On January 1, 1914, British colonial administrator Lord Frederick Lugard proclaimed the union of the northern and southern protectorates of Nigeria, a single entity known as the colony and protectorate of Nigeria. Until then, both protectorates had separate capitals and budgets. The merger was, in the words of Lord Lugard, for the moral and material advancement of Nigeria as a whole. A century later the Nigerian government is preparing to celebrate the anniversary. On February 4, at the presidential Villa in Abuja, a year of commemorative events was launched. It was a gathering of the powerful men: all but two of Nigeria’s living, former heads of state were there; along with state governors and senior government officials.
An army band played as President Goodluck Jonathan lit the centenary torch. Then a documentary took the audience on a journey through Nigerian history. It told the story of the ancient civilizations that lived in what is today known as Nigeria: the 8,000-year-old Dufuna canoe, which was discovered in Borno State in 1987; the Igbo-Ukwu and Bini civilizations; the heroic exploits of icons like Queen Amina, King Jaja of Opobo, Nana Olomu, Ekumeku, and Oba Ovonramwen of Benin.
The documentary also spoke of key players in the colonial enterprise, the likes of Lord Lugard, businessman Sir George Taubman Goldie—after whom the conquered land was almost named—journalist Flora Shaw, who first suggested the name ‘Nigeria’ and married Lord Lugard. At no point did the documentary shy away from presenting the cruel and sobering reality of colonialism and the slave trade. There were stories of other Nigerian heroes onscreen: Olaudah Equiano, the former Igbo slave, who was captured as a child and transported to the West Indies. He bought his freedom and settled in Britain where he campaigned against the slave trade; Sarah Forbes Bonetta, also a former Yoruba slave who became Queen Victoria’s goddaughter; Nathaniel King, Nigeria’s first medical doctor; Christopher Sapara Williams, the first Nigerian lawyer; Oreoluwa Green, the first female Nigerian pharmacist; Herbert Macaulay, newspaper publisher and nationalist and Candido da Rocha, one of Nigeria’s first home-grown millionaires. Abubakar Abdullahi is the winner of a national contest to design the centenary logo. The theme song, This Land, written by Onyeka Onwenu, one of Nigeria’s best-known and most accomplished female musicians, was performed by her and a line-up of some of Nigeria’s finest, including Omawumi, Tosin Martins, Zaaki Azzay and J’odie. “Here we are, standing tall, through adversity, we are one, 100 years of unity, Nigeria will stand,” declares the chorus. For Nigeria’s citizens there’s much debate over whether the unification is deserving of celebration, or public funds, as many see it as merely an ill-advised experiment of an imperialist administrator.
On the night, the government pointed out that no public funds will be spent. The ceremony was paid for by a number of Nigeria’s biggest companies. The government insists that the anniversary, provides an opportunity for deep reflection on Nigerian unity.
“The question we must devote time and effort to is: How do we build the foundation of the Nigeria we seek in the next 100 years?” says President Jonathan.
There were sprinklings of this unity on the night. First was the presence of Muhammadu Buhari, runner-up to President Jonathan in the 2011 elections. Following the elections, Buhari challenged the results in court, and his party has been one of the leading voices of the opposition to the Jonathan government. On this day it appeared both—one a northerner, the other a southerner—had set aside their differences. It wasn’t only political opponents who buried the hatchet. The Dangote Group and Ibeto Group—who has traded words in the newspapers for months in a tussle over the cement market—sponsored the celebration side-by-side. The government is projecting that the celebrations will create up to 15,000 jobs, as well as lots of investment opportunities at a forum to be held in Abuja. The Centenary Project is an ambitious one. It will include a brand new 100,000-resident “Centenary City”—covering more than 1,000 hectares, which is to be built within Abuja—a new Abuja City Gate and ‘Unity Squares’ in all 36 state capitals. Monuments that will prove a legacy for the next celebration in 100 ye

