South African businessman Teddy Daka says infrastructure is what drives economies and jobs and is leading innovation in this sector.



Teddy Daka watched the recent unrest that gripped South Africa with a heavy heart – an experience shared by many in the country. With violence and looting rife in the country’s Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, logistics and transport came to a standstill and critical road, telecommunications and transport infrastructure worth billions was destroyed in the process.



At the time of the interview, and in such a scenario, still in recovery from his own brush with Covid-19, Daka managed to bring humor and a positive outlook to leadership and the future of South African business. As the head of Zutari, an engineering, procurement and construction firm in South Africa, Daka is optimistic. “My colleagues say I’m crazy about infrastructure.” says Daka, an academic, philanthropist and executive who has led business transformation in the tech sector.



Previously, when at the helm of tech firm Etion in 2013, he brought its engineering background to the forefront in a digital business environment and saw it as a JSE-listed company. “I wanted to help one more time, to give back to society,” says Daka, returning to business as the co-CEO of Zutari.



However, this turnaround period has come with its own challenges in a Covid environment. But the pandemic has seen the acceleration to a digital business, which Daka sees as a way to bridge the gap between local and international businesses. “Being a company that is transitioning into a digital practice made it much easier to see how we can work around the pandemic… We ramped up very quickly on our remote working tools.”



Daka seeks to find advantages.



“If there’s any silver lining to the pandemic, it’s the acceleration, the pushing of companies to go digital faster than they would ordinarily – it’s allowing us to catch up with more advanced countries… There’s no doubt that the pandemic has begun to equalize between the Global North and the Global South in the use of technology.” Belief in South Africa’s innovation potential is a core fundamental to his optimism despite the recent strife the country has seen, “[For example], South African banks on the digital transformation side are more advanced than American banks. We came up with apps, the way we transfer money… we’re right on the cutting edge of how these things are done.” Daka believes that there is much more room for growth in other industries, particularly when it comes to infrastructure development, and that private and public partnerships are key to achieving this



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-style-large">“There’s no doubt that the pandemic has begun to equalize between the Global North and the Global South in the use of technology.”</blockquote>



growth – and that the responses to both the Covid-19 pandemic and civil unrest are good examples of the state, business and civil society working together to achieve key goals.



“These challenges have brought the parties together – and that’s what we need.” A firm believer in the role that infrastructure has to play in societal upliftment, Daka has a personal commitment to the engineering, procurement and construction industry facilitating growth for the South African economy and its people.



“If I look at my country, if I look at our continent, the goal is to try and bring the infrastructure that allows for economies to grow… That road that we have connected between a village to a city, we’ve increased the traffic between the two, it allows an economy to begin to grow within that space – that’s the impact I am talking about.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-style-large">“How can we create the impact that we want as engineers?”</blockquote>



“How can we create the impact that we want as engineers? Why is it that with all of these massive budgets that governments have, they struggle to bring the necessary impact. In our view – it’s because of the lack of engineering.”



And when a businessman draws inspiration and hope from nature, you know he has got it right. “I’m more optimistic than ever, and I’m less fazed by what I see today. I tend to take a long-term view… If you listen quietly, when the chips are down, you begin to hear the birds singing,” concludes Daka.

