Slaves To Debt: Oh, What We Owe!

We, Men For Women

A hearse arrives at 6AM on a chilly Wednesday morning in Paulshof, a suburb in the north of Johannesburg; relatives weep as the coffin is carried into the house. At the gate is a red carpet and cars galore. This is no ordinary funeral. It’s the burial of Peter Zulu, the man famous for his son, Gugu Zulu, a racecar driver who died while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
There are hundreds here and they have come to mourn at vast expense.
This is one of nearly half a million funerals that happen every year in South Africa alone. The business of death is worth an estimated R9 billion ($700 million).
It is thriving but plagued by the lack of regulation and crookery.
“There’s a lot of fraud that’s going on within the funeral industry. People are registered dead but they are not certified dead,” says Johan Rousseau, Executive Chairman of the Funeral Industry Reformed Association.
There is no standard pricing.
“The industry value hasn’t been even determined by Statistics SA because they only look at a small percentage of funerals and their contribution to the GDP but how can they do that when they don’t have the database,” says Rousseau.
“Why do you have to pay R1,500 for a grave site in East London, in the Eastern Cape and pay R400 in Gauteng? It doesn’t make sense to me. The insurance industry is using that unregulated market to sell their products and services, because they don’t have interest rates, by employing a funeral parlour as an agent to do all the work for them. The insurance industry doesn’t invest back into the funeral parlours at all.”
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Rousseau says they want to create regulations that would set a standard and bring in investments to grow the economy, create jobs and assist emerging parlours.
“There are 25,000 parlours in the country, now we have to think how we advance them. We have to look at the laws because it excludes some of these guys from entering the market because they are renting facilities,” he says.
Stockvels are also not regulated.
<h1>The Tears And Fears Of Staging Funerals</h1>
<div id="attachment_32756" style="width: 350px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32756" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-32756" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Morongwa-Broodie-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="340" height="508" />Morongwa Broodie (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Morongwa Broodie is one of thousands of entrepreneurs across Africa making a living from people dying. Dealing with dead bodies and grieving families isn’t everybody’s idea of making money – it’s her daily bread.
It’s a two-hour drive to the Broodie Funeral Parlour in Soshanguve, a small township north of Pretoria. Outside is a fleet of cars, down the road: a salon; a repair shop; a school and hundreds roaming about not knowing that the people who will carry them to their final resting place are just around the corner.
For a woman who deals with mourners everyday Broodie appears wearing a charming smile as she welcomes us to her office, where, on the wall is a CCTV monitor watching all the rooms.
She talks with her hands; she leans into the table to make a point. Broodie appears professional, clinical and tough – probably what this business needs. This is the queen of the business of death on her throne.
Little in her fiefdom fazes her.
“You want to start with the interview or should we go see the bodies first?” she says pointing at the CCTV showing a worker busy with a body.
Every morning, at 8AM, it is Broodie’s job to check the bodies and her premises.
“We have a meeting where we discuss previous funerals and how we can improve the business. Then I come to my office, I read my book, I Declare by Joel Osteen, it’s got 31 promises, this book keeps me motivated and it’s very relevant to every situation of the day. I then check my emails and do whatever needs to be done before closing at 4:30PM,” says Broodie.
Broodie bought the business in 2013, after quitting her job as a teacher her husband told her about the parlour and persuaded her to buy.
“I never imagined myself working in a mortuary, but when I saw the business, I realized I could do it. I worked with the previous owner for three months before I took over completely.”
Broodie describes the first time she saw a dead body as scary.
“The first time I saw a corpse it was an old man who was in a casket ready to go home. He was just sleeping peacefully. I touched him, he was cold. I tried to wake him up but he was still; that’s when I realized that he was dead. On that night I had a nightmare like there was a big casket next to my bed. I screamed,” she says.
“After taking over the business, the first person I saw was from a government mortuary, it was a gentleman. When they opened his body bag, his legs were literally on his chest, and the guy who was preparing the body just took the legs and was like here are the legs. I was so frightened,” says Broodie.
It didn’t take long to adapt.
“I went to the fridge every day; sometimes I’d go in the morning to see what they are doing when they pick up a body from home or at hospital so that I can have an understanding of everything. We are lucky that we see these people dead but what about doctors who do surgical operations, sometimes patients come with intestines out. With us it&#8217;s different, everything is just still. Then you understand that there’s no more pain here,” she says.
For Broodie it’s the death of children that upsets her.
“I become affected the most when it&#8217;s children, because seeing a small body lying there vulnerable is devastating. With older people we kind of already know they cannot live long,” she says.
Through all the stress the business is booming. Last year, they made over R7 million ($540,000) and employ more than 30 people.
“The way people are dying these days, there’s no week that goes without burials. Just in Soshanguve we have more than 40 funeral parlours and every week we meet at the gravesite burying people,” says Broodie.
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Broodie Funeral Parlour buries five to eight people a day. Their caskets cost up to R580,000 ($45,000).
“We have five-star packages; we do elite funerals and have a number of burials we do per day. If there are more funerals, we move them over to the next day.”
“Death is more expensive than living. Let me tell you that we can run a funeral of R110,000 in a four-roomed-house. The way people plan for death is so amazing; they even take policies, excluding the groceries and the catering. We also did cremation with an expensive casket of R90, 000 ($7,000).”
The job isn’t easy.
“Sometimes we’re delayed because families don’t pay on time. We organize funerals within four days; we must get the programs, clothes, etc. On the day of the funeral they tell us that they don’t have money or policies, only to find that they’ve bought new clothes and catering is there, but when it comes to paying us they come up with excuses. We don’t do a funeral if clients haven’t paid for services in full,” says Broodie.
“When families enter the gate, and pass my office, I’d see them crying, sometimes they come in groups hurt and confused, I also become so emotional. This is a business that needs emotions and we have to be with the families until the end and give them comfort.”
Broodie feels safer with dead bodies than people.
“I usually say to my employees that the people at the back are kings and queens, in this business we need to treat them well. Those who give us problems are human beings who can ruin everything,” she says.
“I do routine check-ups; the people working at the back can put a lot of bodies in the fridge that aren’t even my clients. They can give other funeral parlours space and I wouldn’t know it,” she says.
Broodie has survived the tears and fears of the hard-headed business of death; she is capitalizing and plans to turn her business into a franchise.
<h1>‘I Couldn’t Even Look At The Face, I Was Too Scared’</h1>
<div id="attachment_32757" style="width: 297px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32757" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-32757" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Charles-Khomo-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="287" height="428" />Charles Khomo (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
At the Broodie mortuary, we are welcomed by a man in a white coat who looks like a professor. His name is Charles Khomo and his game is death.
Khomo, a morgue officer, has been in the business of death for three years. Every day he collects bodies at crime scenes, hospitals and homes.
“When I get here, I have to wash it and put it in a fridge,” says Khomo.
“Every morning I have to check on the bodies and whether the temperature is still on 0 degrees, not 10 or 20. It has to be cold all the time so that bodies don’t rot and smell. If the body smells, I have to take it out, wash it with chemicals so that it can kill the smell and put it back in the fridge,” says Khomo.
“Sometimes bodies come in a bag and full of blood, I have to clean and rinse it before putting it in the fridge.”
On this day, inside the mortuary, it is cold and quiet except for the hum of a ceiling fan. I get this strange fear and so does the photographer. We prefer the land of the living.
Khomo is busy with a body that’s going to be buried the next day. “You want to see, come and see,” he says.
A man is lying in a casket as though he’s sleeping peacefully. It is a surprise how comfortable Khomo is, considering he spends his day with dead bodies.
“When I first started working here I was scared. I remember they wanted finger prints of the dead for a death certificate. I was given a stamp and I couldn’t even look at the face because I was too scared. There was a time when a body came in a bag and the person was in pieces, he was run over by a train. I had to open the body bag; I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman. I had to do it because this is what puts food on my table.”
Psychologists counsel the more than 30 staff who work here. The most important thing here is cleanliness – they have to wear gloves, overalls, big white boots and a mask. The fan has to be on at all times.
“My biggest challenge is picking up an overweight person from a four-roomed house alone,” he says.
Pain often comes with the job.
“Last year, it was tough when I lost my mother in September to diabetes, my niece died while giving birth, my uncle and cousin died from illness in December. All four of my family members were lying in that fridge, at the same time. I hated this place but then I asked myself, if I can’t do this job who’s going to do it?” he says, shaking his head.
Khomo opens the massive fridge with three bodies, neatly tucked in cream body bags, each with a tag on the left foot.
“The toe tags are very important to avoid confusion and mixing up the bodies. On these tags we write the name of the deceased, who picked them up, where we picked them up and contact numbers,” says Khomo.
Just another day in the morgue.
<h1>A Funeral App? From Coffin To Amen In 30 Minutes</h1>
<div id="attachment_32758" style="width: 643px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32758" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-32758" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Lebo-funerals-072-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="633" height="424" />Lebohang Khitsane (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
There is an app for everything these days. Now there is an app for funerals that takes you 30 minutes to arrange a burial.
This is the work of South African entrepreneur Lebohang Khitsane, CEO and founder of Bataung Memorials. The app was launched at the end of July. He named it The Jacob’s Bridge after his late father.
“It’s a portal where people can google funerals and coffins. It will lead them to our page which has a display of coffins and tombstones. We are also in partnership with different undertakers and we connect them with people depending on their preferences. We also connect people with clothing designers and psychologists,” says Khitsane.
“It is very convenient, they don’t have to go to mortuaries, we connect them with caterers, tents, decors, tombstones everything that has to do with a funeral. We want to save them time; people should spend more time mourning than running around searching for suppliers.”
It took Khitsane two years to build the app.
“A friend asked me to connect him with an undertaker that I know, I did. We did a checklist and managed to organize everything within 30 minutes, including tents, caterers, coffin. I said to myself this could be a lucrative business,” says Khitsane.
Entrepreneurship was always in Khitsane’s blood; his first business was a printing company, then he imported clothes from Germany. Khitsane was born and raised in Katlehong, a township east of Johannesburg; his father was a welder.
“I never thought I’d be in the business of death industry. My mother died when I was six and I hated going to the graveyard. But now I go there literally every day,” says Khitsane.
In 2004, Khitsane overcame his fear to found Bataung Memorials.
“The tombstones are characterized according to the personality of the deceased. If you are a musician your tombstone will have a stage and a microphone. A soccer player will have a pitch and a ball. Each and every stone has a story behind it.”
Khitsane’s work goes beyond the ordinary. He created a statue for former South African President Thabo Mbeki and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In 2013, he created a braille tombstone for blind people and a barcode epitaph.
“People wanted long messages written on a stone and it wasn’t always possible, so we created a QR code that can be placed on the tombstone. When you scan it with your tablet or phone it immediately takes you to the photos, history and videos of the deceased. You can also leave a message of condolence for the family,” says Khitsane.
At a time when many businesses are struggling, the business of death is flourishing. Bataung Memorial’s annual turnover is $3 million. Their tombstones can cost up to R1 million ($77,500). Clearly death is as expensive as living.
“At the moment we are working on a tombstone that cost R2.6 million ($200,000). It’s huge, four meters high; it’s sitting on a 16-square-meter space of the grave. Its weight can be 34 tons. The foundations and concrete work is over R400,000 ($31,000) because we need to put proper foundations, beams and steel.”
Bataung Memorial has made 15,000 tombstones for African families living as far as Australia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland and Malawi.
His design of late South African actor Joe Mafela’s tombstone (a giant stone which is a portrayal of a lounge, with a TV and couch/sitting bench) was trending on social media, with many arguing over it.
As long as the deceased’s family is at peace, Khitsane is content. “It is a very sensitive business because we deal with emotional people and sometimes people tend to be unreasonable, but we have to redo the design until they are happy.”
(Photos by <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/author/tlhabi-monnakgotla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Motlabana Monnakgotla</a>)

