was born a crime,” Noah often joked.
Whatever the ratings say, it is clear Noah intends to joke through the storm. As a fellow African in New York I put my money on him having the last laugh at the expense of his detractors.

“I Am A South African, You Can Smell It On Me”

In Franschhoek, a village near South Africa’s Western Cape with 17th-century charm and postcard views of the Drakenstein Mountains, is L’Ormarins, a 3,200-acre estate belonging to Johann Rupert; it’s the largest part of Anthonij Rupert Wyne, the South African billionaire’s wine empire. Driving past a Rodin sculpture in the garden and equally statuesque stallions on the lawns, he arrives at the property early one February morning in a jovial mood, the harvest season under way. His comfortably appointed study is in one of the property’s newer buildings, its red wine cellar designed to resemble the inner workings of a watch (an appropriate metaphor for Rupert, who built his fortune as chairman of Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods and jewelry company with such brands as Cartier, Van Cleef &amp; Arpels and Piaget).
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The 65-year-old Rupert belongs to that substratum of the stratospherically wealthy for whom silence is considered platinum. He rarely gives interviews but is undeniably garrulous when the conversation is about wine. Visible through the study’s windows are rows of Chenin Blanc, a popular varietal in South Africa that rivals the Loire Valley’s.
“Chenin Blanc is a wine that, if properly handled, is a really nice drinking wine,” says Rupert, deeply tanned and smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes. With a net worth of nearly $6 billion, he has never underestimated the value of a good customer. “I look at people, and I would say there are sippers and there are drinkers. People who stir a salad around and sip a bit of Sauvignon Blanc are probably the same people who in the past would drink spritzers. They’re not wine drinkers, and I’m not in that business. I want people who love wine.”
In leading both Richemont and his winemaker, Rupert innately understands the competition to capture discerning customers. Many wealthy men have been known to buy wineries as markers of success, much in the way they purchase sports teams or movie studios. What the trophy-vineyard set lacks and Rupert possesses is an intimate connection to his grapes: Winemaking is far more than an expensive hobby – it’s deeply personal. The original owner of Anthonij Rupert Wyne was his younger brother, Anthonij, who, in 2001, at age 50, died in a car crash. “He was my best friend,” says Rupert, “and I wanted to finish his dream.”
Eager to bring his brother’s vision to its full fruition, Rupert has substantially expanded the winemaking operations, adding hundreds of acres of vineyards farther north and to the west – and next door, too, after purchasing land from Graham Beck, whose sparkling wine was reportedly used at both Nelson Mandela’s and Barack Obama’s inaugurations. Visitors to L’Ormarins and other nearby wineries typically stay in one of the country hotels in Franschhoek; the luxe La Residence, starting at $530 a night, is the best of the bunch. Close to L’Ormarins, in neighboring Stellenbosch, is diamond billionaire Laurence Graff’s winery, the Delaire Graff Estate, which has ten lavish lodges, beginning at $800 a night. Nearby Babylonstoren, owned by billionaire Koos Bekker, costs a lot less (starting at $250) but is sumptuous, too.
To reach a broad international clientele, Rupert has insisted on exporting his goods in climate-controlled containers, a change from the usual shipping method a slow boat through varied temperatures that can alter a wine’s character. And among his winery’s new offerings is a line called Terra Del Capo, made from Italian vines, a tribute to Anthonij’s fondness for that country’s wines. More personally, he learned to accept that winemaking would never have the same level of predictability as, say, his watch business. “Once we’ve done our jobs properly,” he says of Richemont, “then we don’t have to worry about a drought, hail or some bug I’ve never heard of in my life. If you have any overconfidence, the wine industry will take that out of you quickly.” His estate’s greatest success fittingly carries his brother’s name: the Anthonij Rupert 2007, a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. (It’s also priced like a Bordeaux, at $100-plus.) The vintage scored a 95-point rating from the industry bible, Wine Spectator, in 2012 only the fifth South African wine to do so and is, naturally, hard to find these days.
A surprise hit was a 2005 Petit Verdot originally produced as part of a blend (in keeping with Bordeaux custom). In its early stages it was powerfully tannic, but once left to age it improved immensely. Rupert’s staff decided to bottle and sell it as a stand-alone wine but didn’t consult with their boss. He wasn’t disappointed.
“People went crazy for it,” he says. “True wine lovers discovered it.” A French acquaintance tried a bottle and took a case to France to share among friends in the industry. “They said, ‘It’s not possible!’ They couldn’t believe it. Guess what? We’re starting to make it again this year, and we’re going to plant some more.”
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Rupert also enjoys a prosperous partnership with Baron Benjamin de Rothschild originally forged by Anthonij; Rupert &amp; Rothschild wines include the highly rated Baroness Nadine Chardonnay. As for the billing on the bottle, Rupert recalls the baron saying simply that it “sounds better than Rothschild &amp; Rupert.” What you won’t find Rupert making much of is Pinotage, South Africa’s signature variety, first developed about a century ago. To many winemakers the cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut (also known as Hermitage) is an unpalatable, barnyard-evoking wine. “I just don’t have an affinity for Pinotage,” he says. “I’ve said to my colleagues, ‘We’ve got to make wine that I like, because if I can’t sell it at least I can drink it.’”

