Sitting in the players’ lounge at Glendower Golf Club, 18-year-old Brandon Stone had just suffered a devastating loss in the 2012 SA Amateur Strokeplay Championship. He had managed, somehow, to turn a five-shot lead after two rounds into a sixth place finish, miles behind winner and fellow countryman, Haydn Porteous.
Remarkably, the young man appeared anything but devastated and said it was merely a learning curve on the way to what many in the game believe will be a bright future. This is the kind of maturity that will get him far in this game. After all, everybody out on tour is talented; it’s what goes on between the ears that separates the good from the great.
Stone, the son of veteran Sunshine Tour professional Kevin Stone, is the number one ranked amateur in the country. He has won national colors for every age group, from under 14 through under 18.
In January, he won two successive top amateur events—the KwaZulu Natal Open and the Prince’s Grant Invitational by a massive 10 shots, almost lapping the field. At the SA Amateur it started well too.
“I was playing so well the first two-and-a-half days,” says a smiling Brandon, looking at ease in his interview, like a seasoned tour professional.
“There are just some things you can control and some you can’t, and it was obvious I wasn’t meant to win this year, although the way I played the first two days was fantastic,” he pauses, recalling the cruel bounce he got on his ninth hole in the third round, where his ball hit the pin and ricocheted into the water, resulting in a triple bogey. This was the turning point in his tournament.
“I gave it all I could and I can’t ask more of myself, so at the end of the week I’m still proud of myself for performing—maybe not as well as I wanted, but I still gave my all and put top effort into every shot.”
Stone jokes that he started playing golf in his mother’s womb, but his love for the game came from admiring his dad’s swing at an early age.
“Since I could walk I was hitting balls with plastic clubs and I’ve always enjoyed the game. I’ve played Northerns under-12, 14, 16, 18, 19 and SA under 14, 16 and 18. So, I’ve always had a passion for the game,” he explains.
“It’s a sport I knew I was going to play and always wanted to play. That was the biggest worry for my dad; he didn’t want to push me, but I want to play. I play every day because I love it.”
His eyes light up when he talks about playing golf for a living.
“There’s nothing better than playing golf for me, because that’s what I want to do.
“You get some bad weeks like this week [although sixth place in the SA Amateur isn’t too shabby], but you get some great weeks like the first two weeks of the year for me, when I won back to back.”
Stone goes on to explain how winning is catchy and something that he has chased from a very young age.
“You just have to remember those good weeks, and come back the next week and try and win again. That feeling of winning is addictive. That feeling of accomplishment in your heart is what you want in life. That’s what I get from golf and I will do whatever I have to do to get it.”
Stone tells FORBES AFRICA about his 10-year plan; his ambitions are anything but modest.
“I want to play on the PGA tour,” he says.
The US PGA tour is the top tour in the world and the chances of making it there are slim.
He will not be going the popular route of turning professional at 18 and plying his trade on the local Sunshine Tour, effectively making cash straight away. Instead, he will be going to the United States to the University of Texas in Austin. Stone recently finished his schooling in 2011 at Cornwall College in Pretoria, attending just 18 days during the year.
Stone explains the unique relationship he has, both with his tour professional father and with an outside swing coach, Llewellyn van Luren.
“My dad is more of the ‘monitor’, as we call him. He’ll make sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and if he feels that there’s something that doesn’t correspond with what Llewellyn has me working on, he’ll say so.
“My support structure around is me is unbelievable; my friends, my family, Facebook and Twitter—they’re all supporting and pushing me. And I think that’s so vital in this game of golf, which is such an individual game.”
‘Pebbles’, as he is known by his peers, will be off to the US in August, where he will start a three-year course in media studies.
Once he graduates, his plan is to turn professional and first try and qualify for the secondary tour there—the Nationwide Tour. From there he will try and make the progression onto the main PGA tour, either through qualifying school or with a high finish on the Nationwide Tour money list.
He will follow the path of fellow countryman Tim Clark, now 36, who did the same thing over a decade ago and now has over $10 million in career earnings.
One thing is for sure: at 18, Stone knows exactly where he’s going, and with the skill to back it up, he is earmarked as a leader of a new generation of South African world-beaters: Els, Goosen, Grace, Stone…wh

The Rolling Stone  That Gathers No Loss

It was just like the old days in South Africa. Marching, police and protest. This was not a protest against an oppressive regime; this was a free people unwilling to pay for new roads.
Investment, economy, Protests, employment, South Africa, National Union of Mineworkers, April 2012
It was a dull, cloudy day over Lagos. On the ground it was dazzling speed and skill as the Lagos Polo Tournament—the sporting event of the year in Nigeria—thundered to its climax. For two weeks, the finest players in this polo-mad country have vied for the glittering prizes of this rich tournament that costs a million dollars merely to sponsor.
They’ve been playing at the Lagos Polo Club, in the exclusive Ikoyi district, where British Army cavalry officers laid down the turf in 1904. As the years go by, it is getting more and more expensive to assemble a winning team. It will cost you around $40,000 for a good polo pony and many thousands more to import top professionals from polo playing nations like Argentina. This is a game that carries status and most of Nigeria’s tycoons have a polo club or team.
<div id="attachment_589" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-589" class="size-large wp-image-589" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_6261a-1024x770.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="356" />Better luck next time: Prince Albert Esiri, the Captain of Ashbert Raiders collects the runner up trophy</div>
The final, on March 4, was between teams led by two of the richest men in Nigeria. Entrepreneur, Prince Albert Esiri, who was ranked  one of the top 10 polo patrons in the world by the Financial Times, led his Ashbert Raiders against the Lagos Ironclad Mandarin team—led by Obafemi Otudeko, the chairman of Bharti Airtel in Nigeria. Both teams are veterans of the big occasion and have also played at the British Open and the Royal Windsor Cup.
The Ashbert Raiders were the favorites as they had a two-goal start, through the handicap system, plus Argentinian professionals, Bruno Cipponeri and Hugo Caesar. The favorites raced into a 4-0 lead with power and panache, by the end of the first Chukka, as Cipponeri scored two penalties. It should have sealed the game, but it didn’t.
<div id="attachment_591" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-591" class="size-large wp-image-591" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_5708a-735x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="660" />Ashbert Raiders (in blue-and-white) tussle with Ironclad Mandarin in the final</div>
The feisty Ironclad team fought back to level at 5-5 before scoring the decisive goal, late in the fourth Chukka, to secure a memorable 6-5 victory. A packed grandstand cheered as organizers handed trophies and medals to the victors Kwame Musa and Bashir Dantata of Ironclad.
The elite of Nigeria then retreated to marquees pegged out on the polo grounds and the party began. Behind the scenes, players took off their helmets and knee guards before slipping into more comfortable clothes.
The softly spoken oil and gas tycoon, Prince Albert Esiri, said proudly: “For me really it is to have had a chance to play with my son, because he has been wanting us to play together. He wasn’t very keen about polo and he only took up polo two three years ago which is quite late…” Someone in the background said that the game is certainly growing in Nigeria, but conversation was lost when the music went up and the party started. Celebrations went on into the night. In 108 years, Lagos Polo Club has seen f
<div id="attachment_588" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-588" class="size-large wp-image-588" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_5883a-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Champagne on the sidelines at the Lagos Polo Club</div>