The Pain Of The Business Of Death

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A moment too soon or a moment too late, you lose in business. Furthermore, if you wait for everything to fall in place, your wait might end up with nothing.
The underlying message is that timing in business is crucial.
Industrialization really took off in the 20th century &#8211; it was also the same time in history when the population explosion occurred, with more than 4.4 billion people born during that time.
If you look back at some of the most successful entrepreneurs, it seems as if they knew it was the perfect time to launch their business, but maybe some of them stumbled upon their circumstances unknowingly. Maybe their success owed a lot to luck.
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In the world of investments and forex trading, timing is everything. It can be the difference between making a profit or a loss.
Patrice Motsepe, one of the most revered African entrepreneurs, timed his approach perfectly. It led to him becoming a billionaire in a relatively short period of time. He went into mining at a time when gold prices were high and South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment policies were in their first phase of implementation; corporate companies were actively looking to partner with capable black entrepreneurs and professionals.
In Nigeria, it was the right time to jump into business as the government was privatizing state-owned companies in the 2000s. It might still be the right time.
Some of the world’s most famous tech titans, such as Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, founded their companies between 1975 and 1984. The 70s and 80s proved to be best time for computer companies and Dell Technologies, Apple and Microsoft are giants today. Between 2002 and 2009, most of the successful social media companies, like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, were born. The key for entrepreneurs is seeing the writing on the wall and knowing how to take advantage of it.
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The dot-com bubble in the late 90s was the opportune time to start a technology company as money was readily available. However, that time has returned. Tech ventures have a tremendous amount of money ready to be deployed as long as conditions are met; the validity of the business and which market you raise the money from is important.
The tech capitals of Africa are Nairobi, in Kenya, and Cape Town, in South Africa. The tech capitals of the world are Silicon Valley in the United States, Tel Aviv in Israel, and Seoul in South Korea. However, this doesn’t mean you won’t succeed if you are not from these places.
Africa is a virgin territory in a few sectors. The time is now to go full force into infrastructure development, energy generation and beneficiating raw material produced on the continent. Most of our technological products and services are from countries outside Africa.
Europe and China have a tendency of tailor-making Silicon Valley technology to fit their local users. In China, they have WhatsApp rival WeChat, eBay rival Alibaba, and, before they merged, Didi Chuxing rivalled Uber.
Timing is multi-faceted; it can be when to go into business, when to expand, or when to close a deal at a particular time with favorable conditions.
But, how do you determine when the time is right? You can’t merely be excited by the vision of what could be.
It helps to be well-informed about the sector you are in; study the previous trends, patterns and circles which tend to repeat themselves; and engage as many people as you can in that field.
Just remember, if you wait too long, you might miss the opportunity. When Gates founded Microsoft, he was not necessarily sitting down and realizing the timing was right. He just moved as he saw a niche in the market.
My advice is to wake up and get back to the grind. If you need to, fail a few times until you get it right. As Abraham Lincoln once observed, “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” &#8211; Written by Paul Mashegoane

Timing Is Everything

Remember Piet Kemp? It’s been more than three years since FORBES AFRICA featured him in its pages in October 2013. Kemp left South Africa for the Soviet republic of Georgia in search of greener pastures, he says he has found happiness and toil thousands of miles away from home. The 72-year- old Kemp claims to now be a Georgian citizen and vows to never come back to his homeland. He was one of 10 South African famers who left on the promise of free land.
<blockquote>I am really glad to be out of South Africa; it’s a dangerous place.</blockquote>
And the whole country belongs to colonialism,” says Kemp. He now has 30 laborers, who neither speak English nor Afrikaans, but Kemp says he is slowly learning the Georgian language. “Speaking the language was very difficult. My wife has been helping me learn it and I don’t need a translator anymore.” Kemp says spare parts are one of the big problems. “Sometimes when the tractor is broken, it takes a long time to get the tools to fix it. We have to import our tools and machines.” Before the age of 80, Kemp plans to retire.