Putting The Boer  Into Bordeaux

Once an epitome of slums, chaos and erosion, Lagos is now home to a new breed of entrepreneurs, creative netizens and socially responsive leaders. They’re dealing with the demons of development, placing their bets on the commercial magic of the city and fomenting plans to benefit from the spasms of a city in search of its soul and a smart future.
With roughly 20 million people, Lagos is Africa’s most congested city, and the gateway to the continent’s biggest economy. Arguably one of the reasons why Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, the city and its environs represent the most economically significant aspects of life in Nigeria. According to the UN, Lagos will be the world’s third largest city by 2025, with 25 million people, and will need to provide shelter for 77 million by the end of the century.
Its excruciating population, coastal location and complex political economy, makes it a perfect melting pot, a bazaar of pain and pleasure, an investor’s haven. For a city which welcomes a new arrival almost every minute, Lagos is literally a pressure cooker, an addiction, a habitat for struggling software gurus and literary Lilliputians, a testament to human resilience and surely, its proclivity for concocting fame, fortune, disaster, adventure and adversity.
“Lagos is without a doubt the engine of Nigeria’s economy,” says Niji Adelagun, CEO of IQ Systems Solutions. “The place has always been driven and defined by its constantly evolving demographics, ambition and the quest for identity.”
Lagos is largely responsible for the nation’s burgeoning “lifestyle economy”: the proliferation of leisure and entertainment establishments, art galleries, music dens like Fela Kuti’s Africa Shrine, and Freedom Park, once a colonial jail house and now an open space where art and literary cognoscenti converge for shows, recitals and festivals.
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The gods of the marketplace also like Lagos. Its fabled open-air markets (in Badagry, Balogun, Oke-Arin, Oyingbo and Mile 12) continue to receive bargain hunters from as far as Bouaké in Côte d’Ivoire, Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, Banjul in Gambia and Bamako in Mali. Telecoms operators Airtel, Etisalat, Glo, MTN and new entrant NTel all have their head offices in Lagos. The Lagos-based Nigerian Stock Exchange and the activities of financial institutions fuel commerce, manufacturing and job security nationwide.
Among the array of enterprising citizens in this space are Olaide Agboola and Obinna Onunkwo, two ex-bankers who quit their comfy jobs a few years ago to set up Purple Capital Partners Ltd, an investment, private equity and real estate firm. Still in their thirties, they are by no means the wealthiest or most prominent players in their field. They however represent an emerging class of risk taking, empire-building citizenry; a potent can-do spirit so abundant in Lagos.
The Purple Capital duo are helping to reshape the state’s retail, entertainment and lifestyle sectors: financing and developing a boutique hotel, bespoke residential apartments and malls across the state, in the process creating new jobs and rejuvenating the state’s agro-allied, construction, information technology, out-of-home advertising and logistics industries.
Partnering with Stanbic IBTC Bank and AXA Mansard Investments, their flagship project, the Maryland Mall, located in the Maryland district of the state will open later this year. Built at a cost of about $25 million, the development will possibly be the largest investment in retail infrastructure in Lagos by a private firm after Nigeria’s 2015 general elections.
Maryland Mall will have the largest outdoor LED screen in West Africa, cementing the mall’s status as a landmark with a remarkable outdoor character and atmosphere in tandem with world-renowned locations like Times Square in New York, and Piccadilly Circus in London.