Polo, Power  And Panache

Struggle songs pierced the air to the sound of marching feet. Protestors jabbed sticks and steel poles to the skies.
One of them was petrol attendant, Thabo Moloedi, who makes the 80km journey from Sasolburg to Johannesburg along the N1 every day. He says tolls will hit millions like him in the pocket.
“Let’s ban them all,” he says.
Roads are the artery of every country and in Africa they are like gold dust. South Africa has spent R20 billion ($2.6 billion) on 185km of spanking new highways that would be welcome from Harare to Cairo.
The problem is now the government wants the people to pay for them. That will mean motorists forking out R14.2 billion ($1.85 billion) day by day. Every time motorists drive up or down the N1, N3, N12 R21, near Johannesburg, from April 30, they will  have to pay 30c for every kilometre calculated by sensors in huge overhead gantries. Those who buy a so called e-tag will pay directly from their bank account —those who don’t will be sent a more expensive bill through the post. If you don’t play ball, you could be prosecuted and new laws are on the way to cover this.
The plan has led to months of grumbling and accusations that the car-driving class is being used as a cash cow. It has also sparked one of the biggest protests seen in democratic South Africa. The Gauteng province protest was one of 34 across the country, which called on more than two million union members. Tens of thousands marched in Johannesburg alone.
“Tolls are a big burden and are going to fuel inflation,” says Lesiba Seshoka, the national spokesperson for the National Union of Mineworkers—the most powerful union in the land.
“We are still a developing country yet government is subjecting us to pay tolls. Whose pockets are going to be filled with this money?” says Dikshi Patel, a 45-year-old worker in the airline industry.
“The government has put the cart before the horse on this issue. A reliable, affordable and safe transport system should be a priority. If you start with the e-tolling system without ensuring that people can move freely from one place to another, you are disadvantaging these people, says Zingiswa Losi, the second deputy president of Cosatu the country’s trade union federation.
The South African Road Agency Limited (Sanral) is building through borrowing on local capital markets. It claims that if roads were funded purely by tax, citizens would still be waiting for their smooth highways.  Sanral calls the e-tag a “user fee” and denies it is double taxation for those who already pay car tax and fuel levy. During his annual budget speech, in Cape Town, on February 22, Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, assigned R5.8 billion to Sanral to help pay for the roads. This money allowed Sanral to cut toll fees from 60c to 30c per kilometre for cars in a bid to silence the howl of outrage. It appears to have failed.
Gordhan defended the cost of the toll roads saying they will ease traffic congestion. “Users benefit through lower vehicle operating costs, time savings and improved safety,” he says.
South Africans will also have to dig deeper to pay an increase in the general fuel levy on petrol and diesel, which will rise by 20c a liter on April 4. The money will go to pay for the new highways and motorists are not happy about that either.

The Road To Penury

With all this talk about free trade, globalization and e-commerce, I wonder how anyone could not associate a sophisticated habit like wine sipping with Nigerian society.
Of course, as more countries produce and consume the astringent stuff, the product-to-market cycle has become a matter of global interest. Nigeria’s fast-growing wine industry is proof of its exposure to this global economy.
“Nigeria is a major wine destination,” says Obinna Otuonye, founder and chief executive of Just Wines, a Lagos-based wine retailer. He should know. Otuonye has spent the last 14 years sourcing and selling wines.
“I started small; I started with one bottle of wine in a bag, strolling around the streets of Lagos in search of customers. I gradually grew my business. Initially, my European friends were curiously surprised, they were very skeptical about my intentions. One German winemaker once asked me whether black people drank wine&#8230; now he knows better—he is currently one of my biggest suppliers.”
Viticulture is largely unknown in Nigeria. I may be ignorant on this but there are no wineries in West Africa. Wine drinking is however happening big time in Africa’s largest population patch. Vintage and non-vintage wines from the traditional and nouveau vineyards of the world are selling like never before in Lagos and, for this reason, Nigeria could very well be described as the China of Africa (except for the fact that China also produces some of its own wine).
“The economy is tough my brother but our people are drinking more… I sold more drinks, and more wines this Christmas than any other time over the last five years,” another Lagos-based retailer told FORBES AFRICA the week after the festivities; the period of the year when beer drinking peaks in these parts. In truth you only have to go to the shops and markets across Nigeria’s major cities to see the invasion of the red and pink bottles.
Foreign liquor, especially wine and champagne, is giving beer makers a good fight for a share of throats in the market.
“Nigeria could very well qualify to be Africa’s thirstiest economy,” analysts at BGL Group, an investment bank say. “When compared alongside other key markets in Africa and Europe, Nigeria’s per capita liquor consumption is relatively low and recent activity in the sector—business consolidations and new investments—mean more hectolitres of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages for the country’s burgeoning population.”
Beyond beer production and consumption, Nigerians are increasingly quaffing red, white and pink varieties of wine.
“To get a good feel of how and what Nigerians like to drink you have to understand our urban, contemporary way of life, and the numerous lifestyle influences and choices we have to contend with,” says Kayode Oguntayo, businessman, wine connoisseur and wine bar owner. His wine cafe, 1662, is one of many cozy joints springing up in cities like Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Benin and Port Harcourt. It is a ritzy, well-appointed bar complete with barbecue-grill, wall-mounted flat TV screen and cappuccino mixer. Located in the highbrow Ikoyi area of Lagos, it is a quaint and inconspicuous place, a shy contrast to the army of flashy fast food eateries, restaurants and nightclubs around.
“Why 1662?” FORBES AFRICA asked innocently.
“1662 is a significant year in the history of wine making. It was the year an English scientist called Christopher Merret (1614-1695) first documented the modern method of making wine,” Oguntayo replies. Interesting! Do any of his patrons know this?
“My customers are well-educated, accomplished business people and aspirational working class professionals. They want exclusivity and they like to enjoy their wine in a certain kind of milieu, away from the hustle—my role here is to provide my clientele with good quality. I have regular wines, but I prefer to stock vintage, full-bodied wines with character and balance.”
Conspicuous wine consumption al fresco is not an image you easily associate with Nigeria. But social culture is dynamic. Some of the world’s priciest wines would be found in the shops, cafes and private collections in Nigeria. A few hugely expensive labels in Messrs Otuonye and Oguntayo’s establishments can be found—Roederer Cristal, a champagne; Domaine de la Romanée Conti or Château Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux’s most famous label; Château l’Évangile, Château Pétrus, Château Ausone,  and Château Cheval Blanc. Nigerians have good taste, Otuonye says.
“The more expensive wines move faster than the cheaper ones.”
Wine merchants say three out of every five bottles of wine sold in Nigeria is red. By far the most common variants here are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Shiraz—popular pairings with the country’s spicy, meaty meals.
One could be forgiven for believing that South Africans out-wined the rest of the continent.
“There is no type of champagne that you will not find in Nigeria,” Otuonye says. “New drinks continue to arrive every week mainly because there is growing demand for the best wines from the wine growing regions of the world.”
“Credibility and word of mouth marketing is important in this kind of business and we do what we need to do, which is basically to stock the best wines from the vineyards of Europe and other key wine regions.”
Oguntayo explains quite tactfully, that a wine drinking habit indicates a certain level of social and economic refinement—hinting that wine may not be for riff-raff.
In this economy, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is huge, having a regular glass of wine for leisure whilst lounging around with the lads or with a meal is a distant dream for many. Some of these wines cost as much as $80 a bottle. And that’s cheap, by global standards. Really cheap wines would retail for about $8 to $16 a bottle. By comparison, $10 would buy you about 12 bottles of beer or a 24-bottle crate of soft drinks.
Despite these choice-cost comparisons, the purported health benefits and appeal of wine makes its consumption a growing social phenomenon.
“You must realise that regardless of their pocket-power, most Nigerians are aspirational social animals,” says Dele Martins, a Lagos-based business executive.
Like most other wine-friendly parts of the world, the dynamic of the Nigerian wine scene combines both the esoteric and the obvious, especially with brand names like 1662 and Just Wines. Driving this dynamic forward is the potent mix of opportunity, passion and the pursuit of profit. After all the wine business is a global game: free trade, but no free drinks.