Teddy Daka

How Engineering Can Lead To Social Change In South Africa

She came all the way for gold.
Akona Gwele, from a rural village named Qumbu in the sleepy innards of the Eastern Cape, a province in South Africa, arrived in Johannesburg, the city of gold, seeking opportunities she would have never found in her hometown.
Qumbu, formerly Transkei, is literally no man’s land. Young people, especially women, migrate to the cities looking for professional prospects other than nursing and teaching.
“I decided to come to Gauteng [South African province] because as the name says, it is known for being a place of gold; hence, I wanted to be closer to that gold. It promised more job opportunities and access to better education,” says Gwele.
The girl who, growing up, would fetch pails of water from the river for her household chores, went on to study electrical engineering at the Vaal University of Technology; and is today the owner of Westrand Safety, a supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) gear to companies in South Africa.
She even imparts her signature, introducing color and style for the protective gear she designs for women in the male-dominated industries of construction, mining and engineering.
“More people are now asking for comfortable styles that will not look like work gear and we are open to creating this and making sure we set trends,” she says.
She founded the company in 2015 and is a finalist in the Eskom Business Investment Competition, which provides a platform for South African owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to become part of a community of like-minded entrepreneurs as they look to build their businesses.
She is also a finalist for the South African Breweries Foundation awards via Fetola, a development agency focusing on igniting a culture of entrepreneurship in South Africa with an impetus on women, youth, people with disabilities and those in rural areas.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/02/13/traditional-and-thriving/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Traditional And Thriving</a>
Her clientele is mostly companies that have workers on the field, and in such industries as construction, education, engineering, mining as well as municipalities. Some of her clients include Anglo American, Sun Time Square, City Power, FET colleges, to name a few.
Gwele started Westrand in her bedroom with a laptop and her own savings. Prior to that, she was a salaried employee struggling to eke out a living.
After working in the engineering field for five years, Gwele could not see herself progressing in the male-dominated sector. The ‘glass ceiling’ compelled the mother of one to quit her job as an engineering technician and join a packaging company as a marketing executive but that didn’t last long, as here too, the entrepreneur in her was wanting to break out. She resigned yet again and that’s when she founded Westrand.
Her exposure to unsafe working conditions in different industries within the engineering field is what inspired it.
“I had visited many engineering plants and heard about all the fatalities and incidents that happen to staff and most of them are due to not wearing protective gear for the right exposure,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/12/14/situation-forced-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: &#8216;Situation Forced Me To Be An Entrepreneur</a><a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/12/14/situation-forced-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8216;</a>
Her seven-year experience in the corporate world trying to establish herself as a businesswoman prepared and strengthened her for her own venture.
This small-towner is now looking to establish a state-of-the-art factory manufacturing PPE safety wear and hoping to own one that also provides school uniforms for children in the Eastern Cape.
She will create job opportunities for her people, so hopefully one day they don’t ever have to leave Qumbu looking for them elsewhere. &#8211; Written by Nomsa Legodi

Keeping Them Safe And Stylish

As soon as I graduated from university there was an invitation from the managing director of a top Nigerian engineering company to join the organization. There I learned the business of construction and after four years of strategic support work I left to start my own building engineering service firm with a partner. It looked easy!
In Nigeria, starting a new enterprise seems like a piece of a cake and it’s very convenient for people to suggest you should “start something on your own”.  Lagos, where I live, has an annual government revenue one of around $1 billion. With this kind of cash seemingly flowing through the streets, it is assumed it is easy to finance one’s start-up.
My partner and I started our business with our tiny fund – around $320 – and within a few months, had invested most of it on marketing. We didn’t have a car to drive around Lagos so we used taxis to get to meetings. We pushed on until we eventually landed a construction site deal. This process taught us how unsupportive financial institutions in our part of the world can be.
The average entrepreneur in Africa finds it difficult to get their idea to market because of ridiculous interest bearing loans. As we began to talk to our banker for financial support, it became clear that the banking sector was not going to be of much help. We did not have a property, in a choice part of the city, to guarantee the loan which in itself attracts over 20% interest.
With time running out, and needing to get our workers and equipment to site, we resorted to a desperate measure. Desperate people do desperate things. In this case it was a ship sinking decision for us. A private investor offered us a short-term loan with a monthly interest of 15%. We assumed all would work out; we had millions to get people and equipment to site, and substantial work could be done to impress our client. Within 30 days, we would be paid and refund our creditor. It was unrealistic.
In an environment where uncertainty is high, relative to other part of the world, such a straight-line strategy requires many back-up plans. Our company defaulted and the loan extended to a third month, with an accumulated interest of 45% on every million naira. We defaulted because our client delayed payment. He couldn’t pay us because his funds were not released. That circle of failure is the undoing of many businesses.
In a society where moneylenders and investors place an emphasis on the reputation of an entrepreneur, one needs to have a plan to protect this. The harshness of the African business environment triggers desperation and keep entrepreneurs focusing on short-term plans. This needs to change; the longer a business’s plans are considered, the better it will be. There are other strategies that work with raising fund. In south-western Nigeria, Yoruba parlance says that “it is from home that treasures are taken out”. The interpretation is that success begins at home.
Many business owners that I have had the opportunity to talk to use their relationship with family and friends to raise funds, equipment and other resources. The benefit of this is that family is more willing to forgive you and this type of loan usually comes without interest. However, this strategy is limited on a continent where around 70% live below the poverty line.
This provides a huge opportunity for capital ventures and angel investors. It provides opportunities to bridge the poverty gap and create wealth on a continent that is thought to be the next global investment destination. To truly realise this opportunity, the purse of an entrepreneur shouldn’t be bullied.