Official government data shows that Nigeria attracted over $1.3 billion in investments into its formal retail sector over the last four years. Yet modern malls represent only around 3% of Nigeria’s retail space. As Lagosians welcome the stress-free shopping experience that modern markets represent, affinity to traditional African open-air markets, a cultural inertia to the glitz and glamour of shopping malls, remains strong.
Private, public sector partnerships, improved public administration of state resources and efficient tax administration has given Lagos a healthy balance sheet. It generates up to 67% of its income from within, with monthly revenues growing from $4 million in 1999 to more than $100 million presently.
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The state has the best record for internally generated revenue and is also the largest debtor among Nigeria’s 36 states, with total domestic obligations of N268 billion (about $1.3 billion) as at December 2014, according to the Debt Management Office.
Citizens benefit from this deft management of public resources. A better lit, neater, better managed, safer and friendlier Lagos is emerging. Crime in Lagos in 2015 dropped with police recording 220 murders, 44 armed robbery and 25 kidnap cases. In 2012, state authorities set up Lagos Traffic Radio, Nigeria’s first radio station dedicated to traffic management.
The pervading poverty in the land however competes for space with an urban jungle of mansions, private jets, yacht clubs and an ever-growing presence of sleek automobiles. This contrasting visage is mostly visible in the Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki peninsula areas of the state.
In the foreseeable future, new urban landscapes will rise out of the bowels of the old city. A new airport, petroleum refinery and port will bring life to the Lekki Free Trade Zone in the east of Lagos. And the Eko Atlantic Economic City, a Dubai-style development on land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, will become a reality – concrete evidence of the state’s mega-city status.
With a new marina and 10 million square meters of prime real estate, Lagos’ position as West Africa’s financial capital is secure.
<h1>Barcelona to kick off in lagos?</h1>
In a bid to jumpstart local innovation and boost the productivity of citizens, the Lagos State authorities plan to provide loans to artisans, young entrepreneurs and start-ups via an Employment Trust Fund worth N25 billion (about $125 million).
The city hosted its first marathon in 30 years last February and soon Spain’s Barcelona FC will open a youth academy in Lagos.
“These developments showcase a paradigm shift in the governance of the state. Investors and the entire world are taking note,” says Steve Ayorinde, the state’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy.  He says Lagos State governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s priorities include “expanding the waterways to move more people, working on completing the light rail projects, and engaging the youths through the arts, entertainment, tourism and sports”.
“Lagos has a vibe, you just can’t put your finger on it, imagine I’m still in heavy traffic at 10PM!” says Peju Adebajo, CEO of Lafarge Africa’s cement subsidiary. “It’s everything from the attitude of Lagosians to entrepreneurs, to the unpredictability of the place and the succession of improving governance also means that more and more goods and services are attracted to Lagos despite the high cost, so housing and infrastructure has to develop around it.”
LafargeHolcim, parent company of Lafarge Africa, is working with government agencies and real estate developers to roll out mass housing schemes on the outskirts of Lagos, which technically are in nearby Ogun State. The authorities in Ogun State are keen to leverage their proximity to Lagos, using the New York-New Jersey model as its reference.
“We can’t continue to do mass housing on a bespoke basis anymore, we need to build modern, structured communities; that’s the only way we will begin to plug the huge gap in the housing sector,” says Adebajo.