A Hundred Years Of  Heroes And Tears

If ever there was a country that could be described as Africa for beginners, Namibia would be a strong contender: a young, but stable, democracy and an open economy in a country blessed with good mineral and natural resources; a robust financial system, good infrastructure and an independent judiciary.
In spite of the relatively small size of the economy, with a Gross Domestic Product of around $12.6 billion, Namibia has been something of a niche destination, especially for mining companies, since achieving independence in 1990. While only the eighth largest producer of diamonds, its production is 90% gem quality and a mainstay of the economy.
The country is also a popular tourism destination and has marketed itself as an up-market holiday for European clients, much like neighboring Botswana. Its fishing industry is considered a world-class resource and is the source of much of Spain’s European whitefish exports.
Over the past two decades, Namibia has recorded respectable economic growth, averaging at 5 to 6% per annum, but it has been slipping of late. According to the latest available figures for the National Accounts for 2011, growth has dropped from 6.6% in 2010 to 4.8% in 2011, largely as result of a slump in the mining sector. Inflation has remained relatively stable, although it is expected to increase from 2011’s 5% to 6.5% this year.
Historically, the mining sector—followed by agriculture, fisheries and tourism—has been the engine of the Namibian economy, with mining’s contribution peaking at 15.9% of GDP in 2008. This was largely due to an unprecedented boom in uranium exploration in 2004-2010, which saw two new uranium mines opening in addition to the 36-year-old RioTinto-owned Rössing Uranium mine.
However, the economic fall-out from the 2008 international financial crises landed in Namibia shortly afterwards as investment flows froze and mining’s share of GDP contracted by a record 45%, as the impact of the February 2011 Fukushima incident pushed uranium prices down to levels where several uranium mining projects had to be shelved. The largest of these, the Chinese-owned Swakop Uranium project, is however still on track to commence production in 2015.
This trend has been offset to some extent by growing interest in the potential for finding off-shore oil and gas deposits along the 1,200 kilometer long Atlantic coastline, which is held to be analogous to the Brazilian geology, that has in recent years yielded impressive oil fields. The Kudu gas field, a modest deposit of 5.7 Tcf, was discovered along the southern coast line in the 1970s, but because of low international prices for this commodity, was never developed due to cost considerations.
A looming, region-wide electricity shortage has however added new impetus to investment in this field, and several oil majors, including Shell and BP, have recently joined forces with Namibian investors to resume the search for the precious commodity. The government announced that it was to push ahead with the development of the Kudu gas field, in order to construct a gas-fired power station that it hopes will renew momentum in the development of other mining projects, as well as take advantage of a regional electricity shortage by selling excess power to neighboring South Africa.
A recovery in zinc and tin prices in the third quarter has seen renewed interest in exploration for these commodities, while continued global insecurity has also seen the revival of several gold-mining projects. There has also been renewed interest from Indian and Chinese investors in hitherto undeveloped iron ore deposits. A planned extension of the local railway network into Botswana to allow it to exploit and export newly discovered coal deposits, via Namibia’s Lüderitz and Walvis Bay harbors, is widely expected to help the mining sector regain its prime position in the local economy.
Namibia, however, is not without its own problems, the most obvious of which is a persistently high unemployment rate, exceeding 51% in 2011, as well as a growing corruption problem in areas of government procurement and related services.
This has brought additional pressures to bear on the ruling South West Africa Peoples Organization (SWAPO), which has been in power since 1990 and is struggling to deal with an internal transition in leadership.
To address the most pressing problem of unemployment, the government has embarked on an expansionary budget over the past three years under the so-called Targeted Intervention Program for Employment and Economic Growth (TIPEEG), a $1.5 billion stimulus program, that the government hopes would create an additional 104,000 new jobs per annum over the next five years.
Results so far have been disappointing in respect of employment creation, largely as a result of government’s insistence on making Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) the key criteria for accessing funding under this program.
This has also impacted on Namibia’s competitiveness: the most recent rankings released by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report showed the country has slipped nine positions to 92nd of 144 countries surveyed.
More worryingly, Namibia slipped 57 points in terms of rankings for the macro-economic environment due to the current high levels of debt—27% of GDP. Ranking of its infrastructure has also slipped by 26 points, which is of major concern to the mining industry.
Some of the concerns are being addressed: harbor facilities are currently being expanded to improve handling of bulk commodities like ore and the expansionary budgetary period is to cease by 2013-14.
As they say, ‘Watch this space’.