A Corky Little Upstart

A swift 30 minutes’ drive from Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos leads you to Lekki suburbs, home to the Nike Art Centre, a busy double-story building that keeps some of the best and most treasured contemporary artwork in Nigeria.
The white halls, decorated with castings of Yoruba art patterns, mimicking the unique techniques of indigo cloth dyeing, also known as Adire, display some of the 7,000 odd artistic works in this gallery.
The award-winning Nike Davies-Okundaye and her husband worked hard over decades to build a business enterprise that spans the whole of Nigeria.
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Mama Nike, as she is popularly known, needs no introduction. She is one of Nigeria’s best known art entrepreneurs. Her life story rivals the drama and intrigue of classic novelist Charles Dickens’ characters—deprived orphans prodding through life against the back-drop of an ugly world, but eventually making a success of themselves at the end.
Okundaye lost her mother and grandmother at a young age. Still her misfortunes, that virtually rendered her an orphan, didn’t rein in her urge to work hard. Even with hard work her business struggled for many years to take off owing to a lack of interest in the arts by many people. Numerous other factors, including politics, contributed to her challenges. At one stage tension between the government and artists ran so high that it stifled creativity in the country. But as luck would have it, Mama Nike met her current husband who was then a senior police administrator. His influence led to the antagonism easing out and artists provided new platforms and opportunities for expression.
Okundaye started her business in 1968 as a textile artist in Kogi. At that point she used her bedroom as a gallery. She eventually moved to Oshogbo, the headquarters of her business empire today. Since then, her business has expanded and has branches in Ogidi, the capital Abuja and Lagos. The Lagos art gallery, completed in 2009, is where she generates most of the revenue that supports the operating costs of her other business centers.
“In Nigeria, only oil is discovered but good artists aren’t. My aim is to discover artists and to showcase their beautiful work in our country and in Africa as a whole” says Mama Nike.
Her art centres reveal prospect for the economic benefits that can be reaped through art in a country that offers limited opportunities for artists. They conduct workshops where art students learn the practical aspects of indigo cloth dyeing. The students are all women from surrounding poor, rural communities.
Although it costs a premium to teach, house and feed each one, the women do not pay a penny. Okundaye covers their expenses. Mama Nike also supports these women by selling their artwork on their behalf at her gallery in Lagos.
The Lagos Art Gallery caters for both first-time and seasoned art collectors with artwork prices ranging from $62 to $ 38,000.
In this gallery, some of the most sought-after artworks by well-known contemporary Nigerian artists fill the walls. The displays of painter Rom Isichei, well known for high textured surface of oil or acrylic and outstanding skill in the use of colors, take up a whole wall. The adjacent wall showcases Kunle  Adegborioye’s latest works, which capture the essence of the current political and socio-economic issues in Nigeria. The displays provide an artistic vision that depicts real life and mythical stories of hope and despair.
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The gallery has made 60-year-old Okundaye’s business one of the most promising art enterprises in Nigeria. The sizable tourism industry has benefited her business in many ways. Over the years, tourists, excluding the international art collectors, have been the main consumers of her artwork. To cater for this demand, Okundaye has created a tourist paradise in each of the other three centers, namely Oshogbo, Abuja and Ogidi. The centers offer three services: guided tours, inexpensive lodges and arts exhibitions. A visit to the Oshogbo center, for example, would be more than just about her artwork. It would give a full exploration of ancient Yoruba culture. Oshgobo, in the cocoa-producing region, provides an awe-inspiring experience. The environment is enriched by the presence of internationally known artists such as Jimoh Buraimoh, Jacob Afolabi and Chief Oloruntoba.
Mama Nike believes that things would be rosier for her business if people understood the investment value of art. “You can use art as collateral at the bank and as a stock,” she explains.
Her second last daughter, Allyson-Aina Davies, recently returned from England, is planning to tap into the potential the creative industry in Nigeria and Africa has to offer. As the managing director of the Lagos gallery, she will be in charge of over 7,000 artworks of Nigeria’s finest in the industry.
The value of the creative industry is about to explode now that international and local art collectors are recognizing the investment value in Nigerian art. The 2010 UNESCO report on the creative industry indicated that “…the large majority of developing countries are not yet able to harness their creative capacity for development. This is a reflection of weaknesses both in domestic policy and in the business environment, and global systemic biases.” Benedict Enwonwu’s piece titled Underwater Still Life made waves in 2008 when it fetched $27,788 at Bonhams in London, exceeding the pre-estimates phenomenally. Two years later, Nigerian artwork was still attracting cash and collectors abroad. At the first commercial auction of artworks from sub-Saharan Africa in the United States (New York), the five most expensive pieces were from Nigeria. One of Ben Enwonwu’s paintings went for $91,000.
International interest in Nigerian art has also sparked interest locally over the past five years. The banking and the oil and gas sectors created dollar millionaires in Nigeria and out of this select group a few individual collectors have emerged. Recently, the Ben Enwonwu Foundation hosted a workshop on art as an alternative investment. Prince Yemisi Shyllon, Nigeria’s biggest collector whose collection at his house can take more than a day to view, was in attendance. He says in Nigeria “Art could be a form of investment, and is growing tremendously.” Commercial art auctions were not common in Nigeria until 07 March 2008 when Kavita Chellarams hosted the first commercial art auction in Lagos. Since then Chellarams’ Art House Contemporary has hosted seven auctions with average sales tallies exceeding 70% by volume per event. Among several of Mama Nike’s artworks that featured at these auctions were the piece entitled Village Market Scene which fetched $8,750; an untitled piece by Tola Wewe sold at $16,666; and the unsold Poetic Pattern of Love with an estimated value between $5,260 and $6,580.
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Developing interest in Nigerian and African art both locally and internationally is certainly Mama Nike’s intention. Until her dreams are achieved she is unlikely to put her feet up or hit the golf course.