Where Commerce,  Concrete  And  Culture Collide

If girls were meant to fly, God would have painted the skies pink.”
These were the first words Chipo Matimba heard from a male colleague when she reached for the skies 22 years ago.
How the first female Airforce of Zimbabwe pilot soared 30,000 feet above her humble home in Harare’s Belvedere suburbs is one of the great stories of Africa.
“I saw an advert in a local newspaper advertising for cadet programs for the air force in Zimbabwe, when I realized there were no gender restrictions, I decided to apply. My mind was clear growing up that I wanted to do something that required science and having done science subjects at high school helped me enrol as a cadet pilot,” says Matimba.
Matimba was born a few years after Ian Smith, former Rhodesian prime minister, signed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 – a move that thrust many black Rhodesians into the dark.
“There are some professions that were out of reach for black Zimbabweans, let alone women. The promises of independence meant we could all pursue our dreams,” she says.
“My father died when I was 10, this left the burden of raising nine children to my mother who was a dressmaker. Other than looking after her children, she had the extended family to care for also.”
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The fact that Matimba, the sixth of nine children, opted for the military was a mystery to her family.
“After that advert, I went to join the military at the air force department in Gweru. Of the hundreds who applied, I was one of 10 selected for the program; three females and seven males. It was not an easy exercise, both for the training itself, and pressure from family that said I would not make it in the military.
“My grandmother was adamant that I was not supposed to be in this profession but after some persuasion my mother agreed that I give it a try. [At the end of] the training, the two other females had fallen by the wayside but all the males completed.”
Matimba knew she had made the right choice.
“It costs about $50,000 to go through training lessons with 200 flying hours to fly commercial. Without air force training, I would not have flown any single day as mother would not have even managed to raise money for one lesson,” she says.
In 1996, two years after she joined the military, she received her flying credits and got a few scares along the way.
“In 2005, I was flying with a trainee cadet and our one-engine plane had an engine failure so we had to crashland just outside Gweru. We were lucky that there were no trees, but only anthills; our small aircraft was damaged but our lives were not.”
These days, Matimba, 43, is a captain with full honors and flies an Airbus A320 across the region and on each trip, is entrusted with 160 lives.
For Matimba, success has not robbed her of her culture. She has one desire late in life – to start a family.
“The moment you are three months pregnant, you have to take time off flying and focus on your pregnancy. This is done for health reasons both for the mother and child. Unlike male counterparts, women pilots and even flight attendants have to deal with challenges posed by nature,” she says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-31863 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-1024x680.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="680" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-600x398.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_350545358-768x510.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
She laughs that if she decided to stay single, her family would take her to charismatic preachers, who see celibacy as a demonic possession to be delivered from.
In the air, she is the boss.
“In most cases when passengers are told that they are flown by a female captain, they come to shake my hand and introduce their daughters to me. More than a pilot, I now see myself as an inspiration to most females and young males. I want them to look at me and say, ‘if she did it, why can I not do it’.”
She makes one last quip as we end our conversation, full of laughter and reflection.
“Every time I am flying, like what my former colleague once warned, I will be painting the sky pink.”