Mine Faith

Adam Kahane is worried. The world-renowned facilitator, who helped shape ANC planning at the dawn of South Africa’s transition to democracy, has warned that the state lacks capacity to solve complex problems; that the citizenry is responding with protest and that the government, in return, reacts with brutal repression.
Kahane—a pivotal figure during the Mont Fleur scenarios in 1991 and 1992, that helped to shape South Africa’s democratic and economic thinking—was a central figure four years ago when the Dinokeng Scenario team came together to take stock of where South Africa was and to consider possible futures for the country.
In 2008, along with the Dinokeng team, he warned about a walking apart-scenario for the future of South Africa in which the state becomes weaker and ineffective, and that the disengaged citizenry loses patience and erupts into violence. The state then responds brutally.
Kahane said in an interview with FORBES AFRICA the walking apart-scenario is an apt description of Marikana  where scores of miners were shot dead at a mine owned by multi-national, Lonmin.
It is not a question of the state being weak morally, but its capacity has weakened to deal adequately with the challenges of society, he says.
“Some pockets of the state [are] strong, but on balance, its capacity is not strong enough to deal with the
problems effectively.
“All the scenarios that we discussed at Dinokeng coexist currently in South Africa, but what happened at Marikana, with social groups not getting what they think they deserve and protests erupting, and the state responding violently, makes this a catastrophic walking apart.
“All the mechanisms of solving disputes, between workers and trade unions, between citizens, the police and the state failed. It was a failure of mechanisms for working out disputes.
“Marikana shows that our capacity to work out difficult complex conflicts is degrading. In fact, it was a catastrophic degradation,” says Kahane.
He also warned that South Africans will have to rediscover their extraordinary capacity to work things through, instead of superficially papering things over.
Some observers have called Kahane a critical and pivotal figure in helping to shape South Africa’s economic thinking in the two years prior to the 1994 elections.
Clem Sunter, South Africa’s foremost corporate scenario practitioner, might have had Kahane in mind in January 2010, when he said that Africa had navigated its own transition to democracy and the global recession, “So take a bow, all you who were involved in the Mont Fleur initiative. You may have changed our history at a critical juncture in the fortunes of the world.”
But Kahane denies that his role was ‘pivotal’. He argues a meaningful role is a more apt description and salutes the impact of Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni on the ANC think tank during the Mont Fleur scenario discussions.
The Mont Fleur scenarios team questioned how South Africa’s transition will proceed and whether the country would succeed in taking off.
One of the dark prophecies that the country wanted to avoid, was Icarus, in which a constitutionally unconstrained black government comes to power on a wave of popular support and embarks on a huge and unsustainable public spending program, which crashes
the economy.
Manuel and Mboweni presented the Icarus scenario to the ANC’s leadership team. Icarus was a direct attack on the party’s orthodoxy.
Mont Fleur helped to shift the economic thinking and action of the ANC to avert an economic disaster.
“The post-1994 government had been more conservative and fiscally disciplined in its economic policies than what they were expected to be. Mont Fleur had a broad impact on the specific question to what constitutes a sustainable economic policy,” says Kahane.
“Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni had created the scenario and understood inside out what it meant. So I would not take personal credit [for shaping the ANC’s economic thinking], but Mont Fleur [had] made a useful contribution,” he says.