Desperate People Do Desperate Things

It was an idea that inspired a doctor to walk out of his practice. Dirk Koekemoer, the founder of biomedical engineering company eMoyo, spent the next 18 years building a device that helps tens of thousands to hear – all they have to do is sit under a tree and listen.
&#8220;It was 1999, I literally sat in practice and realized this is going to go on forever. I was going to see 30 patients a day for the rest of my life. I wanted to be able to treat thousands. I cancelled all my appointments that day and took the bold move to start a company,&#8221; says Koekemoer.
It cost Koekemoer $1.2 million and saw the birth of the KUDUwave, a mobile audiometer that looks like a set of headphones. Its size and the fact you can use it under a tree made it a game changer.
&#8220;A basic sound booth, at minimum, would cost R35,000 ($2,600). They can be the size of a fridge and are good for screening. But, the moment you want to do proper audiology the booths go up to R250,000 ($18,700). Then the moment you look at mobile audiology you need two booths on a mobile trailer, with a 4&#215;4 and on a heavy trailer. You are looking at costs of R500,000 ($37,000).&#8221;
The R65,000 ($4,800) headphones are cheap and smart. They won’t operate unless the conditions are just right. One of the best places to use them is under the shade of a tree, just as well as Africa has plenty of them. They are used in the rural areas, like Zambia, where audiologists need to get around.
&#8220;Open air testing, in an area with open windows or under a tree, is the best for ear testing. A booth needs ventilation, it needs soundproofing and probably doubles the costs.&#8221;
&#8220;There are 3.5 billion people in the world that don&#8217;t have access to adequate equipment. I thought let&#8217;s create devices that can actually do the tedious things that a doctor and a nurse have to do that don&#8217;t need brainpower,&#8221; says Koekemoer.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 360 million people have hearing loss and most of them live in low- and middle-income countries.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a huge need. There are 30 million people in this country with hearing problems, 2 million need hearing aids. There are not enough audiologists and there are not enough facilities,&#8221; says Koekemoer.
&#8220;Hearing loss is a serious problem. It causes dementia and depression. Also isolation, especially in the elderly; literally their life expectancies shorten if they are unable to hear well.&#8221;
In Khayelitsha, a township 28 kilometers south east of Cape Town, this is a common challenge. This is also where we follow Koekemoer to meet with head audiologist Shireen Martin, of the Khayelitsha Hospital, who has been working with the device since July.
Koekemoer’s device has transformed the way audiologists, like Martin, work. Employed by the South Africa’s Department of Health, Martin uses the device to test patients’ hearing loss in multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
&#8220;At first I was against the idea. I think there was a lot of speculation about it. It has to do with changing the way people work and think. I was used to sitting in a booth, sitting with a patient one-on-one. It kind of made me adverse to the idea of a mobile audiometer.&#8221;
The department employs decentralized TB treatment, which means Martin needs to travel to treat patients.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t have access to any other audio equipment. With many TB clinics that decentralized their treatment and initiation of MDR-TB, many patients are not able to go to an audiologist, with them being so far away,&#8221; she says.
Martin is the only audiologist who operates here and sees up to 60 MDR-TB patients a month.