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In The Air, She Is Boss

There is a movement that focuses on ‘consistently contributing to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced in accordance with Olympism and its values’. This is the Olympic Movement. There is no better place to see it than in the Athletes’ Village.
Home to more than 10,500 of the world’s best athletes, from 206 countries, all living in harmony and competing against each other, the Village is a vision of what this ‘better world’ would look like. It demonstrates that unity in diversity is not just an idea, but a possibility.
One of my favorite moments at the Olympics is arriving at the Athletes’ Village. The 206 flags towering over us greet us with a splash of color, representing different languages and cultures from around the world.
Arriving at my first Olympics in Sydney in 2000, I remember trying to take everything in at once and desperately wishing for a glimpse of anyone famous. Excitement is rampant; everywhere you look, photos are being taken and fingers are pointing. Some athletes stare in bewilderment or talk with no sense of purpose, while others have tears streaming down their faces. There are shrieks of delight as the younger athletes spot their first celebrity athlete. There is laughter as the older ones remember how they felt at their first Olympics. The wind in the flags, thrill of the athletes and the vibrant anticipation in the air generates an energy that will hum until the Olympic flame is extinguished and the last athlete leaves the Village.
There is a deeper purpose than just us athletes competing for the world to see and the Olympic Truce Wall reminds us of this. Positioned near the entrance among the flags, the Wall is a symbol for all athletes, coaches, team officials and heads of state to sign as a public declaration to observe and promote peace. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, I signed the Wall with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon after he reiterated the importance of our responsibilities.
“We are joining our forces together for our shared ideals: sustainability, universality, solidarity, non-discrimination, the fundamental equality of all people,” said Ban.
This equality is what the Olympic Movement – portrayed in the Athletes’ Village – aims to achieve. Every athlete here has the same access to the same resources. We all sleep in similar apartments, train in the same 24-hour world-class gym, have access to the clinic (doctors, dentists, physical therapists, and in-house pharmacy), we ride the same buses to our venues, and eat the same food at the same tables in the same 24,000-square-meter dining hall. Everything provided for all the athletes here is  free. If this is overwhelming and the stress is too much then there is an Athletes’ Area filled with video games, billiards, table tennis, a music area and a mini movie theater to unwind.
As a swimmer, I thought I got up early. That is until I see the boxers drenched in sweat from their morning run or taekwondo athletes going through their routines. Watching the speed walkers train is always interesting, as is guessing which country athletes are from by trying to identify their team kit. The Village is big and it bustles with an endless movement of athletes training, chatting on benches in the landscaped park, or walking to and from the dining hall. Serving about 60,000 meals a day is no joke, athletes like to eat! The dining hall is the most frequented area and a place where you could find yourself (like I did during the London Olympics in 2012) having lunch with younger athletes, sitting next to Roger Federer and laughing at something Kobe Bryant was doing.
This is the culture the Village creates by bringing all of us together on an equal platform. It is also an essential part of a young athlete’s life because they are exposed to such an elite level of athletes which they may never have had access to. I saw Muhammad Ali when he visited the Village in Sydney and this left an indelible impression on me.
We may play different sports, wear different colors, believe in different things and speak different languages but we all have the same determination, the same goal and share the same fact that no one here has given up. Some of my fiercest competitors are my best friends, despite our different backgrounds, because we can find common ground in our goals and challenges and use it to get stronger. Unity in diversity is more than just a possibility, it is a necessity for our survival. In this Village there is no judgment, only encouragement. This is the Olympic spirit.