Piet-Kemp

Greener Pastures For African Farmer

It is perfectly possible to be in Mauritius and not see a spot of sea.
As a business traveler, if you are staying in any one of the upscale business hotels in the central business district of Ebene, where most men in sharp suits ponder the fate of the island as a gateway to Africa, the white sandy beaches and rhythmic Sega dances in the charming fishing villages are but a distant laidback dream.
This is an economy working overtime, with a new ambitious government and a population weaning off idyllic vistas of just the surf, sand and sea, and wanting much, much more – quicker.
“This country got rich too soon,” says Sattar Hajee Abdoula, CEO and Head of Taxation and Advisory Services at Grant Thornton in Mauritius. “So everyone is aspiring to be rich.”
We are driving back in Abdoula’s white Mercedes convertible after a sumptuous three-course dinner in the plush, green, valley-facing home of one of Mauritius’ most-successful senior bankers.
“The mind-set has totally changed in the country,” says Abdoula matter-of-factly, pulling into the driveway of the classy Hennessy Park Hotel in Ebene Cybercity where a room can cost up to $220 a night.
It’s Friday night, and the hotel’s parking lot is packed to the rafters. The swanky customers and swarthy bouncers are all headed to the swish Backstage Lounge Bar in the hotel’s ground floor that has at its entrance an arty installation of a collage of inverted guitars, and once you walk in, meandering hallways that lead to live music and the bar, where hordes of young men in leather jackets and women in lacy tank tops writhe in unison on the dance floor.
Somewhere in the distance, away from the island’s commercial heart, the high tide and the moon, resembling a nail in the sky, succumb to nature’s chorus, as the fierce waves lash on to the shores of this green island in the Indian Ocean.
The land once home to the dodo is a biodiversity hotspot. You hear inspiring stories of people moving to organic farming and the growing prevalence of permaculture; even tales of the pink pigeon that has been heroically saved from extinction. Everywhere you look, swaying sugarcane plantations, and the sweet smell of money.
There is a profusion of green on land and blue in the ocean: and both economies are being revamped by the country’s scientist-president, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim.
The natural resources of Mauritius were a big draw card for CIDP, which runs a sophisticated facility here for high-performance research and clinical trials, sourcing active ingredients for pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies around the world.
“Mauritius is the hotspot for diversity, with a multi-ethnic population we can access for trials,” says Claire Blazy-Jauzac, Group Managing Director of CIDP.
The island is a rich repository of fauna and flora known for several indigenous species – and not just the extinct dodo. Its farming practises are rated among the best in Africa.
“Africa is lanes and streets and cities behind Mauritius when it comes to agricultural practices,” says MD Ramesh, President and Regional Head South and East Africa for Olam, Africa’s leading agri-business.
“Mauritius has a great talent for agriculture and is far better than most of Africa.”
Durban-based Ramesh says he is seriously considering moving to Mauritius when he retires and is actively seeking a Mauritius passport.
Visitors to Mauritius’ gleaming new airport terminals will see the first signs of a country prospering from tourism dollars. For those seeking retirement, the climate – both political and weather – is conducive, says Ramesh.
To most, the tax haven is a haven for more reasons than one, including the comfortable lifestyle it offers, access to amenities and most importantly, the fresh seafood. The juicy prawn curry and rice in any of the eateries in the village of Moka, called the heart of the island, is worth arriving in the country for.
You also can’t miss the bounties of the land. Robert Gordon-Gentil converted a sugarcane field into a thriving restaurant business 15 years ago. Chez Tante Athalie at Pamplemousses in Grand Baie serves authentic Creole cuisine on weekdays for lunch. In its front yard are hulking trees Gordon-Gentil planted with his own hands when they first started; he sources all his ingredients for the restaurant from this garden. Here, he also displays his collection of vintage cars. The foreigners and diners love the assortment of cars and cuisine. Occasionally, Gordon-Gentil also drives his old cars to town, making sure they don’t stutter to a stop on the way.
Surprisingly for a small island-nation of 1.3 million people, peak-time traffic on the arterial roads, especially in Port Louis, is a nightmare. It’s best to set aside enough time to traverse between different parts of the island that the locals categorize simply as East, West, South and North. Also watch out for stray dogs that are rampant and a serious problem in Mauritius.
Getting around is expensive.
“Mauritius presents a real business case for Uber,” says 26-year-old freelance photographer Keshawve Jeewon, who runs his company GrandMoments, offering photography and videography services by the picturesque mountains of Flacq district.
He drives his dad’s old Ford pick-up truck when scouring the island for work, but owns an Audi A4 sedan for his social sojourns.
“An Uber-like service should be started as soon as possible. Someone will get rich very soon,” says Jeewon, almost as if he had been toying with the idea himself.
In the distance, as we drive past verdant Verdun, he symbolically points to Mauritius’ second-highest mountain named Pieter Both, characterized by a rocky formation at the top resembling a human head, in thought.
It’s in contemplative mode looking for new horizons of opportunity, like young Jeewon, and the country itself.

DCIM100MEDIADJI_0095.JPG

The Sweet Smell Of Money, Sans The Sea

It is fascinating that many entrepreneurs fail to formulate business models, while some don’t even know what a business model is.
A simple definition of a business model is a plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying revenue sources, a customer base, products, and details of financing.
A unique business model can be the distinguishing factor that will set you apart from your competition.
If your competitors have a bigger market share, are more capitalized and better capacitated,  how can a different business model push your business ahead?
Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath looks at how David avoided fighting Goliath on his own terms, with swords and spears; he rather used what he knew best, because he could not have won if he tried to play Goliath’s game.
History has shown how the mighty often end up falling – and you can be the one to take them down.
Today, Naspers is the largest company in Africa and seventh largest internet company in the world by market capitalization. More than 60% of their value comes from their 34% shareholding in Tencent Holdings in China, but they still want to dominate in media and technolgy.
If you decide to go head-to-head with this enormous company, do not try to beat them at their own game; rather compete with them using a different approach. If you look at Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon in Silicon Valley, they started by being disruptors.
I highly recommend that you learn the art and science of coming up with business models. Corporate companies, on average have at least four business models to make money.
The Founder and Group Chief Executive of Discovery Limited, Adrian Gore, is reported to have all his personal investments in the company. Some might think it’s risky to have all his eggs in one basket, but Discovery has diverse business models, such as medical aid, short-term insurance, and investments.
There are various types of business models. Telecom and electronics companies often use a model of prepaid or pay as you go.
Others, like MultiChoice and Netflix, use subscription, where you pay a continuous fee to access services or content.
Product to service is one of the most powerful models and is often used by tech companies. Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Facebook, the world’s most popular media provider, creates no content. Instagram, the most valuable photo company, sells no cameras.
Low-touch is another model used by many retail companies, such as Shoprite and Walmart. They lower their prices by decreasing services. A similar model is Freemium, which offers basic services for free, but charges for the premium version, as LinkedIn does.
An interesting one is a reverse auction, where businesses bid for the amount they are willing to be paid for their service. The seller with the lowest amount wins.. One usually used with cars, is Leasing, where you rent than sell.
The crowdsourcing model is currently popular. This is where you get a group of people to contribute content for free, while you make money from advertising revenue; YouTube has mastered this.
Africa is excluded from these pioneering models. Eighty percent of the world’s mobile money transactions take place in East Africa, while $148 million a day is transacted every day using Mpesa and 40% of Kenya’s GDP is transacted through mobile money. Africa is powerfully positioned in this area and needs to make the most out of it.
We are living in an age with unlimited access to information. As Africans we have no excuse not to be competitive on a global scale. But, there needs to be an economic revolution in our consciousness that allows us to stand tall on the world’s stage.