&#8220;[Patients] do appreciate it. Because it is not far away from home, they don&#8217;t have to wait long for transport to take them to far-away hospitals. Bringing the service to them is the importance of primary healthcare, not just audiology.&#8221;
MDR-TB patients need to be monitored carefully. Hearing loss can be a side effect of the drug used to treat the disease.
&#8220;Some can lose their hearing in as short a space as a month,&#8221; says Martin. &#8220;It&#8217;s devastating, especially if it happens in a short space of time. That&#8217;s why counseling is very important; so patients know what the early signs are and the importance of them coming back.&#8221;
Koekemoer believes Martin&#8217;s work is a mere drop in the ocean, considering there are 20,000 MDR-TB patients in South Africa and the disease is very infectious.
&#8220;It&#8217;s scary. Patients can&#8217;t just jump into a taxi with their disease. They need special transport. It’s why it makes sense that the audiologists go to them,&#8221; says Koekemoer.
Koekemoer&#8217;s dream started on an even grander scale – a full mobile body scanner. It was a eureka moment in his small home office in Pretoria.
&#8220;One night at two or three o&#8217;clock in the morning, I was sitting at my desk and I started drawing a picture. It was a horrible picture. It was a full solution on how to examine a patient as good as a GP would examine a patient. Things you had to put on a patient. It wasn&#8217;t like the Star Trek scanner version you see in movies, but we are getting there,&#8221; says Koekemoer.
Koekemoer has learned the business of building medical equipment is tough.
&#8220;In 2001, when I started developing these medical devices, it was so difficult. Voice over IP wasn&#8217;t even legal then. In that type of environment, it was difficult just to find information on audiometers. At that stage I was doing deep searches on university FTP sites. I had to invent my own software to actually find the information. Now it&#8217;s easy. The rate of inventiveness increases significantly.&#8221;
Patents are expensive. According to Koekemoer a single patent costs R1 million ($75,000), and a further R500,000 ($37,000) every year after. It still doesn&#8217;t protect your devices; poached product designs are common. It can be as simple as changing a small part. Koekemoer says that in the field the headphones have a two-year advantage before similar devices appear.
&#8220;The problem is KUDUwave had got about 16 patents. It&#8217;s better to take that money and get first-mover advantage. If I can give any advice to any entrepreneur, just give up on thinking you are going to protect yourself on patents. Just get the flipping thing in the field.&#8221;
&#8220;You need to be fast, constant improvement and add additional things to the KUDUwave. In the next few days we are adding a crosscheck that will allow calibration of the device in the field.&#8221;
Next is getting the product certified. With huge backlogs worldwide, inventors struggle to get their products on shelves. The process can add years of painful delay. The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), the governing body which approves devices in the country, has no facilities to test the device as it is so unique.
&#8220;We need alternative European certification which can take five months just to get a quote for audit. It is really difficult to say no every day and not go to the US, where it is so easy to get FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval. FDA registration doesn&#8217;t count in South Africa, but it’s accepted in the rest of the world,&#8221; says Koekemoer.
Despite the uphill battles, Koekemoer is adamant that Africa is the place where his device can make the most difference.
“Re-engineering healthcare, that is what we are doing.”
So, when you see a patient with a set of headphones on while sitting under a tree, chances are they are taking a test that could change their lives.