Hopes, Dreams And Rising Costs

This will be the next village of tears, dreams and heroes

Accra’s central business district, located at Ring Road, is popular with start-ups because everyone walks past it, from tourists to townsfolk. This doesn’t count for much if Ghana’s economy continues to stumble.
Felix Oppong runs a small printing business in this bustling area. He has a staff of five who serve around 10 companies, mainly from the telecommunications and financial sectors.
The company prints posters, fliers, banners and office documents. In the past year, Oppong has lost two of his biggest clients, telecoms giant, MTN, and Fidelity Bank, due to power cuts, known here as dumsor. He has also had to increase his prices to break even.
“Our business has really taken a hit, the dumsor situation right now means we cannot service a lot of the orders we get from clients. We are relying on the generator every day to make sure we can meet demands and the cost of petrol is very high as well,” says Oppong.
“We cannot continue running the business like this. Our clients are complaining about the increase in prices and I had to sack three staff, there have been at least two petrol shortages last year which meant we had to close our business for a week and that is when we lost MTN.”
Ahead of elections on November 7, the Ghanaian economy is facing several challenges. Once a shining light of economic prosperity, the country, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is now experiencing a decline in growth from 8% in 2012 to 3.5% in 2015. The current woes are largely due to the protracted energy dilemma and what many industry experts believe to be poor macro-economic management.
With elections coming, a restrictive IMF program has been implemented to prevent previous bouts of excessive spending. The organization has disbursed a third installment of $116 million, which amount to a total of $900 million over three years, to aid economic recovery in the West African country. Consequently, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation is forecast to rise to 8.7% in 2016, up from 8.3% in 2015.
Franklin Cudjoe, the Founder and CEO of IMANI Center for Policy and Education, a leading think-tank in Ghana, says the plight of the Ghanaian economy is not specific to one sector.
“I would say all the industries in the country are having some challenges, all emanating from production costs that have gone high over the last couple of years. One of the sources of the high production cost for almost all the industries is because of the energy challenge that we have,” he says.
“If you take it on a per capita basis, the cost of energy, for instance, has tripled over the past few years alone and that significantly affects the budget for food. The disposable income for the household has significantly been reduced. The Ghanaian economy has also suffered from the global shocks because most of our products depend on them and there has been plummeting oil prices. Cocoa production also hasn’t quite matched this, not to mention a decline in gold as well.”
Cudjoe says the country’s woes are also self-inflicted. Ghana is borrowing more money but, according to some experts, these funds are not utilized well. The currency, according to Reuters estimates, has plummeted by around 20%, with a corresponding total external debt of $24.3 billion in 2015.
“Austerity measures being used at the moment are all fiscal and based on levying tax on everything. The government has incurred so much debt and the only way it can service those debts is to increase taxes. There is no sensible government that will be seen introducing taxes in an election year, but it seems the only way the economy can sustain itself… because, quite frankly, the coffers are empty,” says Cudjoe.
Nigeria’s fiscal challenges have also led to the country banning some imports, which significantly affected Ghana’s agricultural sector. Farming contributes around 19.9% to the economy, according to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
“This also has a way of affecting our balances. It is similar to 2005 where Nigeria banned close to 93 products from Ghana and I think we are seeing echoes of that sentiment again. I don’t think it is right to erect barriers, especially with both countries belonging to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which is supposed to lead to deeper economic integration,” says Cudjoe.
He, however, believes that the services sector, together with technology, will drive growth in Ghana. According to GSS figures, the sector contributes a whopping 50.2% to the economy.
“Ghana at the moment is doing $900 million a month, that is 24 million transactions, in mobile money. Ninety nine percent of these transactions are peer to peer, which simply means one takes and transfers money to the other. We are so far away from creating a cash-lite economy in Ghana, which is what mobile money is supposed to do. So we sat down and looked at how to create a platform that enables us to use the mobile money for retail payments. Zeepay’s idea is to be able to move from predominantly peer-to-peer transactions into retail payments as well,” says Andrew Takyi-Appiah, Co-founder of Zeepay, a mobile payments company.
He has, so far, invested just over $500,000 in his new venture and is hoping the growth in the Ghanaian services sector will help boost his mobile app service. Takyi-Appiah’s major challenge in scaling his business is the lack of funds. Financial institutions, who are traditionally apprehensive about lending to start-ups, have taken an even tougher approach to mitigate risk against bad debts. The government, however, has set up the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), to provide resources and attract investment. But Cudjoe says the approach of the government in implementing this leaves little to be desired.
“I know for a fact that the Ghana infrastructure fund that is being set up is being funded by the country’s oil money as seed capital, instead of using private funding from abroad. You ask yourself if this is the most prudent way of utilizing resources in an austere economy. I don’t really believe that austerity measures are the [solution] but I think the way we are going about it is to use the tax to solve it, and I think taxation is the last measure you want to resort to in a time like this,” he says.
As voters prepare to make their mark, the Ghanaian economy is on shaky ground. Business in the country is still firmly in the grips of the energy crisis, which has reduced output from the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, while increasing production costs.
The recent growth in the economy has achieved certain goals – such as reducing poverty – but ballooning costs and debt has left many wondering if Ghana’s progress is about to be stunted.