Drilling For Art

The African continent’s population has traditionally been polarized into two opposing groups: the impoverished and the well-heeled, with no socio-economic class to bridge the gap.
According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), the number of Africans who make up the middle class segment of the population increased to 313 million (that’s more than 34%) during the past three decades.  Steady economic growth and a move towards stable, salaried jobs—rather than traditional agricultural activities—have been cited as some of the reasons for the growth.
The AfDB has further stated that: “Over the past decade, despite a continued global food and financial crises, Africa has been growing at an unprecedented rate. There is increased optimism about Africa’s potential to win the fight against poverty even though it may take decades to arrive at that point.”
Rens Rademeyer, general manager of Bentley Motors South Africa, echoes this sentiment. “Bentley South Africa has seen a steady growth in our target market over the last 10 years. The most interesting finding is that we are attracting influential business clients who represent the core of emerging economies. These are individuals involved in the supply of infrastructure solutions, energy, mining and minerals, housing and food.
“There is no doubt that with the economic crisis in Europe and signs of an economic slowdown in the Far East, the rest of the world will look to emerging economies such as South Africa and others in Africa to invest. The steady increase in new customers for the luxury car market gives enough reason to believe that Africa is on track to meet and surpass the growth of other more established economies.”
There is clearly still a huge disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Statistics also indicate there is a ‘floating class’ of people whose hold on their stature is far from concrete. Middle class in African terms has been defined as those people whose annual income is greater than $3,900 (purchasing power), and includes factors such as education, lifestyle and aspirations.
Where the middle classes emergence has been the strongest, is in territories that enjoy a burgeoning private sector, replete with many local entrepreneurs. As a result, North Africa boasts the highest middle class contingent. Tunisia’s concentration stands at 90%, while Morocco and Egypt follow with 85% and 80% respectively (albeit a large number in these countries fall within the floating category).
Growth in the middle class population has been highest in Namibia, Kenya, Botswana, Gabon, South Africa and Ghana while Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Madagascar, Burundi and Malawi represent the weakest African economies.
Africa’s growing middle class has led to an upswing in the consumption and purchasing of goods such as household items as well as leisure and transportation. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, consumer spending in Africa is set to tip the scale at $1.4 trillion in 2020.
There is also growing confidence in the continent, demonstrated in South Africa recently by the entrance of retail giant Wal-Mart. China’s motoring industry hasn’t been shy to take advantage of their gargantuan purchasing power, and have identified Africa, with its wealth of natural resources, as the perfect target for their global expansion.
Jaguar Land Rover South Africa’s managing director, Kevin Flynn, feels that South Africa greatly influences the rate of growth throughout the continent. “The global car industry has identified Africa as an emerging market and is taking the growth in the continent very seriously. South Africa plays a pivotal role in the expansion of this market, as a gateway to the continent, as well as from an investment and infrastructure perspective. Africa will play an increasing role in Jaguar Land Rover’s global strategy as new products come on stream catering for a growing and diversifying customer base.
“Owing to the constant challenges of poverty and unemployment in many countries on the continent, Africa is not expected to experience the massive growth seen in other emerging markets such as China, Russia and India. The continent will, however, provide a completely new customer to the global motor industry—those who are intent on displaying their stature and success while at the same time demanding affordable solutions.”
The phenomenal growth in sales of heavy vehicles in South Africa last year seems to indicate that economic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa are improving dramatically. Medium, heavy and extra heavy commercial vehicle sales notched up an increase of nearly 20%. Tony Twine, an economist at Econometrix, believes the demand for such vehicles stems from the need to transport goods into the rapidly expanding interior to the north of South Africa’s borders. As long as China continues with its demands for African raw materials, Twine believes this trend will continue.
Luxury brands such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi have seen a welcome increase in sales throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The BMW Group experienced a growth of 1,603 units in the last year in this territory, bringing their annual total to 32,890 units. Audi recorded an even higher growth figure of 3,887 (20,344 total units) while Mercedes logged an increase of 441 units (31,575 total units). Interestingly, Lexus actually experienced a decline of some 300 units in sub-Saharan Africa (1,500 total units sold). African sales are still far below those experienced locally, but the trends in South Africa are seemingly being mirrored elsewhere in the continent.
The best-selling BMW in South Africa is the 3-Series, with 11,035 units sold in 2011. This self-same derivative was also the most purchased BMW in Egypt (817 units) and 431 of these vehicles were sold throughout Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Additionally, there seems to be a growing trend towards the purchasing of large 4&#215;4 vehicles. BMW sold 113 and 112 units respectively of their X5 and X6 range in sub-Saharan Africa. This tendency is echoed by Audi’s sales figures. The most popular derivative locally is the A4, which also happens to be the most desirable Audi in Tunisia. In Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, the preferred option is the Q5, closely followed by the A6.
It therefore seems that African future and desires are inextricably interwoven with those of South Africa. The prospect of a mutually-beneficial and successful future, appear to be well underway.