Huh? Say That Again?

The cool highveld breeze snaps the corner of her neon-yellow safety waistcoat as she steps out of the office building into the yard, the white hard hat sitting comfortably on her head.
Fortunate Mdanda takes confident strides in the male-dominated world of metal and machines. There are other women visible through the workshop doors, setting off sparks as they wield welders and grinders.
Under Mdanda’s watchful eye as CEO of Smith Capital Equipment, there is an internship program for women, and the company actively recruits female engineers.
Her background is not in engineering, but her corporate experience in business strategy, process and finance has amply equipped her for the position. If you have a mind for business, there is no need to feel restricted to more traditionally female pursuits.
“I’ve never looked at industries based on gender. I’ve looked at what one can contribute. So it’s a consolidated effort of all the right skills within the business that makes it successful,” she says.
When she with her husband Sipho took ownership of Smith Capital Equipment on November 2, 2015, the management and workforce were in for a major culture change.
After over two decades of democratic governance in South Africa, the company was still caught up in an apartheid time warp, with separate amenities for the races.
With racial and gender barriers swept aside, there was yet another sweeping change. The company’s 84 employees became shareholders.
“We created a shareholding for both management and staff, across race, across gender, so it’s inclusive, it’s a very exciting space for all of us at Smith Capital,” says Mdanda.
But change always comes with some growing pains.
“I must admit at the beginning it is a new concept when people are told they are shareholders. It comes with excitement, but they’re sort of sceptical. What does that bring? Is there money into our pocket immediately? So it took us a while to communicate the upside of being a shareholder and the responsibilities that come with being a shareholder,” she says.
“But now we’re at a space where we all really understand and are excited about being shareholders. People don’t just come in, do their work and walk out. There is transparency, there is excitement in terms of where the business is going, everyone shares in everything, the strategies of the business, the prospects, and we all share in the excitement and the challenges that we face as a business.”
The core business of this 43-year-old company is the manufacturing of on-road aerial platforms and drilling rigs used for water well and hard rock surface drilling in the mining industry and pole planting for new infrastructure. Equipment is locally designed and manufactured, with drilling rigs and aerial platforms boasting over 90% local content.
Then there is the import side of the business, with truck-mounted cranes brought in from Italy, as well as the ongoing service aspect of the business.
Through a recently-introduced rental division, the company encourages local contractors, who experience financial barriers to entry and cannot afford upfront procurement of the necessary capital equipment they need to deliver on contracts they obtain.
Repairs and maintenance as well as regular load-testing are other important facets of the business.
More black industrialists are emerging with encouragement from the government. The biggest barrier to entry has been funding.
“Now with the DFI [development finance institutions] being open to assisting entrepreneurs growing into being industrialists, I see endless opportunities being presented,” she says.
What is important here is that it goes beyond more than purely facilitating funding, but in providing support in skills-training, and opening business opportunities and new markets.
“Sometimes you find you have the best product but you can’t put it out there, you can’t export it because you find every process when it comes to structured processes that you need to go through are actually barriers to making one successful.”
The Gauteng Provincial Government and the City of Ekurhuleni, where Smith Capital Equipment is headquartered in South Africa, have made efforts to make it easier to do business.
Although the company had been exporting for years, it hadn’t been a major strategy.
“Now we’re turning that around, we’re sending units into Africa, which is very impressive. We’re getting enquiries, a lot as well, because our products are African products, not South African products. They are designed for the African terrain. It is different to sending a product anywhere in the world. So we understand what Africa is about, we understand the terrain and we understand our neighboring countries as well, so doing business with them is quite interesting and exciting and there is actually an increase in opportunities that are being presented.”
Smith Capital Equipment falls under the umbrella of Isipho Capital Holdings, which is wholly owned by the husband-wife duo. Their first acquisition was Kholeka Engineering, a manufacturer of truck bodies and trailers, based in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
“We funded it from our own savings. All we wanted to do was to have the skin in the game and to ensure that we can prove to ourselves that we can work hard and turn the business around. That happened and then came the Smith Capital deal. A few other deals are in the pipeline, so it’s quite exciting,” says Mdanda.
Because Smith Capital Equipment required considerable investment, the Mdandas secured a loan of R41 million (around $3 million) through the National Empowerment Fund (NEF). The company has since been identified as one of the 100 Black Industrialists by the Department of Trade and Industry, has established strong BEE credentials and is ISO 9001 registered.
Looking at the day-to-day operations of Smith Capital and the commitment and enthusiasm of their 84 shareholders, the dreams and plans for an expanding Isipho Capital Holdings seem bright and achievable. The future will tell if this is the birth of a new African business dynasty.
While there is much to do in running the business and creating and building an inclusive culture, there is much industry networking to be done as well.
“Sadly, engineer-run businesses are inward looking, that’s how Smith Capital was. But, with our experiences from corporate, you learn that business doesn’t come to you, you go look for business. You go make your presence felt.”
While she has achieved much in the business arena, she defines as her biggest achievement her and Sipho’s two teenage children – 18-year-old son Luyanda and 15-year-old daughter Noluthando.
No doubt Mdanda is a great role model to Noluthando, as she actively supports the development of women in her industry. Her advice for young women wanting to break into any previously male-dominated industry is to be positive and prepared to learn.
“Open yourself to learning and embrace the opportunities. With anything you do there will be challenges, but if you’re open-minded and positive about it and put in the hours in terms of the hard work, it works out well,” says the CEO who has proven this mantra for success, time and again.