The Coffers Are Empty

It was just after the crack of dawn that my tracker and I were hacking our way through the thick undergrowth of the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo (also Congo-Brazzaville). Soon we could sense the presence of a large group of gorillas. They were foraging for roots, shoots and termites while a few were high up in the trees in search of fruits. Out of nowhere, a pair of brown eyes was suddenly gazing at us from behind the undergrowth. It was a young juvenile male, also very curious. He stared, blinked and then emerged from his seclusion, almost as though he wanted to greet us in his abode.
This moment could not have happened but for over 17 years of hard work by researchers who have helped habituate gorillas to human presence. This difficult process has been accomplished by the sheer skill of the famous BaAka (pygmy) trackers. Unlike with the mountain gorillas, the habituation process of western lowland gorillas has proven difficult because of several factors: limited visibility in the lowland forests, difficulties following gorilla tracks through the dense forest and across the long distances that they travel.
The Odzala park in Congo’s remote north-west is one of Africa’s oldest. It is 13,600 square kilometers of pristine rainforest and an integral part of both the Congo Basin and the TRIDOM Transfrontier Park overlapping Gabon, Congo and Cameroon.
<div id="attachment_31792" style="width: 704px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31792" class="wp-image-31792 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-694x1024.jpg" alt="" width="694" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321.jpg 694w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-300x443.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-600x885.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-203x300.jpg 203w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/58-_RIP3321-768x1134.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px" />Gorillas are still being hunted for their bush meat and the young sold as pets; five percent of the species is killed each year.</div>
Covered in forests, rivers, marshes and swamps, the park receives 1,500 millimeter of rain annually. The TRIDOM is the first three-country transboundary area to become a World Heritage Site and is one of the largest blocks of pristine tropical lowland forest in the world.
As the juvenile gorilla approached me, two other members of the group, a young female and another male, peeked through the undergrowth. The three of them were fast approaching me. While my heart was pounding with excitement, I was reminded by the tracker and forest companion Zephron that we had to maintain a seven meter distance from the animals, lest we transmit human diseases. So I had to backtrack with a heavy heart while still covering my face with a surgical mask.
My tracker understood their movements and soon positioned me in a different location. His tracking experience came to play as the huge silverback male emerged right in front of me. Known as Neptuno by the researchers, he was 35 years old, handsome, big and 380lbs to boot. He managed his group of 16 gorillas by leading, protecting and showing them prime feeding grounds. Neptuno was keeping a check on me while ensuring his group’s safety. Soon, the other 15 members filed past me. Some stopped to look, others rushed while a few sat down to observe me. Neptuno was with the young and either led the group or stopped to ensure their safety. He was known to charge human beings when threatened.
Odzala Camps was launched in 2013, boasting the highest density of gorillas in Africa including seven habituated western lowland gorilla families (about 105 gorillas). Visitors encounter 11 species of diurnal primates including chimpanzee, De Brazza’s monkey, putty-nosed monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey, crowned monkey, colobus monkey and moustached monkey. The area includes birdlife and herds of forest elephant and dwarf buffalo.
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I am one of less than 750 visitors to have experienced this park. Access was impossible prior to 2013. It took a long time for Spanish primatologist Magda Bermejo to win the trust of the Ndzehi people as they had seen western lowland gorillas in the rainforest being poached, hunted for trophies, or shipped off to zoos. Eventually, when she earned their respect, the Ndzehi packed up their whole village and moved with Bermejo to Lossi, home to the largest population of gorillas in the Congo, to help her with her research. Their intimate knowledge of the rainforest and gorilla-tracking skills proved invaluable to Bermejo’s work.
A recent census of the gorilla populations in equatorial Africa was thought to be 100,000. In 2004, there was an Ebola outbreak in Odzala wiping out 90% of the resident population of 10,000. Because of these outbreaks, the International Union for Conservation of Nature updated the status of western lowland gorillas from “endangered” to “critically endangered”.
The gorillas are still being hunted for their bush meat and the young sold as pets; five percent of the species is killed each year. Commercial poaching of chimpanzees, forest elephants, and western gorillas results from increased amount of commercial logging and infrastructure. The Wildlife Conservation Society is working in the Congo and surrounding countries to limit the bush meat trade by enforcing laws and also helping the local people find new sources of protein.

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