Riding on Africa For Expansion

Woodstock and Stellenbosch in South Africa’s Western Cape are mere dots on the world’s IT map, but they could be Africa’s answer to Silicon Valley in the United States.
Tech entrepreneur Vinodan Lingham wants to make sure South Africa does get its own Silicon Valley and is putting his money where his mouth is.
Five of Africa’s top 20 tech companies are based in this small area of the Western Cape. Some of these companies are making waves on the global tech scene. One of them is internationally recognized Yola, which came second in FORBES AFRICA’s Top 20 Tech Start-Ups in Africa.
Yola is designed to assist small businesses by creating websites for free, initially. You only pay when your company advances and needs a more advanced website.
Lingham founded Yola in Silicon Valley in 2007 and lives there now. He says although adjusting to American culture was difficult, it only took him six months to get funding for his brainchild from JSE-listed Reinet Investments.
With offices in both San Francisco and Cape Town, Yola started out with venture capital of $25 million, but Lingham admits that starting Yola from scratch was not easy and credits naivety for his courage.
“Naivety breeds confidence. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have gone,” he says.
Seeing a large market opportunity, the likely chances of success crushed any doubts or fears the then 28-year-old may have had. Now 33 and one of Africa’s shining tech stars, Lingham was born in the Eastern Cape in South Africa during apartheid to a poor family, and was raised in a segregated area designated for Indians. With the end of the regime, his family rose to middle-class status so he could go to multi-racial Hudson High School, and then on to the University of Cape Town to study information systems.
“I was a total technology geek at school—definitely very entrepreneurial and probably the only person in school who could program when I was there.”
A successful entrepreneur with a third business to his name now, being a varsity drop-out has not deterred him along the way.
“I dropped out of varsity because my family couldn’t afford for me to study there.”
Being a permanent resident in California’s Silicon Valley for nearly five years now, Lingham has been around some of the tech world’s best brains, and says South Africa still has a long way to go.
“The skills are not at a high enough level. A lot of people go out and do theoretical stuff. There aren’t enough partnerships with businesses. Students come out of varsity with no skills. ”
Matthew Buckland, founder of Creative Spark, a digital agency based in Cape Town and a member of the Silicon Cape Initiative, agrees with Lingham.
“Universities also need to come to the party. Many of the world’s great start-ups were conceived at universities. We have a long way to go, but we’ll get there. Entrepreneurs are the future.”
The entrepreneurial spirit appears contagious in the Cape air. And people like Lingham make it look more attractive and tangible.
“I think Vinny is a machine. He’s an inspiration to many and it’s tough making it in San Francisco. I think it is positive for tech entrepreneurs in Africa. Vinny will gain valuable skills and networks that he’ll bring to the continent,” says Buckland.
Lingham criticizes that entrepreneurial spirit and says that, unlike back in California where most of the tech fundis started their companies during their university studies, he thinks the quality in SA is there but it could be better.
“The quality is there, but there’s not enough [of it]. There are about 50 honors students graduating a year from computer science and even less graduating with a Masters.”
Alan Knott-Craig Junior, owner of MXit, and digital media guru Matthew Buckland agree.
Knott-Craig Junior and Lingham cite the lack of updated cable infrastructure of the cables. Lingham criticizes Telkom’s monopoly as having a direct hand in the slow growth of the technology sector.
All three have a vision for the tech industry on the continent.
“I think there is a burgeoning start-up scene in parts of Africa, but it is still miniscule by world standards. Local venture capitalists need to put down real money on the table. They are far too cautious here, talk a big game and deliver little,” says Buckland.
Knott-Craig wants to conquer Africa through his social networking application; it enables users to use Instant Messages at a cheaper rate than SMSes on any applicable phone, not just smartphones.
Lingham sees the light at the end of the tunnel, but in his view it is obstructed by a confused giant.
“Law makers are getting in the way. South Africans just get ripped off on everything and the money isn’t even going to the poor. The Telkom monopoly hasn’t ended.”
Buckland agrees: “Government needs to come to the party with incentives and tax breaks for start-ups like the governments in the UK and France do.”
Hence the inception of the Silicon Cape Initiative, a vision that Lingham (among others) hopes will produce a mini Silicon Valley. It’s a 20-year non-profit vision, based on the same idea as Silicon Valley in San Francisco. It serves as a networking community, enabling self-started companies to have access to each other, and share knowledge and make it global. Funding for the initiative is foreign, and the aim is to expand SA’s talent to new shores.
“The innovation locally is doing well, but the problem is that globally we’re nowhere close to competing with the world. Companies coming out of Cape Town are trying to build new companies for a new market.”
Buckland acknowledges the efforts made by Lingham and company.
“Silicon Cape is an amazing concept. It’s run as a non-profit company by very busy people who do it on a pro bono basis. For the resources it has at its disposal, it has made amazing strides. Silicon Cape is both an idea for inspiration and a reflection of a reality taking place on the ground.”
He credits the guys in the Cape, saying: “The easy part is joining a corporate and learning the ropes. The hard part is coming up with something innovative—most people shy away from that. South Africans need to embrace failure. Young people have little to lose and can still take chances before reaching 30. Just focus on a certain problem that people aren’t working on.”