A Revolution For  Global Domination

Eleven villagers sit under the shade of a marula tree, in the heat of midday, deep in the KwaZulu-Natal bush in a village called Gazini. They have been up since 4AM to tell their stories in search of a small solution to a large problem.
A week before, a herd of elephants trampled through the vegetable patch. Villagers woke to see an elephant in their backyard peering through their door. The backlash has been violent and bloody &#8211; earlier this year, villagers killed an elephant and stripped it to the bone.
Gazini is a scatter of farms two kilometers from the South African border with Mozambique; electricity or cell phone reception is unheard of. The villagers here live hand-to-mouth deep in the bush.
The villagers complain the elephants emerge from the bush in the dead of night, to strike terror into their homes. The reason the elephants roam is because their home in the bush is getting smaller by the year.
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Listening patiently to the villagers are two entrepreneurs, Mmabatho and Desmond Morudi, in white overalls, who believe their business can help the villagers sleep easy.
“The thing that made [the threat] clear to me was when we did a trip along the border fence. There you can see exactly where the fence has been broken and where the elephants cross over. We could see the broken poles snapped in half like twigs,” says Desmond.
The entrepreneurs believe that building 200 beehives, in a two-kilometer barrier will not only fend off the elephants but also make money. The villagers could be forgiven for being sceptical.
“I don’t think they are convinced, it’s still a test to see if it

really, really works to deter the elephants,” says Mmabatho.
“It’s [understandable] why they would believe such a large creature wouldn’t be scared of something so small,” says Desmond.
The Morudis have been working around this village since October. They start work early; the bees get aggressive as the day wears on. The hives hang on wooden poles, 10 meters apart, linked by barbed wire. If touched by an elephant, the hives swing and stir up the bees.
“So far we’ve put up a fence with 40 hives. Two hundred will be the final amount. The challenge is 200 hives is quite a stretch, it means they have to run through other villages of people who don’t even know that the project is going on. There is also the issue of leaving space for cars driving past as well as border patrols. You don’t want to cut the elephants off totally. You just want to cordon off the sensitive areas and leave behind a path.”
The buzzing beehive fence is the brainchild of Lucy King in Kenya, Head of the Human-Elephant Co-Existence Program for Save the Elephants, where she realized that elephants are scared of African honey bees and will avoid beehives at all costs. The bees sting the elephants’ soft skin, eyes, face, trunk and mouth.
The fences have an 80% success rate. They are made from local materials and are cheap, costing $150 to $500 per 100 meters, says King from her headquarters Nairobi.
The beehive fences have been so successful with human-elephant conflict (HEC), 13 countries have adopted similar projects, one of them being the Morudi’s growing business, The Village Market.
“We’ve obsessed over [King’s] manual and her work in Kenya… At the same time we were trying to find villages that we could work with. We had the skills, we had the knowledge, we needed the natural vegetation,” says Mmabatho.
In the shade of the marula tree, they have taken King’s research one step further. They want to use beehive fences as part of a R2.5-million ($180,000) dream to harvest, bottle and deliver wild, high-quality honey to suburban shopping aisles.
“In general our jars sell for R55 per 375g. Then we have Mmabatho’s baby, the raw high quality, for R75 per 375g. We aim to develop a luxury brand, bringing more orders to a premium market. We work on 35kgs per hive per harvest, which is once every three months,” says Desmond.
This means, by January, 11 bee keepers of Gazini could have yielded R49,000 ($3,500).
It’s been a long journey to this odd business for Desmond and Mmabatho. They come from modest homes in Kimberly and Pretoria.
“Our desire was to develop communities we grew up in, providing help for people and business opportunities.”
The idea was born in the home of Mmabatho’s grandfather in Winterveld, a rural town 68 kilometers northwest of Pretoria, in 2012.
“Bees would get into our ceiling and produce so much honey that the ceiling would cave in. Like every other family, we would try and smoke them out and kill them. But they would always come back,” says Mmabatho.
Instead her grandfather took the family on a beekeeping course and Mmabatho was hooked. She started her own company called Iliju Bee Farm.
Her work with Iliju Bee Farm led to Mmabatho shaking hands with ministers and members of the top 100 entrepreneurs of Europe. She also dined with Richard Branson. In 2013, Mmabatho was selected as one of the brightest young minds in South Africa, and again as one of the emerging changemakers by Spark International.
Things got even busier and Mmabatho’s husband, Desmond, left the comfort of corporate accounting to help manage the business. But success proved to be a devil in disguise. The business grew too quickly and couldn’t cope. They took on a bee expert who left a year and a half later and Iliju collapsed.
Then they started The Village Market at the end of 2014.
“As we learned more about bees, and their plight, that’s when it all came together. Lucy King’s study came after we had established Winterveld. Nora Taiga, of the Peace Foundation, now Elephant, Rhinos &amp; People (ERP), paid Mmabatho a subsistence salary of R10,000, then introduced us to the people of Gazini,” says Desmond.
“At the beginning of the year the crossings were getting quite significant. Previously it had just been bulls, but then we started seeing breeding herds coming through,” says Nonceba Lushaba, KZN Coordinator of ERP.
“From the elephant’s point of view they have realized that there are easy pickings here. It’s kind of like a naughty child who goes to pick sweets.”
In Gazini, finding the bees is half the battle. Once the hives are built, the beekeepers take the hives to their homes in Gazini and attempt to colonize them.
Bees are fussy dwellers; they need water, plenty of flowering plants, protective vegetation and far from direct sunlight. Once the bees have moved in, the keepers close the entrances at night and then transport the colony to the beehive fence. Work starts before dawn. In their bee suits they walk with the hives on their heads to this farm. It is so remote you need a 4&#215;4 to navigate a maze of bush trails to find it.
“Another important issue is researching bee diseases. Bee health is important if we want to conserve them. Research needs to keep track of these growing issues.”
Threats, like the varroa mite that attacks bees in the hive and contributes in part to colony collapse, are global concerns. This is why the couple have teamed up with the University of Pretoria (Tuks) Zoology and Entomology department’s Bee Group that will add valuable research to elephant behavior, bee repopulation and disease control.
Even though US and Europe honey bee colonies were under threat from Colony Collapse Disorder for almost ten years, the African honey bee  was safe from the impact of industrialized apiculture. This according to research by Robin Crew,  professor of Entomology and leader of the Social Insects Research Group in the University of Pretoria’s Department of Zoology and Entomology.
In Crew’s book “A World Without Bees”, the fact that Africa has the largest number of wild honey bee swarms in the world has contributed to wider genetic diversity and therefore populations are not as severely affected by diseases.
The beepocolypse, as it was called, could even be resolved with recolonization with the African honey bee because of its resilience.
Their Gazini project has even caught the eye of the African Union which granted $15,000 to the bee research at Tuks.
“It’s not just the sake of doing research for the sake of research, but using it to solve community problems. To help developed communities,” says Desmond.
On the morning of inspection, Mmabatho finds suspicious larvae in one of the hives. It turns out to be waxworm. These pests eat cocoons, pollen, the shed skins of bees, and chew through beeswax.
“We need the bees to focus all their energy on making the honey. As soon as invaders enter the hive they expend all their energy getting it out, which of course affects production,” says Desmond.
The couple believe that deforestation, pesticides and insecticides also affect the bees. They instead plant strong smelling plants and herbs, like spring onions, to discourage pests and also plant flowering vegetables like tomatoes to encourage pollination.
“We are trying to encourage our farmers to use organic methods so they don’t affect the bee populations. That is why, in addition to this, we sell veggies to markets,” says Mmabatho.
Once the honey is ready it its transported 600 kilometers to their bottling plant at the Riversands Incubation Hub that opened in September in Fourways, north of Johannesburg.
“The problem we have with honey in South Africa is a lot of it is imported. Because of important laws we need to irradiate it. You will see in the shops it will say it’s ionized by radiation in order to increase shelf life. The impact of that is that it takes away the good qualities from the honey.”
“There is also a lack of variation of honey in the market. We introduce some product differentiation;  infusing honey with lemon or cinnamon.”
Raw honey is murky and beige in color, a completely different experience from what you see in the shops.
“People are used to seeing this brown liquid here on the shelves that’s what they associate with honey. They don’t appreciate the real raw product will crystallize,” says Mmabatho.
Honey also can be used in health and beauty products and is a natural anti-inflammatory. Scrubs, moisturizers and masks can all be made from the by-product of the comb.
This is one business that is helping a tiny village sleep at night and got a couple of bright African entrepreneurs buzzing.