Asked whether the vibrant and vigorous debate about the nationalization of the mines presented a possible return in the ANC engine-room to socialist thinking, Kahane said one must understand the global debate about the matter.
“Not only in South Africa, but globally, the faith in markets and in the current form of capitalism that we had in the late 1980s and the 1990s has been eroded substantially. The SA government is trying to figure out what is the best way to get the social and economic results we want. In 1992, during the Mont Fleur scenarios, [the faith in capitalism] was much more credible that it is now.
“Globally there is a reopening of the question on sustainable economic models. In South Africa there are specific challenges about the extremely poor and about economic inequality which has worsened in a certain way since 1994.”
Kahane said the economic debates in South Africa are not entirely a parochial matter, but are vigorously debated elsewhere.
When Kahane and the Dinokeng-team debated possible options for the future, the most positive one was ‘Walking Together’. This tells the story of a state that becomes increasingly collaborative, listens to its citizens and leaders from different sectors and engages with critical voices.
When asked how South Africa can produce the Walk Together option, Kahane said changes by government won’t necessarily fulfill the ‘Walk Together’ scenario.
“The citizenry must increasingly stand up and say: this is what we need, think and what we want. The government might then readily or grudgingly respond to these voices.
“I think it is important that ‘Walk Together’ is driven by the citizens, and not by the state. The state will always generally have a tendency of saying, ‘We will take care of this, why don’t you keep quiet and let us do the job’. It is an error to wait for the state. The citizenry must push the country and state into walk together,” he says.
Although the drive by the citizens should not be a violent one, it is not necessarily a calm phenomenon. People will shout and push and shove, there might even be a cacophony of voices that must be tolerated in order to move to a ‘Walk Together’ scenario.
The mechanisms, cultures or institutions that allow conflicts to be addressed, even noisily, is sadly absent, he notes.
Kahane not only nudged South Africa towards a peaceful resolution, or helped post-dictatorship Guatemala move beyond the longest civil war in the history of the Americas. He and Reos Partners, of whom he is a director, have also been involved, intimately, in Zimbabwe with scenario planning and have released a document called The Great Zimbabwe Scenarios Project. They are also involved in Southern and Northern Sudan, in Europe, America and Australia.
A man equipped with such enormous insights and the author of the recently published book Transformative Scenario Planning: Working together to change the future, Kahane could offer some advice on how to arrest the current malaise in South African society, the hardening of the stance between government and some sections of society.
And Kahane says the possible answer lies in the excavation, the rediscovery of the capacity for dialogue and for collaborative action in South Africa.
“I have learned my craft in South Africa. South Africans have an extraordinary capacity to work things through. This existing capacity must be un-buried,” he says.
“We are always in a seesaw between walking together and walking apart. We are in a phase now where trust is low, polarization is high. It is about protecting myself and my people. It leads to walking apart.”
“Perhaps combinations were made that [were] superficial. Perhaps real economic, cultural or political differences were papered over. I said in a previous book of mine that love without power that papers over differences, is sentimental
and endemic.”
Kahane said the current situation might require a deeper capacity for engagement in which society and the state deal with difficult unresolved issues.
“A superficial coming together is inadequate. Difficult work is needed. We need to look at conflicts squarely and not pretend they are not there. We might be more wounded than we think we are, for untreated wounds are dangerous,” says Kahane.