Creating Africa’s Own  Geek Valley

The Madhvani Group is a Ugandan-established international conglomerate with assets of $750 million. It generates between $250 million and $300 million in annual revenue and has more than 10,000 employees through its operations in the Middle East, India, North America and East Africa. At the helm of this massive family business is English-educated Mayur Madhvani, the senior director and last born of the founder, Muljibhai Madhvani.
<div id="attachment_552" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-552" class="size-large wp-image-552" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/MR.-MAYUR-MADHVANI-GIVING-A-SPEECH-AT-A-RECENTLY-CONCLUDED-COMMONWEALTH-BUSINESS-FORUM-IN-UGANDA-681x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="713" />MR. MAYUR MADHVANI GIVING A SPEECH AT A RECENTLY CONCLUDED COMMONWEALTH BUSINESS FORUM IN UGANDA</div>
The journey began in 1898 with two farmers, Vithaldas and Haridas Madhvani, from the Indian village of Vanscharia, and their quest for greener pastures. The two brothers crossed the Indian Ocean and found themselves in eastern Uganda, where they opened up a trading business. In time they bought land and grew coffee on a farm in Kakira, near the Nile River, which flourished.
Muljibhai Madhvani, born in 1894, immigrated to Uganda to work for his farming uncles. While still a teenager, he opened up and managed his own shop in Jinja, a fishing village that is now the largest town in Uganda and the second largest commercial center.
The family business faced losses when coffee prices fell at the end of the World War I, so it switched to producing jaggery, or unrefined sugar, using donkey-driven wooden mills.
In 1930, under Muljibhai’s direction, Vithaldas Haridas &amp; Co—the company founded by his farming uncles—built and commissioned the first sugar factory in East Africa.
“He came from humble beginnings. He then had the business acumen to start from basically having nothing and developing his business talents—the vision that this man had is just incredible,” says Mayur.
This sugar factory is now the massive Kakira Sugar Complex. It produces 160,000 tons of sugar a year, around 62% of national production. It generates about 24 megawatts of power from waste products every day, selling 14MW to the national grid and feeding 10MW back into the complex.
The group also owns Kakira Sweets &amp; Confectionary, also inside the complex, which produces everything from fruit drops to lollipops.
The sweet smell of success is the fruits of decades of planning. In 1947, the company expanded throughout East Africa and the partnership dissolved. By 1949, Muljibhai was joined by his sons, Jayant and Manubhai. The company’s 5,000 employees worked hard manufacturing cotton, beer, tea, steel and confectionaries, all while enjoying free housing, electricity, education, water and healthcare.
In 1956, Manubhai, Madhvani’s second eldest son, was sent to India to secure a textile mill for his father. In his book titled Tide of Fortune he wrote: “My father’s dream was to own a mill, so he instructed me not to return without this one.”  Manubhai did this in a couple of days at a cost of 3.7 million rupees.
<div id="attachment_551" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-551" class="size-large wp-image-551" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/KAKIRA-IN-THE-OLD-DAYS-1024x782.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="362" />Karika in the old days</div>
The shop owner-turned-industrialist, Muljibhai Madhvani, died on July 11, 1958. His eldest son, Jayant, took over the reins and developed the business into a large conglomerate with presence in seven countries. The group diversified into glass, textiles, matches, packaging and plastics.
It appeared the Madhvanis could go anywhere and do anything, but this growing family empire would soon be under threat when President Idi Amin assumed power in 1971. By this time, the group was the largest private sector investor and employer in Uganda, with more than 9,000 employees and about 70,000 tons of sugar being produced at Kakira.
Fate dealt the family a double blow. First, Jayant Madhvani, the head of the family business, died. Then President Amin expelled all Asians from Uganda.
“This was a very tragic, unbelievable expulsion… a period of sadness,” says Mayur.
Manubhai, the new head of the Madhvani family business, was taken and detained at the Makindye military prison for 21 days. The prison was notorious for inmates disappearing and being brutally murdered. The family worked tirelessly behind the scenes with regional leaders and respected international individuals to get him out.
Outside the jail, the group’s assets were nationalized and mismanaged—business came to a grinding halt. The family fled to London, focusing on their assets outside Uganda.
When President Amin was toppled and forced into exile, the family came back to reclaim what was theirs, but even then, all was not well. A family feud broke out.
“We had one segment of the family saying that the assets belonged to them,” says Mayur.
He laughs it off more than 30 years later, saying cool heads prevailed and the property was returned.
“One tries to keep family business away from the actual business.”
Mayur admits family businesses are difficult, but points out that the major companies in the United States started off with single entrepreneurs and developed into family businesses, like the Ford, Rockefeller and Wal-Mart empires.
The trick, he says, is keeping everyone informed. Three meetings are held in Bermuda every year to tell the family and shareholders what is happening in the group.
Many members of the family work for the group, but it is not a birth right. Family members must prove themselves and are only given a chance to participate in the business if they can a make a contribution. Mayur says he started at the bottom and so did his brothers.
“Actually, I had visions of being in a grand seat, but that never happened,” he says.
Instead he was out in the fields, toiling and learning.
With the family business back in the hands of its rightful owners, the 1980s were dedicated to rehabilitating and restructuring the businesses. This was made possible with $60 million from the World Bank, African Development Bank and Uganda Development Bank. Once the factory was back on its feet, the loans were paid off.
Manubhai Madhvani, the man once imprisoned by Idi Amin, died on May 17, 2011, aged 81.
The Madhvanis’ fighting days are far from over. The family is embroiled in a court battle over land and assets in Kwale, Kenya, worth millions of dollars. The family has 199 title deeds proving the land in the Ramisi sugar belt is theirs. According to Mayur, he has owned the land for 30 years, but despite this, the Ministry of Land feels it should be taken back by government, he tells FORBES AFRICA, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice.
“I hope the Kenyan authorities encourage the private sector, rather than resort to this kind of malice. I call it land grabbing,” he says.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the Madhvanis: Their company owns a Beechcraft King Air B200 and many lodges in Uganda and its tourism arm has already opened a hotel, with others under refurbishment. It also recently acquired three properties in Kenya and is exploring religious tourism in India, where people visit places of pilgrimage and holy sites.
Its construction company, Excel Construction Ltd, has projects worth nearly $13 million in Uganda and was involved in the development of the SABMiller brewery in South Sudan. It has been appointed as the main civil contractor for the construction of a brand new brewery in Mbarara, Uganda.
The group has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of South Sudan for the construction of a sugar plant. It will increase its Kakira sugar production to 180,000 tons and plans to generate 50MW of electricity daily and sell 30MW to the national grid, along with producing 20 million liters of bioethanol a year.
The next challenge is taking Kakira public.
“Some members of the family may feel that you have to leave family business in the family,” he says.
He argues that in order to achieve sustainability, you need the proper corporate governance and transparency that comes with a public listing—the latest battle for the industrialists who came to East Africa with nothing and fought every step of the way to wealth.