The Stings That  Make Elephants Fly

As in a sibling relationship, Natascha Jacobsz is extremely protective of her continent and its people. She describes herself as a typical white South African child, who’ll deal with anyone who dares to chastize Africa.
The 32-year-old started her career at CNBC Africa in 2008 and says she was a wet-behind-the-ears business features producer, with no business news experience. She’d previously worked in current affairs and general news.
Even though Jacobsz studied law at the University of Pretoria, the journalism bug bit her when she joined the local campus radio station, Tuks FM, as a newsreader.
In 2005, Jacobsz joined CNBC Africa and worked as a business news producer for seven years.
In 2015, Jacobsz relocated to the Netherlands with her family and joined the Dutch media NGO, RNW Media as a project manager for This is Africa, a website dedicated to providing an alternative, non-Western narrative of Africa.
“I am innately curious with a passion for Africa, people and story-telling. In the words of [former South African President] Thabo Mbeki – I am an African. It’s who I am at my core and it plays a huge part in my sense of identity, especially since relocating to Europe,” she says.
Although she admits business news is a tough but extremely gratifying industry to work in, her career has given her first-hand experience of the untapped potential of people in Africa.
“We have some of the most innovative men, women and youngsters on the planet. However, when it comes to economics, I’m hesitant to blanket Africa as a whole. Unlike the European Union (EU), our sense of ‘oneness’, at least on an economic level, is a lot more complicated,” she says.
Living in Europe has made her aware that financial challenges, especially those at a macro- economic level, are the same everywhere.
“Economic growth has all but stalled across many developed nations and, according to reports such as the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) recent World Economic Outlook, which highlights projected GDP growth levels above 5% in more than 10 countries, one can’t help but get excited about Africa as a whole,” Jacobsz says.
It hasn’t been all work and no play for the travel enthusiast. One of her fondest memories includes a Mt. Kilimanjaro expedition with CNBC Africa Vice Chairman, Rakesh Wahi, who led it in 2013.
“It was an incredible bonding experience and a great lesson in humility,” she says.
Jacobsz foresees Africa’s full potential being unlocked, along with the hope that every African woman will be able to pursue any dream without restriction, be it personal or professional..
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– Thandi Xaba

Tasch

A Sibling Of Africa

<h2> Migrant businesses have become an integral part of the economic ecosystem.</h2>
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In the bustling heart of Johannesburg’s Central Business District (CBD) lie a stretch of migrant economies. Microcosms of China, India, Egypt, Turkey, Somalia and Ethiopia have popped up with the smell, sound and feel of home.
As you walk down Commissioner Street, under the highway and past columns of graffiti, The Oriental Plaza comes into view. Designed like a souq, the traditional meandering Arabic market, the plaza sells everything from saris and suits to curtains, pots and incense. The aroma of piping hot samosas hits you as you walk through the gates, the sizzle of hot oil permeates the walkways and there are stains of bright red chilli sauce on the al fresco tables. The savouries are the best in town and the perfect start before you bargain your way through the stalls.
Out of the gates and a street away, Mint Road is an informal extension of the plaza. Stalls selling hot chilli bites and fresh juice border the market. Bollywood heartthrob Shah Rukh Khan and his latest swooning heroine play on small television sets. It’s like stepping into a market in Mumbai or Delhi where Hindi, Urdu and Bengali converge.
The last census conducted in 2011 put the number of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, in South Africa, at just over two million. While some acquired citizenship on arrival, over one million were not citizens in 2011. Immigrants made up 4.2% of the entire population, which stood at roughly 51 million at the time. Of the 4.2%, 71% of the immigrants were from other African countries. Immigrants have created economic hubs across the country.
In a study conducted by the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town in 2015, migrants and refugees in Cape Town and Johannesburg have pinpointed the gap in the informal market. By providing cheaper goods and services for the poorer segments of the population and monopolizing niche demands, migrants have made a significant contribution to the population. Most of these migrant businesses also support South African factories, wholesalers and supermarkets and are subject to value added tax. They have become an integral part of the economic ecosystem.
From Shanghai to Mogadishu via Mumbai, it’s an economy built on the search for the African dream in the City of Gold, but it may soon become a nightmare.
Early 2016, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba proposed a host of new policies to clamp down on economic migrants. The proposed policy would see those like the Somali traders in Mayfair or the Pakistani shop owners in Fordsburg lose the right to work, trade and study in the country. If it all goes through, asylum-seekers could be confined to processing centers near the border, where “their basic needs will be catered for” while they are kept from “integrating into communities”.
For the traders along Johannesburg’s migrant mile, the future is somewhat dim and uncertain. In the pages that follow, FORBES WOMAN AFRICA focuses on the migrants who became entrepreneurs despite all the odds they faced.
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<h2>The Chaudry Women</h2>
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The once lively market on Mint Road in Johannesburg now houses stalls selling DVDs and sunglasses stacked next to each other like clones. The smell of fried corn in butter wafts through the streets even as competing Bollywood beats drown each other out. In a small corner of the market, the Chaudry family are an unusual sight. Aisha Chaudry and her sisters Asimah and Amina own one of the only stalls run by women.
Kaniz-Fatima and her husband Yawar-Abbas Chaudry came to South Africa in 1991 on their honeymoon and decided to stay for good. The couple from Karachi, Pakistan, started their business in Fordsburg 15 years ago as one of the first stalls in the square.
“My parents would come here at five after work. It was full and crowded, it was just like a playground for us,” recalls Aisha.
With rows of Basmati rice, snacks from India and Pakistan and spicy corn, the Chaudry family set themselves apart from the rest. After starting as an informal market, the City of Johannesburg decided to build a structure around the market in the late 2000s. For a year, business was impossible. The stress of trying to make ends meet took its toll and Yawar-Abbas died before the business could bounce back.
“Before, we didn’t have to work hard, business just came. Now we work twice as hard for half the money. Things changed and all the stall owners weren’t a family anymore,” says Aisha.
For the daughters on Mint Road, things are changing and everyday life has become a struggle.
“We’re here every day and every evening. My sisters are still in school and I want to be a teacher. Who knows how long we’ll be here,” says Aisha.
It’s not uncommon in migrant economies for children to man stalls.
For these families, it’s all about survival and making it to the end of each month.
They maintain a cheery disposition but business has certainly taken a dive in the last decade. What once were great economic hubs are now plagued by crime and urban decay. On either side of the square, people are closing up shop.
“Business is okay,” says Aisha, unconvincingly.
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<h2>The Last Brothers On Commissioner Street</h2>
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Commissioner Street is the former China Town. As you walk down the deserted street with locked doors and bright red signs, there are two shops at the end. The Pon family has run a supermarket for 73 years and a firework shop for 20. The brothers, Walter and King, work across the road from each other. For a fleeting moment, until a taxi blasting the latest Cassper Nyovest song zooms by, you’re transported out of Johannesburg.
You’re in Mainland China adorned with Chinese lanterns, families chatting in fast-paced Mandarin, aisles lined with noodles and dried oyster mushrooms, and shelves stacked with fireworks and laughing Buddhas.
Steel bars cover the windows and security guards man the doors.
One ring of the bell gets you past the first gate, another ring gets you past the second. But the business’ longevity is a big question mark.
“I’m the oldest man to live and work here,” says Walter Pon with a cheeky smile. In its peak days, Chinatown was bustling. Births, deaths and everything in between would be discussed over jasmine tea and prawn crackers. Shops would stay open long into the evening before the men would retreat upstairs to play poker into the wee hours.
“We were the biggest gamblers. We would start these gambling joints every night and play until we were called to bed. Everything was here with some Chinese muti [medicine] for luck,” says Walter.
In the throes of apartheid, the Chinese were in no man’s land.
“Not black enough, not white enough, we were in limbo,” says Walter.
The Group Areas Act passed by the apartheid government in 1950 placed different racial groups in certain residential and business areas. With a tiny population of 10,000, the act didn’t account for the Chinese.
“The Chinese were in small numbers so they didn’t know where to send us. Landlords wouldn’t rent to us so we would get white nominees to rent the shops and we would work for them,” says Walter.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the economy opened up for the Chinese and they were allowed to buy property.
“Apartheid did a lot of damage to the country but what it did was hold the Chinese together,” says Walter.
At the helm of the brothers’ stores is their 103-year-old mother, Shue Chee Pon, who rules with an iron fist and keeps a watchful eye on Walter, 76, and King, 66. Her picture lies above their desks and she checks in with her sons every morning.
They’re the last of their family on Commissioner Street but they have an impressive track record. They boast big names like Winnie Mandela and Jessie Duarte as regulars.
“My kids left. Getting degrees, going overseas – that’s how you make your money now. My mother phones me and asks me ‘who’s going to take over’ and the truth is that there is nobody,” says Walter.
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<h2>The Little Coffee Shop In Little Mogadishu</h2>
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Further up from Johannesburg’s CBD towards Mayfair, a once predominantly Indian area, a new economy is just beginning to take shape.
The women man the stalls, taking time out to chat amongst themselves or to kneel on mats and recite from the Holy Quran. Questions are met with cold stares unless you’re asking for the price of their goods. Rows of shawls and handicrafts are stacked alongside traditional garments in every color with bejeweled scarves to match.
Just past the Shoprite supermarket is Little Mogadishu, three roads of Somali-owned shops and flats. It’s late on a Saturday afternoon and the azan, the call to mosque, fills the air as people hastily finish the rest of their coffee before rushing to pray.
The men convene daily over coffee at Ebrahim Ali’s Qaxwo Coffee Shop. His shop is named after the Somali word for coffee. Heated discussions about sport are conducted in Arabic and Somali over steaming cups of the dark and bitter qaxwo and sickly-sweet coconut biscuits.
In 1991, the Somali central government collapsed when the capital Mogadishu was captured by the rival militia. A power battle began, plunging the country into a 20-year civil war. More than half a million Somalis were forced to leave their country and live as refugees in others.
The Ali brothers ran a panel-beating business in Kismaayo in Somalia. When the civil war hit, they fled to Tanzania.
“I came through the border 16 years ago. My brother and I left Tanzania for a better life when Somalis were being attacked,” says Ali.
With a large local Muslim population and a human rights-based constitution, South Africa seemed like the best option.
“Somalis came here three times. First there was a small community of 400, then more came in 1992 and the rest of us came in 2000,” says Ali.
There are now around 80,000 Somalis in South Africa. It took the brothers four years to get their panel-beating business off the ground again. Although they had made Johannesburg their home, the spate of xenophobic attacks in 2008 hit hard.
Early on a Monday morning that year, Ali returned to his workshop and found everything still locked up.
Frantically, he banged on his brother’s door. There was no reply. When he eventually broke through, he found his brother’s body. He had been strangled and the business looted. With a loss of $57,500 and a heavy heart, he walked away and laid charges against a homeless community who lived near the building.
“Eight years later, the case is still pending. I’m still waiting,” says Ali.
Ali decided to start over but opening another panel-beating shop proved too expensive on his own. Instead, he started small, selling one flask of coffee every morning on the side of the road.
“People were coming here just for my coffee. One flask turned into a big shop,” says Ali. His shop is an ode to Somalia. The walls are covered in traditional artefacts and Somali shillings. Business is a struggle but Ali keeps reminders of home close.
“You must never forget the path you’ve walked,” he says.