Whither The Free Market

Since its return to democracy in 1999 with the election of Olusegun Obasanjo, successive administrations, that have led this West African giant, embarked on a series of economic reforms that aim to increase the role of the private sector in the process of economic development. The current administration, headed by the fedora-wearing President Goodluck Jonathan, has made the reform of the country’s power sector the anchor program in its “transformation agenda”. The power sector reform program aims to substitute the hitherto government-controlled model—which is widely agreed to be one of the greatest impediments to its development—with a wholesale competition model that is private sector driven. Power supply in Nigeria is abysmally low, leading most households and businesses to rely on power generators and other alternatives to supplement the shortfall in supply from the public grid. At present, Nigeria generates around 4,000MW for its population of more than 160 million. The ambitious plan for power generation as contained in its Vision 20: 2020 national development blueprint, is a tenfold increase from the current level of power generation to 40,000MW by 2020. Despite the power shortage, the country has recorded an impressive rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, which averaged 6.8% over the past five years. The minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala—who was the former managing director at the World Bank—recently predicted that an improvement in power generation will lead to double digit GDP growth for the country.
Nigeria possesses substantial oil reserves—estimated at more than 37 billion barrels—in the vast mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta. Since the discovery of oil in 1956, at Oloibiri village in present day Bayelsa State, the government has generated more than $600 billion worth of revenue from daily production, which peaked at 2.7 million barrels per day in August. However, much of this revenue had been frittered away over the years by corrupt government officials. The country has also been unable to leverage this abundance of oil to the benefit of its populace as it has often encountered challenges in ensuring the availability of petroleum products despite subsidies on fuel. A recent attempt by the federal government to do away with the subsidies, ostensibly to free up funds for re-investment into critical areas of need, was met by stiff opposition from the citizenry.
One positive factor that contributed significantly to the strong growth that has recently been recorded by the country was the successful deregulation of the telecoms sector in 2001. This led to the shift from government domination of the sector to a market-driven system. The effect of the policy reform was instant as teledensity rose from a mere 0.73% in 2001, to over 68% in 2012. The mobile subscriber base grew at record rates to over 95 million at present. The revolution in telecoms has also unlocked opportunities in mobile banking as the financial sector seeks to leverage mobile technology to further deepen banking among the country’s population. It is reported that an estimated 46% of the population do not have access to formal financial services.
In terms of its macroeconomy, the International Monetary Fund notes that Nigeria’s economy will grow at an estimated 7.1% in 2012. This growth, it says, will be driven by high commodity prices. Regarding sovereign debt, the country has a relatively low debt profile with its debt to GDP ratio estimated at 17.8%, a figure that is below the 30% target set by the government, and well below the global benchmark of 60%. International ratings agencies, Fitch and Standard &amp; Poor’s, rate Nigeria respectively at BB- and B+, with both maintaining a stable outlook for the country. In terms of the country’s sovereign bonds, the annual yield on Nigeria’s 10 year Eurobond which was issued in January of 2011 has been fluctuating around 5% for most of the year. The minister of finance recently announced that the country may consider issuing another Eurobond in 2013 to raise funds for the power sector and gas sector reforms, following indications that J.P. Morgan could include the country in its emerging market index. Nigeria has also recently launched a sovereign wealth fund after concerns by state governors, who had initially opposed the idea of the fund, were allayed. With the constitution of the board and the appointment of the CEO, the fund, which has a start-up capital of $1 billion, is expected to become operational in the coming months.
Consequently, it is apparent that the Nigerian government is taking commendable steps towards developing the country’s economy and effecting a redistribution of income among the country’s citizens. In a country where public officials are known to lack the political will that is required to see policies and programs through, it remains to be seen how the current chapter in this dominant nation’s history will play out.