From Sweating In The Fields To Cool Meetings In Bermuda

On the day President Barack Obama made his State of the Union address earlier this year, American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought together almost the full complement of an elite group of 24 women in Washington D.C. It was the inaugural meeting of the International Council of Business Women’s Leadership. Among them were vice chair Cherie Booth Blair, a top lawyer and wife of the former British Prime Minister, and South Africa’s Wendy Luhabe, chair of Women Private Equity Fund.
Seated at a U-shaped table, Clinton outlined the purpose of the group: “…to hear from you and to get very specific ideas about what you think can help us boost growth, take some of the untapped resources and mobilize them, follow smart strategies to increase productivity, and add new value to companies and economies. Now, everyone is searching for answers to those questions, but not enough people realize that part of the answer, a large part of the answer, lies with women.”
Wendy Luhabe is already “hard at work with some totally radical ideas”. Within six months of the initial meeting, the women will report back, through four committees, with their findings on Access to Capital, Access to Markets, Capacity Building and Leadership Development.
A respected business woman, entrepreneur, board director and free thinker, Luhabe first drew attention when, along with three other women, she launched the first female-only black economic empowerment company in 1994, Wiphold—Women Investment Portfolio Holdings.
“Wiphold was really a response to our democracy, and observing that men were organizing themselves and they were excluding women. It felt like a perfect opportunity to do something for ourselves. It was a moment of choice—either we waited for some man who felt generous enough to invite us or we actually found out whether we could do it on our own. And the irony is that some of the initiatives that started then, the first generation of empowerment companies, don’t exist anymore. Wiphold is the only surviving initiative from that first generation of economic empowerment initiatives. With our initial offer, we were able to bring in 18,000 women as shareholders and investors for the first time. And it was unprecedented anywhere in the world,” says Luhabe.
The empowerment of women is very much a part of the mandate of the Clinton-initiated group, International Council of Business Women’s Leadership.
At the inaugural meeting the US Secretary of State told the women: “We all know the numbers. About 3% of the CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies are women. There are still a lot of obstacles to women entering. It depends, of course, on national, cultural, ethnic, religious reasons. But it cuts across all of that, and it is, to a greater or lesser degree, present in every society. So the challenge before us today—as we represent government, business, NGOs, workers, institutions—is what are the ideas that we can promote that can help women be able to fulfill their own potential. How do we widen that circle of prosperity to lift the entire global economy, women and men alike, and how do we, within our own organizations, do more to train and promote women to positions of leadership?”
Asked why she thought there were so few women in leadership positions, especially in business, Luhabe replied: “Because there are not enough women in the pipeline.”
Men have traditionally had a different, more defined road to the top. They started at entry level, and moved through the rungs into middle management and then senior management. Women were often uprooted from entry level and expected to cope at a level they had little or no experience with. Women should be encouraged to go through the same steps.
Then some industries attract more women than others. “It is not every industry that is attractive to women and it’s not every industry that wants to work with women. So I think we should accept that the opportunities exist for women and that women can choose what they want to study, which was not the case when I was at university, there were very limited options for women. And women can choose what professions they want to pursue, so we shouldn’t use the fact that women are not in those positions as a failure. Maybe women are just not interested. I’m sure there are instances where women are not rising through the ranks, but we are changing attitudes and stereotypes that have been around for many, many generations. It will take a while but women themselves have to believe that they can do a good job if not a better job and whether they want to do it. When they want to be in these positions, I think the opportunities are there for them.”
From an African perspective, Luhabe believes the time is right for a revolution of entrepreneurship, and that women are well placed to lead.
“My sense is to leapfrog the economy of the country in terms of growth, and in terms of creating new opportunities for future generations to participate; we actually don’t have an option but to generate almost a revolution of entrepreneurship. It already exists, but it is not formalized, it is not properly channeled, it is not properly resourced and supported. So my very naïve view, maybe romantic view, is that if you see what women already do in Africa, that they intuitively become entrepreneurs, I always wonder how much more we could realize as a continent if there was a systematic approach.
“Let us cultivate what already seems to have a seed, rather than be something that we’re not… We’re a mining economy—let’s see how we can leverage the mining economy and everything else that exists to start a completely new foundation for our economic existence that is not based on what MBAs or highly educated professors tell us what needs to be. I think we should always start from reality and say: What can we do with what we have?”
So often lately, Africa is optimistically labeled as the ‘next frontier’, but what exactly does that mean, Luhabe asks. Does it mean raping Africa of its mineral wealth, much more deliberately than in the past? Or does it mean enabling African people to find their place in the world?
“We need to define it ourselves, rather than wait for others to define it on our behalf. Maybe we should ask ourselves what we see as the potential of the continent and where we want to take it. You know visionary leaders who really have what it takes and who have the courage to take Africa to where it really deserves to be.”
Personally, Wendy Luhabe has taken a new direction in her career. After almost 20 years of sitting on boards as director or chair, she felt she was not really enjoying it anymore. The free-spirited Luhabe found private sector boards to be set in their ways.
Public sector boards were more appealing as they were more open to change and to the participation of women. “And their mandate since we became a democracy was a transformation mandate, so I found that in those boards I was able to do much more and contribute more and to change things a lot more than I feel I have been able to do in private sector boards.
“My philosophy is to be involved in things where I feel that I’m adding value, where I feel that my contribution is valued,” she says.
Although the development and empowerment of women and enabling them to find the courage to live their best lives on their terms is close to her heart, Luhabe is open to mentor young people, irrespective of gender: “If people find me and give me the honor of mentoring them and guiding their lives, I have a duty to respond to that.”
<div id="attachment_533" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-533" class="size-large wp-image-533" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Membership-photo-clinton-icwbl-1242012c-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />Members of the International Council of Business Women’s Leadership gather for their inaugural meeting</div>
Luhabe’s involvement with promoting women in business has also extended to the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, an international business plan competition. As jury president of the sub-Saharan African panel, she has been part of shaping of the evaluation criteria that prioritize creativity, sustainability and social impact. Through the Initiative, Luhabe has witnessed the creative genius of hundreds of initiatives steered by women in different parts of Africa over the past six years.
Entrepreneurship is something that needs to be modeled. “When people look at what we’ve achieved as women, then they begin to believe that there are possibilities for their own lives. I think we should not underestimate how effective role modeling is. When Obama became president, can you imagine what it did for black people everywhere, not just in America? So there is an enormous power in when people who have been previously disadvantaged and who have not had access to certain positions assume those positions.
“But then, they also carry a huge responsibility because they have to consciously use those positions to not only be an inspiration as to how they conduct themselves, with respect to what they achieve through those positions, with respect to how they use those positions to change circumstances for the majority of people who will never become presidents. But maybe they can change the environment for a lot of people to achieve their own dreams.”
“In corporations, where people who have been exposed the most—generally white males get the most exposure at corporations, but when black people, black women and white women are exposed to the same opportunities or even projects that white males are, they develop much quicker,” she says.
She also believes that a sense of curiosity and adventure should be encouraged in young people, so that they can see the world and how it works and decide where they want to live and work.
But don’t discount the advantages of working in Africa. Looking at South Africa specifically, a lot of people who were educated here and ran various industries here have gone on to become global CEOs.
“We should not underestimate that South Africa offers an enormously fertile training ground for people because we have to deal with so many issues,” Luhabe says. “Our circumstances are very different from issues that people have to deal with in other parts of the world. People who studied overseas hopefully bring back some value, but I don’t necessarily think that they have such a huge advantage over people who have studied here, or whose work experience has only been here.”
Because education is so important to her, she formed the Wendy Luhabe Foundation shortly after writing the book Defining Moments. Royalties from the book, as well as other funds, are channeled into the Foundation and are used towards the education of disadvantaged people.
When she reports back to the International Council of Business Women’s Leadership, with her strong financial background, she will give input into insurance for women, among other things.