Refugee-economy-077

The  Migrant Mile

It is the faint whiff of tobacco that turns your head as you walk through Cape Town&#8217;s cobbled Greenmarket Square. All around are tourists with coffee in hand and people talking business in sidewalk bars. Everything you can see is like modern cosmopolitan to the cries of hawkers selling African art under canvas.
Here among the new, you will find – amid clouds of smoke – the ancient, in terms of African shops.
Sturk&#8217;s Tobacconists opened its doors in Greenmarket Square on August 1, 1793, and hasn&#8217;t closed them. The business seems durable to say the least. In recent times #FeesMustFall students fought pitched battles near the doorstep of Sturk&#8217;s – even then it did not close its doors.
This 223-year-old store, which is older than the Louvre in Paris by nine days, is now owned by Alan Phillips, a former customer and bartender from Benoni in Johannesburg.
&#8220;Smoking a pipe isn&#8217;t something you just pick up and smoke and enjoy. There is a process. It&#8217;s not for everybody. The pipe bug hit and then I became a client of Sturk&#8217;s,&#8221; says Phillips, leaning on the store’s hardwood counter.
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Phillips is not just the owner, he is also a student of the history of the store. The likes of Cape governors and even at one time Winston Churchill visited it.
&#8220;Originally the entire building was [Hendrick] Sturk&#8217;s. He was a general dealer. At that stage the Cape governor&#8217;s house is where the South African Museum in Company&#8217;s Garden is. This was the CBD, it&#8217;s where everything happened. This square is where you bought your vegetables.&#8221;
Inside are relics that tell the passage of time. Phillips weighs his blended pipe tobacco on the company&#8217;s 200-year-old scale. Around him are ceramic pots that have also survived a couple of wars. Sitting next to them are vials of tobacco flavorant gathering dust in the rafters. Even World War II posters, found in a bunker in France, were brought here to add to the flavor of another time.
&#8220;Look, we&#8217;re a specialty shop. You can buy cigarettes pretty much anywhere, the street vendor the grocer, wherever.  Tobacco is our bread and butter. We blend it ourselves. When I talk about a niche business, you cannot buy a blend we produce anywhere other than where we are sitting now. We do cigarette shag and pipe tobacco blended to our own specifications, through age-old recipes.&#8221;
The sweet scent of tobacco may have layered onto these walls over two centuries, but in the uncertain 21st century the store is suffering hard times.
&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to pinpoint the exact cause. 2015 and 2016 have not been good years. The three main factors are new smoking laws, global economics and South Africa visa laws which affected us severely.&#8221;
Ten years ago, Sturk&#8217;s would sell an average of at least 80 kilograms of tobacco blend a month. By 2011, it was 70 kilograms. These days, Phillips sells 50 kilograms.
The tobacco industry has taken a huge knock globally as tighter health restrictions have been imposed. In 2013, Phillips says the South African Department of Health cracked down on smoking laws. These included store owners using designated smoking shelf zones, restrictions on advertising, and higher taxes.
Phillips&#8217; main worry is a pending amendment which, if enforced, could reduce his shelf space to a mere four square meters.
&#8220;This business sells tobacco related items only. Four square meters is going to be a problem. I cannot fit a thousand stock units in four square meters, it&#8217;s absolutely impossible.&#8221;
&#8220;I can understand the Department of Health&#8217;s point of view, it&#8217;s for health reasons. But the revenue generated through tobacco tax is huge,&#8221; he says.
Coupled with tighter laws is a decrease in tourists and a grinding South African economy.
&#8220;Although, the business can&#8217;t count on the tourism factor, as we recently found out with the visa debacle that was happening with the unabridged birth certificates, it knocked down tourism figures significantly, and our business.&#8221;
On this morning, a number of curious customers trickle in. Phillips gets up to weigh out a 50-gram pack of his tobacco blend which sells for R55 ($4) to a pipe smoker. Another customer gets his lighter filled at no charge.
&#8220;I generally buy loose tobacco in five-kilogram bundles which we then blend and repack. I try to keep cigarette turnover under 20% of total. The margins on cigarettes are very low,&#8221; he says.
Opposite the counter is Phillips’ pride and joy, an assortment of smoking pipes, hanging in fluorescent light for all to see.
&#8220;What you see here, hasn&#8217;t been purchased quickly to give a look to the shop. This is the way the shop has always looked. I&#8217;m sitting on around 150, I haven&#8217;t bothered to count in the last year or two,&#8221; he says.
Some of the pieces in Phillips&#8217; collection can cost as much as R3,000 ($225). The collection may not be up for sale, but Phillips does sell high-end pipes on the rare occasion. His biggest sale was an order for a Dunhill Christmas pipe for R9,000 ($670).
&#8220;[Pipe smoking is] exclusive, you don&#8217;t see many men with pipes, you hardly see any women with pipes. The options of the tobacco are almost endless. There is a difference in aromas, in flavors and one can blend to ones heart&#8217;s content to make something bespoke for you.&#8221;
Phillips holds a favorite from his collection. The South African-made pipe has a long stem – called a lovat – that has been rusticated in a well-known Italian Castello style.
&#8220;New, this guy would retail at R3,000. Which one would think is rather a lot of money, but considering the cost of the material and the time required to produce a pipe like this, it means the pipe maker is only earning about R100 an hour. Which is not fair on the pipe maker, but it is what it is.&#8221;
As it becomes more difficult to sell his wares, Phillips is doing the best he can to swim with his head above water.
&#8220;Talking about adaptation though, we&#8217;ve supplemented the decline in volume with newer smokeless products like snus and vaping.&#8221;
As the discussion finishes he gets up from the counter and adds: &#8220;Survival is about adaption, you see.&#8221;
Survival is going to be as tough as being a smoker in urban Africa.