Treading  A Difficult Path

How times have changed. When I covered my first African Development Bank annual meeting nearly 20 years ago, development conversation was often dominated by apartheid—how the last bastion of white rule was impeding the progress of the continent.
Dominant, too, were the other issues frustrating African progress: political instability in the west and east; soldiers in power; corruption; poor governance; poverty etc. Back then aid flows were certainly bigger than foreign direct investment; fewer countries boasted positive real growth rates, let alone expansion at near double digits; elections were at a premium and even rarer—peaceful change in government. It was so dark that five years later The Economist magazine weighed in with its now infamous ‘Hopeless Africa’ moniker.
Now, not only do opposition parties assume power from a ruling party like they did in Zambia last year but you can count on your two hands, the number of countries where democratic elections have become the norm. According to The Economist, all but Mauritius peacefully changed a government or president at the ballot box in the three decades since independence in the 1960s. However, once Benin set the trend in 1991, it has happened more than 30 times.
“We are here to tell the world: African investment opportunities are the ‘low hanging fruit’, part of the solution to today’s global problems,” said Donald Kaberuka, the head of the African Development Bank, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 meetings.
Global consultancy McKinsey &amp; Company in its much lauded Lions on the Move research says 27 of the continent’s 30 biggest economies have been expanding at a faster pace since 2000. These days, The Economist says that between 2010 and 2011, seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies were African.
The reforms of the 1990s—the same ones The Economist didn’t see—are beginning to pay off. To be fair they did change tune—in December 2011, that headline had changed to ‘The Hopeful Continent’. The reforms bore fruit at a most opportune time with the rise of the dragons in the east—China and India—happening at the same time that Europe began to decline. All this, illuminated Africa’s investment credentials.
“I have no doubt in my mind that Africa is poised to become the world’s new economic powerhouse for the 21st century,” says Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete. “With its endowment in both natural and human resources, the pursuit of sound economic policies, and with democracy, good governance, respect for the rule of law and human rights being entrenched, nothing will stop Africa from getting there.’’
The 2012 meetings demonstrated just how far Africa has come. It was hosted by Tanzania’s tourism capital, Arusha, at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. The theme was taking advantage of the here and now; ‘Africa and the Emerging Global Landscape:
Challenges and Opportunities’. Over five days, seminars, bilateral discussions and workshops discussed everything from the lessons learnt from civil wars, droughts and food security to good financial governance. Here was the evidence, if any more was needed, that Africa’s time has come. The bank’s financials themselves tell the story. While the bank was near collapse in 1995, the AfDB’s financial health is now strong. It remains Africa’s sole AAA-rated institution by all three global rating agencies—meaning it can borrow at lower costs than France, Spain and Portugal.
Last year it approved $5.66 billion in loans, grants and equity investments etc., up 42% from the prior year. But the bank’s value cannot be measured in the money it lends alone. It is an important player in building African institutional capacity and technical capacity which plays a role in fragile states and is also helping the continent to achieve food security. In short, the mandate has moved beyond the original focus on infrastructure envisaged by its founding fathers in 1963.
But caution remains a watchword for Kaberuka, who is now serving his second and last term.
“There are heavy dark clouds on the horizon—the lagged effects of the recession in Europe, the uncertainty about how the BRICs will fare in 2012, and hence the implication for investment flows and demand for our exports. Also, in 2008 when the financial crisis was at its apex, Africa was in a much stronger position to withstand the external shocks. This time round, the resilience is not as robust, the shock absorbers, the fiscal space is weaker,” says Kaberuka.
However, with projections of a near doubling of the continent’s combined GDP to $2.6 trillion by 2020, with consumer spending forecast to increase by 62% to $1.4 trillion over the same period, in key sectors like consumer products, construction, telecoms, financial services and mining; it’s hard to temper optimism that the diamond in the rough may be ready to shine.
“While Africa’s challenges are well-documented, there is an increasing recognition that the continent is on an upward trajectory; economically, politically and socially,” says Ernst &amp; Young in its 2011 Africa attractiveness survey.
From hopeless to hopeful, I wonder what The Economist’s headline will be a decade from now?

From Hopeless To Hopeful

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.”