Women Should Lead The  Revolution Of The Entrepreneur

The sun was unusually hot as guests enjoyed a sumptuous lunch in Diani, the sprawling coastal town in Mombasa, known for its beaches and coral reefs. Lunch time in Diani in February could almost be a scene from paradise—the wide blue Indian Ocean lapping against a pristine beach; European tourists, escaping freezing temperatures back home, sunbathing lazily.
The guests from Nairobi clearly knew their way around. Dressed in smart casuals and resisting the urge to pull off their shirts to catch a welcome breeze, they sighed with relief as they walked into the air-conditioned five-star hotel.
Among them was Atul Shah, the managing director of Nakumatt Holdings, the family-owned company that runs Kenya’s largest retail chain. With a number of his managers, he was on a mission: to supervise construction of a new Nakumatt store in Diani. They talked politics and did the sums for the new investment.
When his phone rang Atul Shah, like businessmen do, excused himself and stepped a few yards away. From a distance, witnesses say, you could see his face turn ashen and panic set in on what was to be his worst day. The caller with bad news was the manager of the downtown branch in the heart of Nairobi.
“It sounded like a dream,” says Shah. “Then I saw it on TV.”
<div id="attachment_524" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-524" class="size-large wp-image-524" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RTR242EP-1024x608.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="281" />Kenya&#8217;s President Mwai Kibaki (C) and Police Commissioner Hussein Ali walk past the burnt-down Nakumatt supermarket in downtown Nairobi, January 30, 2009. At least 22 people died and more than two dozen more were missing after a fire destroyed a supermarket in downtown Nairobi two days ago. REUTERS/Stringer (KENYA)</div>
It was a day that would haunt the owner of Nakumatt for the rest of his life. With 36 stores spread across the region, Nakumatt is the big brother of retail in East Africa. The majority of its stores, 30, are in Kenya, three are in Uganda, two in Rwanda and one in Tanzania, giving it a 15% market share of a crowded retail market where the big five supermarkets control over 80%. In the world of retail where numbers count for much, big is beautiful. Nakumatt has taken this maxim seriously and dotted the big towns with its elephant symbols. Nairobi is Nakumatt’s hub, with more than 10 stores tapping billions of shillings in disposable income from the rising middle class.
On this day, January 28, 2009, as workers broke for lunch, one of its city center branches went up in flames, turning stock and assets, worth Ksh250 million, to ashes. Eighteen shoppers and staff, perished in the inferno.
Shah went into crisis mode. He cancelled his three-day tour of Mombasa to fly back to Nairobi to handle the disaster, but all planes were fully booked that day. He had to manage the situation on the phone, with eyes glued to a TV, until the following day.
“We had lots of communication with my managers in Nairobi. We were all confused and focus was on rescue efforts to save lives. We knew we would overcome the fire but the loss of human lives is what broke us down. We had to do whatever it takes to minimize deaths.”
The blaze took fire fighters from the Nairobi City Council four days to contain. The flames were fed by exploding gas tanks.
“The first day was total confusion. On the second day we established a disaster team to manage the situation. The government also created its own team. We worked together well to make sure the families of those people who perished were taken care of. I was part of the team and was on the ground for four days,” says Shah.
The loss was even more painful as it came just a month after the retail chain’s other branch was flattened by bulldozers to clear the way for the construction of the Thika super highway through Nairobi. In the process, the company was caught unaware and lost most of its stock to looters.
Shah sets his loss from the fire at Ksh400-250 million in stock and Ksh150 million in furniture and other assets. To make matters worse, the supermarket management was accused of locking shoppers in the supermarket in the shop when the fire alarm went off to prevent them from running away with unpaid goods, but Atul denies this charge.
“There were all manner of accusations from sabotage to arson. But it emerged it was Kenya Power to blame because it had had power outages. It’s unfortunate that it’s us who were affected,” Shah said.
What most of the accusers did not know is that Nakumatt had three fire marshals at the branch, one of whom sadly died in the fire as he tried to rescue customers. When the fire broke out, the man in his thirties swung into action to do what he was trained to do. He lunged into the smoke to rescue one person; a second time to save another soul; the third time the brave fire marshal did not return.
“It surprised us because the fire happened just two weeks after we had undergone a thorough fire audit by the Nairobi City Council. The company has since then enhanced its fire safety by training staff on emergency response and employing experts to beef up its compliance above the industry benchmarks. The quick-spreading fire was blamed on the presence of LPG gas cylinders and now the government has decreed all supermarkets not to stock cooking gas on their premises.”
Shah says Nakumatt spent Ksh40-50 million in managing the situation, including financing forensic tests to identify those who died in the fire and compensating those who lost their loved ones.
To make a bad situation worse, Kenyans looking to make a quick buck faked the deaths of their relatives in the fire. Nakumatt’s forensic analysis has already discovered three fake claims and has flagged two more for investigation.
“Some people claimed they lost relatives who had come to shop but produced death certificates of people who died a long time ago. Only 18 have been found to be genuine.”
The disaster did not end with the clearing of the ashes. The fire scared many shoppers and it took them months to come back to Nakumatt.
These were sad days for the company founded in 1978 by Shah’s father in the Rift Valley town of Nakuru. From a single shop dealing in mattresses; Nakumatt, short for Nakuru Mattresses, now has an annual turnover of $500 million. The first supermarket opened in 1982 and the company employs 5,100 workers.
Despite the setbacks, Shah is still betting on finding new markets.
“The retail market has opportunities. Organized retail is growing and especially with government recognition, the market space is expanding.”
In his office, on the wall facing him is a quote by Haku Shah, his father, which says: “In a day when you don’t come across any problem, you can be sure that you are traveling on the wrong path.”
These words sustained Shah through his worst day—January 28, 2009—a tragic day that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Trial By Fire

The biggest economy on the African continent is turning 18 on the 27th of this month—as a democracy, that is.
As would be expected of anyone coming of age, South Africans are asking themselves whether the staple diet of politics and economics we’ve been growing up with since 1994, has made us the healthiest democracy we can be, or if it has stunted our development.
From the vantage point of die-hard arch-capitalists like Herman Mashaba, the newly elected chairman of the Free Market Foundation (FMF), Africa’s youngest democracy has serious deficiencies, if not deformities. The primary cause of its precarious state of affairs, Mashaba reckons, has everything to do with a deadly concoction of rigid labor laws, union protectionism, socialist rhetoric and rampant corruption.
Mashaba wants entrepreneurs to be left alone to make as much money as they want, pay workers what they thinks they deserve, and fire them whenever they feel like it.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), naturally, feels Mashaba is wrong. The federation believes the single biggest stumbling block to the country’s prosperous future is unemployment. “And by employment, we mean decent work and not just any job,” says Cosatu’s president, Sdumo Dlamini.
At about the same time this issue of FORBES AFRICA went to print, Cosatu had just taken to the streets in a massive show of force, protesting against, among other things, the use of labor brokers.
Dlamini says the brand of capitalism that people like Mashaba subscribe to—whose mantra is ‘any job is better than no job’—is a big part of the problem. Part of the consternation against labor brokerage is that one worker can be paid far less than another who does the same job, at the same place, with the same skills and experience.
Not many people, in fact, will disagree with Mashaba’s correct assessment, that socialism, or socialism-inspired policies that our continent and the rest of the so-called third world once adopted, have not worked. But the anachronism of what is supposed to be the best system ever known to mankind is not lost to billions of dirt-poor people who have been failed by capitalism through crude exploitation of their abundant natural resources, environmental degradation, corruption of their leaders and a complete disregard for human rights.
Formed during the time of BJ Vorster, one of the most notorious of apartheid heads of state, the organization that Mashaba is now leading may not have been responsible for apartheid, but it stood by a lot more than it fought against, and many of its corporate members and stalwarts, wittingly or not, in fact benefited handsomely from the racist policies of the time.
The birth and rise of Cosatu is owed more to concrete shop floor wars—where workers had to fight in the companies that were run by the same gentlemen who belonged to the FMF—than to state-sponsored apartheid.
Mashaba is of course also correct, when he says business has been “too quiet for far too long.”
Where people have a problem is with him blaming others, for the cowardice and complicity of business. The truth is; post-apartheid business has not been too different from those we saw during apartheid.
Having been a political journalist for more years than South Africa has been a democracy, I have been both shocked and surprised by how business people were cowed, intimidated, and tended to pander, rather than speak truth, to power.
At least Mashaba wants to do exactly that. But he will have to appreciate that workers too, are entitled to the same. For indeed everyone, not just business, has a constructive role to play in the growth, development and transformation goals of Africa’s hitherto sleeping giant.
Business Unity South Africa’s CEO, Nomaxabiso Majokweni, makes the point very simply, yet cogently: “The socio-economic challenges of South Africa need all of us to work together; business, government, labor and community. We have to get both the economics and the politics right.”

Tag: April 2012

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Rolling Stone That Gathers No Loss

Polo, Power And Panache

The Road To Penury

A Corky Little Upstart

Drilling For Art

Riding on Africa For Expansion

Creating Africa’s Own Geek Valley

From Sweating In The Fields To Cool Meetings In Bermuda

Women Should Lead The Revolution Of The Entrepreneur

Trial By Fire

Pondering At The Economic Crossroads