The 200-Year-Old  Business That Could  Go Up In Smoke

The respected Kenyan scholar Ali Al’amin Mazrui would have had interesting things to say about Africa’s current dalliance with Asia, especially the rise of Chinese business interests and influence across the continent.
Increasingly, companies from Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea have also been boosting their national GDPs with Africa-based projects. According to Linklaters, a commercial law firm, Asian-sponsored project finance funds in Africa grew by over 160% during the last decade, with Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo the leading destinations for these commitments, which were in excess of $12 billion.
Mazrui would have advanced a quaint thesis for re-balancing Africa’s trade, cultural and diplomatic ties with Asia’s power blocs. He would have been especially aggrieved by the current state of inertia in the political economy of Africa’s most populous nation. A pan-Africanist and student of Nigerian affairs (his wife Pauline Uti, mother of two of his five sons, is Nigerian), the late professor is credited with stating way back in the 1970s that, “Africa produces what it does not consume and consumes what it does not produce.” And those were the early days of continental profligacy.
Nigeria could be Africa’s biggest culprit in this regard. The country is consequently experiencing its first recession in 30 years. Tired of waiting for the promised hope of a better nation, Nigerians now, rightly or not, accuse their current leader of bringing Africa’s largest economy by GDP to its knees.
President Muhammadu Buhari has been blamed for not ‘radicalizing governance’ fast enough, which was one of the reasons Nigerians voted for his All Progressives Congress (APC) party in 2015. Nigeria is engulfed in a torrent of crises never before seen in the history of the nation.
Clearing the cobwebs of the past is proving to be a delicate dilemma for the taciturn president and his team. Grappling with sluggish growth, dwindling external revenues, double-digit inflation and a prolonged currency constipation, he is leading the ethical campaign to wrestle with the seen and unseen forces of corruption and ineptitude. His seeming preference for advisers from his northern base is also being openly examined by civil society.
For Nigeria’s sake, Buhari needs to win the war against graft and impunity. His victory will begin to recreate a new nation, sealing his place in history and in the soft spot of a large-hearted nation.
But, can he do what is required to transform the ethos of governance, business and society? Will “the Nigerian system” allow him?
Will confirmed and well connected crooks go to jail? Will reportedly recovered looted funds be reinjected into the treasury? Will massive recovery of this commonwealth mean less recourse to external loans? Will the judiciary invoke its constitutional principles on its own stables? Will the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) ever successfully convict any person of influence?
Will federal and state legislatures reduce their allowances and salaries in tandem with the austere times? Do we need a referendum on their astronomical salaries? Will the Nigerian state significantly increase investment in education, healthcare and the police, using advanced technology tools and techniques to revamp these ecosystems? And when will politics with principles become the order of the day?
These are the sort of questions Nigerians are asking themselves. But they also realize their quest for jobs, stability and development is hobbled by a subculture of guile and graft.
Teaching at Uganda’s Makerere University between 1963 and 1973, the late Mazrui was known for poking fun at the megalomania of Africa’s fat-cat leaders and speaking truth to power. Naturally, Idi Amin disliked him a lot. He was also not able to get a job in any Kenyan university during the regimes of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi. Were Mazrui alive today, he would have also queried the absence of truth and the dearth of altruism in the politics of modern Nigeria.
Mazrui would have encouraged Nigeria’s business, political and military intelligentsia to openly discourse their festering sores. He would have prayed for peace, unity of purpose and nation-wide reflection. He would have said hope should never be allowed to get into a cul-de-sac.
So will 2017 be the year Nigeria begins to recalibrate its moral compass? Nigeria desperately needs to lead Africa out of the nadir of homegrown frustrations.

Quest For A New Nation

It is a tragedy that business opportunities are missed because entrepreneurs overanalyse risk factors. This is the very reason businesses grow at a slow pace, while others are phased out.
I’m not encouraging ignorance; I’m just disappointed by entrepreneurs blinded by small details rather than being decisive.
The same applies to investors who, thinking they knew too much, did not invest in Uber when their founders approached them.
In an ever-changing world, you can’t make decisions that are only informed by the past. Rather than dismissing what you don’t yet understand, consult those who do to help you make an informed decision.
A gigantic problem faced by most of us entrepreneurs at some point in our businesses is analysis paralysis. Basically, it is over-analysing, or overthinking, an opportunity. It often results in a decision not being taken, and can lead to your business underperforming.
Analysis paralysis is worse than red tape. With analysis paralysis, things don’t move slowly, rather not at all. Decision makers are paralysed by their inability to make a decision, afraid of what could or could not come to pass. Ultimately, not deciding is the same as deciding against.
As an entrepreneur, you have probably dealt with corporate clients and stakeholders. This disease is within their structures, whether it is the personnel dealing with your proposition not being entrepreneurial in their approach, or the committee under-evaluating your proposal.
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<li>Harv Eker, the author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, says it better: “One step in the right direction is worth 100 years of thinking about it.”</li>
</ol>
One of the reasons Nokia went down the way it did, after a decade of leading the mobile sector, was due to analysis paralysis creeping as the company was getting complacent. Around 2006, Nokia was more concerned with staying where it was, instead of pursuing new opportunities.
It’s not as if Nokia wasn’t working on new stuff, they just lacked a sense of urgency. Developing cutting-edge new products was put on the backburner. Former employees observed that Nokia’s operating system team split into two and started to battle for the attention of top executives, resulting in internal politics. In 2008, Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, also voiced concern that Nokia devoted too much time to strategy.
From one decade to another, we have seen how the mighty have fallen. Now we are aware of the danger of analysis paralysis.
Entrepreneurs can learn a thing or two from a married couple. A husband comes back from few meetings, excited about a business opportunity. He tells his wife that the family’s finance could improve, but, because the wife was not in the meeting, she will do the responsible thing of interrogating the validity of the offer.
Often, with many businesses, these opportunities are not discussed and considered in the same manner. This should be compared to the processes at successful start-ups. Here the co-founders will debate the merits of each deal.
There is a danger of approving every offer that is made; it will likely end up in bankruptcy. I’m an advocate of being cautiously optimistic.
In a competitive business environment, analysis paralysis is the worst thing that can be allowed to emerge; it is a culture that needs to be kicked out of the system.
No matter how big a company becomes, it need to maintain an entrepreneurial approach. Don’t become a big truck that turns around after driving two blocks down the road.