Pondering At The  Economic Crossroads

The old man would be proud. David Phume has grabbed, with both hands, the chances proffered by a democratic South Africa.
Walking around his Johannesburg offices, Phume shows pride in his work—the fruit of years of slog and training.
They call him South Africa’s first black animator and he’s been doing it since the tender age of 17. Phume is a down-to-earth, charismatic creative who is not afraid to dream big.
“It all started when I was 12 years old. I was tinkering and was fortunate enough to be exposed to high-end animation software.”
Phume studied 3-D animation at Boston Media House in Johannesburg, then went to San Francisco and trained under professionals from international studios like Pixar, Reel FX and Sony Pictures Imageworks.
<div id="attachment_346" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-346" class="size-large wp-image-346" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/6-1024x680.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />David Phume</div>
It would have been easier for Phume to slide into a career in the United States, but instead he chose to bring his skills home. He founded Penthouse Motion Pictures, a broadcast design and animation studio, in 2005.
These 3-D films are incredibly complicated and expensive, especially on the scale Phume wants to create. The two-hour, 34-minute Spirit of Mandela pilot took him three years to complete, while holding down a day job. He hopes to turn it into a full-length blockbuster to be shown in more than 100 countries.
“I have always wanted to animate an African story and this [Nelson Mandela’s life in prison] is one that resonated with my soul,” he says.
Phume may have to find another story to tell on the big screen. You cannot simply take the story of a world icon, like Mandela, and do with it as you please. Phume went to ask permission from the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The Foundation was established on August 19, 1999 to protect and develop the former president’s legacy.
Phume found out the rights are not the Foundation’s to give. The Foundation spends close to R2 million ($240,377) a year to protect Madiba’s intellectual property and says various bodies are entrusted with rights pertaining to him. Some lie with his lawyer, others are guarded by the state, the Foundation, his family, or the man himself.
But the only person who has the rights to his life story
is film producer, Anant Singh, a man Phume has yet to speak to.
Even if the rights were there, making an animated film is expensive. Movies like Megamind, Wall-E and Smurfs came together on budgets of between $110 million and $180 million, taking 4.1-35.7 million man hours. Interestingly enough, it is said that the more detailed, reflective and silent the film, the higher the budget.
In the South African animation industry, strides are being made with films like Jock of the Bushveld, released in July 2011, and the impending release of Zambezia, as well as the production of Khumba, from the Cape Town-based Triggerfish Animation. Zambezia was screened at the American Film Market on November 6 and the company is in talks with the Americans for distribution. If the trailer is anything to go by, there is a lot of talent and potential in Africa.
Gustavo Corrêa, the training centre director and 3D Max instructor at Learn 3D Computer Animation Training Centre in Johannesburg, says: “To put together a complete 3D animation production you need a talented and relatively big team of people, working full-time for five to six years; you need money for salaries and infrastructure way before reaping any return from the end product. In that way, you need serious investment from either government and/or the private sector to sustain the business while in production.”
While Phume works out his next move for a film and funding, he is in production with an animated television series for Tshwane TV, a community television channel broadcasting in Pretoria. Phume is the executive creative director and has won a Promax BDA Africa Gold Award for the channel’s promo.
Who would have thought more than 20 years ago that a young black child in South Africa would grow up to become a creative director of two companies, an executive board member of a multimedia body and chairman of the Miss Tshwane pageant? Twenty-nine-year-old David Phume is living the life that Nelson Mandela sacrificed 27 years for—and loving it.
<h3>A Handshake For Your Thoughts</h3>
One man owns the rights to one of the world’s greatest stories. Anant Singh is a world renowned South African film producer and the proud owner of Nelson Mandela’s life story. Since 1984, he has notched up more than 75 films, including Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country. Mandela has referred to him as “a producer I respect very much&#8230;a man of tremendous ability”.
<div id="attachment_347" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-347" class="size-large wp-image-347" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/113941062-678x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="716" />Anant Singh</div>
FORBES AFRICA (FA): How is it that you hold the rights to Nelson Mandela’s life story? Anant Singh (AS): I started writing to Mr Mandela, while he was still in prison, about making a big-screen film about his life. I felt then, as I do now, that the journey he had been through was compelling. 
FA: What does it mean to you? AS: It is indeed an honor and privilege to become the custodian of the Mandela legacy and his amazing journey. It is also a very daunting challenge which I am up to. His life story is complex and vast, and the adaptation to a motion picture has many challenges. However, I feel confident that we will be able to tell Mr Mandela’s story in an effective and powerful way. The benchmarks are the epic films, Lawrence of Arabia and Gandhi. 
FA: Is there a formal written agreement or was it all settled with a gentleman’s handshake? AS: It was a combination of the two. He initially granted me the rights verbally with a gentleman’s handshake, and thereafter a formal, written agreement was concluded as is necessary for the legal aspects of the rights for a film adaptation of an autobiography. 
FA: What are you planning to do with the rights? AS: As you may know, I have been developing the film, Long Walk To Freedom, which is based on Mr Mandela’s life. We are currently in pre-production on the film. 
FA: Do the rights cover film and animation? AS: The Mandela story lends itself to multi-faceted components of the various mediums of film, animation and stage. We feel that there is potential to integrate all of these. We have all of these rights. 
FA: A young animator hopes to create a 3-D animation film on Mandela’s imprisonment. Are you open to sharing the rights or selling them? AS: As with film, animation requires an extremely intricate storytelling technique. It is also very expensive to produce; in fact, more so than a regular film, if done well. We are very happy to look at initiatives that would be able to complement the motion picture and which are able to do justice to this powerful and epic story. Animation, however, has to compete with the big Hollywood studios of Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks. World-class animated films are produced on budgets of over $200 million.

Tag: Democracy

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