For most of 2014, Thuli Madonsela’s name has been kicked around the political scene like a tin can.
The fight between her and the South African government is all about Nkandla – the private home of South African President Jacob Zuma that sits on a vast tract of land. It cost over R200 million ($18 million) of, supposedly, taxpayers’ money to renovate. The president claims to have taken out an R800,000 ($71,000) loan for the purposes of the renovations. Besides the thatched huts built for his family and the beautiful landscape of the KwaZulu-Natal province, its best feature, by far, is what has become known as the ‘fire pool’. It has been explained away by his spin doctors, for it is not a recreational swimming pool but a water reservoir in case of fire.
Who would be bold enough to investigate these allegations against the head of state? That woman is public protector Madonsela.
“I don’t see it as me versus the government, it’s my team versus maladministration. For any government, if they want to govern in perpetuity, maladministration is an enemy because your ability to govern, or the authority people give you to govern, is withdrawn one piece at a time if there is maladministration,” she says.
The investigation began in December 2011 when a citizen lodged a complaint to the public protector’s office regarding how the country was spending its money. A few months later, another citizen lodged a complaint against the president, under the Executive Members’ Ethics Act, accusing him of using money he was not entitled to. Madonsela had 30 days to respond.
“Firstly, when the complaint was made, I didn’t think that it was going against the president because procurement is not a presidential matter. So at no stage did I think there would be any direct involvement with the president.”
The public protector’s office compiled information from the ministers, some of whom were also under investigation. The investigation team began asking harder questions, which raised a few red flags.
“The minister of police said he was going to give us information, so we were expecting it. Then he said when he comes back from his honeymoon, he will give us the necessary information. When he came back he wrote us a letter saying that he doesn’t understand why we were doing this investigation because as ministers they have everything under control and they are investigating [the matter].”
“In reality most of the cases that take our time on a day-to-day basis are from ordinary people, who are just grappling with being denied one or another service. Usually people who are struggling with an ID or permanent residence, people who are struggling with a grant and also people who have been unfairly treated in employment situations in government and who can’t go to the CCMA, or can’t go to the public service commission, or who would go to those but the service processes take forever.”
The frenzy has thrust Madonsela in the public eye. Many people expect her to be a loud and aggressive woman.
“Some man once saw me and he seemed almost disappointed in meeting me, we were doing a walk about the mall and he said to me, ‘Oh aunty you’re just a little girl, I thought you were taller.’ Then I said to my team, ‘He always made me feel guilty that I’m not taller,’” she laughs.
In her spare time, when she’s not flexing her muscles, she enjoys reading magazines and listening to classical music. At home, she jokingly admits, her children often remind her that she is not the ‘PP’, but simply mom.
“I think other people fear for my family more than I do. My view on it, and this is the view my team takes, is that if anyone wanted to do anything wrong to me they would have done it at the early stages of this investigation. You don’t let the investigation complete and then you want to do something to someone because what would that achieve?”
After her term in office, Madonsela has set her sights on writing.
“When I finish, for a year or two, I would like to focus on writing, writing about the potential of this office [of the public protector], not just for South Africa, but for Africa and the world. It has enormous potential, but it’s not fully known, understood and exploited because it’s an office that has potential for transformative work.”

The Tiger On The President’s Back

Aliko Dangote is an Africapitalist who has been nominated for FORBES AFRICA’s Person of the Year every year since 2011 and now he has won. The $21.6-billion entrepreneur believes in Africa forging its own future in business and is leading the way.
Heralded by some as the face of the new Nigeria, Africa’s richest man is looking beyond cement, sugar and flour – the three commodities that built his fortune – to the oil business. In April, he announced $9 billion in financing from a consortium of local and international lenders to construct a private oil refinery and fertilizer and petrochemical complex in the country. In August, he announced plans to invest $1 billion in commercial rice farming and modern rice mills. His publicly traded Dangote Cement is also grabbing new markets in Africa, with $750 million in new plants planned for Kenya and Niger.
Dangote is also cementing his position as the continent’s most generous individual after donating $1.2 billion of his personal fortune to the Dangote Foundation.
In 2014, shares from his listed companies were transferred into the foundation, which he founded in 1994 to support initiatives in education, health and youth empowerment.
The Dangote Foundation runs a cash transfer program which complements the Nigerian government’s poverty alleviation programs. It disburses small grants to poor rural women and youths who want to start small businesses. The foundation also funds the construction of university libraries and hospitals across Nigeria.
This year, Dangote also led the way in funding the fight against Ebola in West Africa. He first gave $5 million to the Nigerian government’s containment efforts and then added a further $3 million to the African Union fund to help Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Dangote made his first fortune more than three decades ago when he started trading commodities with a loan from his powerful uncle. An aggressive industrialist, his company is one of the largest employers in Nigeria and has four of its 13 subsidiaries listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
The flagship of the group, Dangote Cement, is the largest listed company in West Africa, accounting for around 30% of the NSE in terms of market capitalization. It is also the first Nigerian company to be on the Forbes Global 2000 companies list.
In 2012, Dangote Cement opened its newest cement plant, with an injection of $1 billion to boost Nigeria’s capacity by 10 million metric tons per annum (MMTPA). Strategically positioned at Nigeria’s largest economic hub in Ibese, near Lagos, the plant was expected to generate 7,000 jobs and transform the import-reliant sector into an export and revenue-generating industry.
As infrastructure has always been Nigeria’s weakness, Dangote announced in April that he was planning a $7-billion investment program for the next four years. It will focus on Nigeria’s power, petrochemical and mining sectors – a move set to position the company as an independent power producer that will supply 2GW of power to the national grid.
In 2013, the Dangote Group signed a $3.3-billion loan agreement with a consortium of banks. This was in line with plans to construct the continent’s biggest petroleum oil refinery and a petrochemical plant in Nigeria. With the refining capacity expected to reach 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day and producing a variety of fuel products from local crude resources, Nigeria would cut its volumes of imported fuel products by an astounding 50%.
In the same year, the Dangote Group launched the integrated mega sugar plantation and sugar refinery projects in seven Nigerian states.
“Our mission is to, through industrialization, reverse the historical trend of the export of foreign exchange and jobs and replace it with foreign exchange conservation and job creation,” said Dangote at the loan signing ceremony in Abuja.
FORBES AFRICA applauds his relentless drive, aggressive ambition and contribution to the continent’s economic trajectory.
<h4>What The Judges Say 
Aliko Dangote is a lion of Africa in terms of business. He is second to none when it comes to investing in Africa, not just Nigeria. He is also a capitalist with a big heart. He puts his money where his mouth is and his foundation is a step forward for a man who wants to make a difference on 
the continent.</h4>

Tag: December 2014

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Tiger On The President’s Back

The Lion Of Africa