Optimism  Is Better Than  Paralysis

They say ideas can strike at any moment. For South African Robyn Smith it was a London beauty store that inspired her to start a R41–million ($3-million) online African business.
“I was looking to buy a night cream for myself. I’ve got a background in marketing, so I didn’t want to be duped into buying the best creative agency advertising it; I wanted to buy the best product.”
“It was the first time I started looking at the ingredients’ list to find that the ‘natural night creams’ that I was picking up didn’t have a single botanical name in the listing. Some didn’t even have ingredient lists.”
So Smith founded her own, called Faithful to Nature, a South African online health shop. It sells anything from lipstick and underwear to spices and chocolates; so long as they are natural, organic and ethically sound.
“When you’ve got an infant industry like this it’s frustrating on the one hand because you are dealing with so many teething issues and on the other it’s exciting because there is so much opportunity,” she says.
Few people would have heard about ethical consumerism when Smith started her business. But, eco-friendly alternatives are on the rise.
“When I started in 2007, there was this misnomer that if a product contained aloe vera it was natural and organic. It didn’t matter what it was preserved with. There was a completely wrong idea on what actually constituted a natural organic product.
“When I got back to South African soil, and started looking for natural and organic stuff on the shelf, I realized there was no structure to the industry at all.”
Right up until 2012, Smith felt like she was chasing shadows, she calls them pink fluffy clouds. She was R2.5 million ($184,000) in debt; experts told her to run for the hills. She also faced divorce.
“When we got divorced, I had a 16-month-old baby, I didn’t own a car, I didn’t own a house, I had a business that was millions of rand in debt. My family couldn’t financially back me. My parents actually took a R500,000 ($37,000) mortgage on the house to keep the business going.”
“I didn’t have a choice but to turn the business into a profitable enterprise.”
Now, Smith is reaping the rewards of hundreds of hours spent scrutinizing the ingredient labels on products and ignoring the naysayers.
“I believe in 10 years, it’s going to be, you go and buy me a shaving cream and it will be organic, it’s a no-brainer. Once you start using natural organic products, you can’t go back.”
Smith’s ticket to success has been strict quality control. If new research shows that a product isn’t safe, she has to be brave enough to take it off the shelf, even if it’s a best-seller.
“I always had a very strong ethical compass. Even at school, I was always getting into trouble for being outspoken on the right thing. It didn’t necessarily make me quite popular,” says Smith.
“Ingredient integrity isn’t a static product. As more interest grows, more research is done on it.”
Smith’s warehouse can take 400 orders per day and delivers across the country. So determined is she to keep the company environmentally friendly, she reuses packaging from suppliers for her own customers.
“You can imagine; there is a huge amount of packaging coming into the business. Sometimes we will send out an order in a box that was actually used to bring in stock. So, it isn’t this beautifully branded Faithful to Nature box, but it’s the right thing to do. On the box we will write ‘reused box, please recycle me because I want to be in a bag next time’.”
With stock lining the rafters of her warehouse, and packages going out by the truckload, Smith is going to be a busy bee, the naturalists would be happy to let her buzz.

Robyn-Smith_JC-2-of-5

Back To Nature: Why Even Lipstick And Shaving Cream Should Be Organic

Kgomotso Moalusi starts her morning routine by meticulously laying out her pre-planned business outfit.
If need be, she’ll give her blouse a quick iron before starting her hour-long grooming regimen with a shower. She matches her attire with a timeless leather handbag, applies make-up, chooses her accessories and finishes off the look with a bold pair of red heels.
“It’s a lot to maintain,” says Moalusi, a 33-year-old Business Director at Vuma Reputation Management in Johannesburg, but this detailed ensemble is the bare minimum to be a professional in corporate South Africa.
From corporate clothing to being well-groomed, you need to look the part in a white-collar environment, and pay for it, which, for the sake of this article, we could call ‘the businesswoman tax’.
It’s a tax women pay in many ways, from the wage gap to pricey toiletries and the luxury tax on tampons. Added to this is the need to manage stress in a high-pressure work environment, and often the expenses of hiring staff to look after the family while working nine to five, and traveling the world.
The consequences of these multi-layered, subtle and institutionalized penalties are manifold – and most have a real and measurable financial burden on South Africa’s businesswomen and professionals.
Nicole Davidson feels the seemingly superficial – but very real – pressure of dressing appropriately as an attorney and director at the firm, MED Attorneys.
“There’s an expectation on female professionals to look and dress a certain way, especially in court, where one is limited to black and white attire,” she says. “Even our skirts have to be a certain length, but I tend to blur the lines and am quite bold with color.”
Moalusi agrees: “A full corporate wardrobe is a lot to maintain.”
Every item, from underwear to coats, needs to look neat and professional – and this includes accessorizing too. Handbags, shoes, and jewelry all form part of the businesswoman’s wardrobe.
Ann Pierce, founder of PhotoFeeler, a site that crowdsources first impressions from LinkedIn photos, writes in xoJane: “As they stand, I would define the ambiguous rules of traditional professional dress for women this way: a woman must wear a version of the popular menswear (1), and it must fit her in a way that is feminine (2), without being sexually appealing (3).”
An outfit, indeed, can say a lot and dressing appropriately is a tricky and expensive minefield to navigate.
“You’re a brand wherever you go,” says image consultant Maureen Grobler, who dresses a range of professionals, from those cutting corners to senior management executives at FNB in South Africa.
“The impressions you give from your outfit, poise, and most especially your grooming are all used to categorize you,” she adds, and all play a part in putting you on or holding you back from the career track.
Comparatively, corporate men have quite a basic look; owning three suits – black, navy and grey – is enough variety.
Writes Pierce: “Menswear is neutral. ‘No-fail’ work choices such as suit jackets, button-downs, and polo shirts all look and fit the same.”
Moalusi finds she needs much more basic clothing, plus accessories like scarves, to give her look variety.
“If a woman repeats an outfit too often, that just doesn’t fly,” she says, “But a guy can wear the same navy suit all week and no one will know the difference.”
She has enough clothes to mix, match, tweak and accessorize so an outfit isn’t repeated in a three-week cycle.
“It’s quite challenging to put together a full corporate wardrobe,” she says. “The ‘businesswoman tax’ puts you under huge pressure. I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I didn’t look the way I do.”
A savvy tactic, in the long run, is to invest in some timeless pieces. For example, instead of buying a variety of ‘plastic’ handbags that peel, Grobler recommends buying a leather handbag that has serious longevity, and high quality shoes of a similar nature.
“Not all women can afford this ‘businesswoman tax’,” says Grobler.
Davidson, for this reason, buys statement pieces, like locally-made Missibaba handbags that range in price from R3,500 ($260) to R9,250 ($687) for a tote.
A professional look is complete with the right shoes – and most women spend a small fortune on them. As Pierce explains in xoJane, “Wearing flats is often seen as sloppy and unprofessional for a woman, despite the fact that she is better able to physically function this way. At least a small heel is required to denote formality, but a too-high heel can become defamatory.”
On top of all this, there’s the need to be immaculately groomed. From hair (dyed, natural, straightened or braided) to toes (perfectly gelish-ed), there’s a cost every inch of the way.
Women who wear makeup are generally seen as more competent – and the reverse if she wears too much.
According to comparisons done by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, male and female versions of the same toiletry products vary significantly in price: out of the 800 examined, female products cost 7% more on average.
The tax on tampons is an additional financial burden. Whereas items like condoms are subsidized by the government, tampons and sanitary pads have a 14% price hike.
Though not the case for all professionals, many have to juggle children and family responsibilities too. Davidson says she depends on a full-time nanny to assist with her little ones, and that many of her friends with older children need stay-at-home help, and an au-pair to fetch the older children from school.
The Working Mothers Expo, launching from 4-6 November at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, uses the hashtag #TheJuggleIsReal; many working mothers feel significant pressure in maintaining a home and their work place to full capacity. A less measurable burden is the anxiety.
“The culture expectations of women are mirrored in the workplace,” says Johannesburg-based clinical psychologist Richard Middleton, who sees a fair amount of female executives in his offices.
“Women tend to be raised in a certain way, and a lot of women are expected to bear the emotional burden in the workplace and home, and take responsibility often without complaining or asking for help. This growing workload is unsustainable and inevitably when there’s burnout a lot of women feel guilty for not being able to handle this.”
Then there is the constant, oppressive burden of the wage gap. Dr Mark Bussin, Executive Committee Member at the South African Reward Association (SARA) and Chairperson, 21st Century Pay Solutions, works with a management consulting company that surveyed 700 companies and over 900 positions.
“Based on this huge database, we discovered that there’s a 15% average wage gap based on the median salary,” he says. Though this 15% is pretty consistent globally, South Africa is making real progress combating this with the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.
The ‘businesswoman tax’ is insidious, and ripples through every aspect of the corporate woman’s life, holding long-term repercussions from paying back student debt to saving for retirement, paying off investments like property, and more. The combination of a lower salary with higher overall expenses and high expectations – being the immaculately-dressed professional and the perfect mother and partner – leads to emotional stress and burnout. Hopefully, awareness and governmental intervention, like the Equality Act, will continue making inroads into these inequalities.

Tag: Business

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