Fortunate-178

Lifting  Hurdles Even A Crane Can’t

Despite preconceptions, you will find women in powerful roles are more than capable of outperforming their male counterparts across the infrastructure value chain.
As a sponsor of Woman in the Built Environment initiatives and training and career development, my former company, Group Five, led from the front. But it’s the girl power that we unearthed and nurtured that was an inspiration to me.
We committed ourselves to targeted recruitment at student level to attract ladies in all the engineering disciplines, quantity surveyors, construction management, finance and HR, to drive gender and racial transformation. Dedicated gender orientated programs followed.
The success stories are legendary. The 14,000-employee Group Five created an environment where women rose to the highest ranks, including board level and divisional unit directors, through to technical and support roles.
The most incredible stories came from the construction divisions. We placed newly graduated female students to fast track local-based programs and then deployed them to participate on an equal footing with the guys in some of the most remote sites across Africa.
One young lady was a construction management graduate who was bored with building another Sandton office block. So, we sent her to a mine construction site in Ghana. A few years later, she rose to become the successful multidisciplinary construction manager responsible for the complete mine construction project in a remote site in Mali, with a workforce of over 300. She did this while in her twenties!
HR is often a female-dominated field, but not historically in construction, given the robust male-dominated manpower, and remote location, challenges. Group Five changed that and after only a few years many of the most senior human and industrial relations posts were occupied by a group of tough, confident ladies. They dealt with violent labor disputes at home and in Southern and West Africa, but were able to stand as role models for the young recruits and we started to see long-term careers being nurtured across the group after many years of countering the notion that construction is not sexy or rewarding. For the next generation, particularly for females, we changed that perception.
The group won the right to construct the iconic Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital as a direct result of the strong female and demographically representative team that inspired the trustees of the Children’s Fund. The team delivered on every promise made in the execution of the project, which included tough social and transformative targets.
Female leadership in finance and commercial law is an inspiration to the construction industry, from gender activists and shareholders to the many aspirant female accounting graduates who rapidly rose to manage the finances of a suite of highly complex businesses. From basic construction to the securing of turnkey power plant and transport projects across Africa, where the group took an equity stake and executed the turnkey engineering design and construction, or led the debt and equity strategies with financial services partners, females led the way.
Group Five’s CFO won the 2014 Business Woman of the Year award for her leadership in driving business systems re-engineering, transformation, shareholder relationships and women in construction initiatives within the industry, and raised two kids at the same time. How many men can follow that?
In African construction, “if the mossies don’t get you, the taxman will” – some may recall this amusing tale from an earlier column. We nurtured another young star from the finance team who became an industry authority on African tax, the law, and what coercion one might find at a site when the taxman arrives with his own militia. Our team knew more about their tax laws than the taxman himself.
Our protégé was so successful that she became the tax lead for a big branded legal firm.
We attracted and developed skilled females across Africa and beyond – our brand had become synonymous with enlightened attitudes, was recognized as a socially responsible organization in many countries. To drive our geographic strategy, we needed skills from across the target countries. This gave us technical, construction, finance and HR skills from as far afield as the Philippines, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.
Fast forward to 2016 and look at which construction companies are surviving, if not thriving, amid an industry in deep recession. I wonder if it’s the female touch that has made the difference?

A Woman’s TOUCH

South Africa needs a solid plan to deal with the more than $245 billion of backlogged infrastructure that is curbing industrial growth and social development.
A toxic cocktail of events and cruel circumstances continues to damage a hitherto world class industry that is vital for any planned economic revival.
The construction industry is suffering like never before. It is still shrinking from its 2008/9 peak, shedding several hundred thousand jobs, margins plunging to around 2% and little sign of relief.
The reality is that, despite political hot air, very little of the backlog of crucial infrastructure, needed to attract foreign and domestic industrial development, is being dealt with. As inaction continues, the capacity to deliver this crucial infrastructure is being destroyed, potentially leaving South Africa at the mercy of foreign influence.
The political influence that black business has in demanding an end to perceived white dominance of the sector, as well as the ratcheting of transformation demands and targets for black empowerment and black industrialization, drives a relentless, but necessary, agenda at a difficult time of negative growth.
In addition, many of the local construction groups have suffered reputational damage and have been heavily financially penalized by government for reported competition infringements.
The industry has suffered massive losses on major projects in South Africa, Africa and Australia, many of which are public sector projects which were poorly engineered and badly managed by both government and contractor.
Share prices have plummeted in recent years and skilled people have been eagerly sucked up by banks, consulting firms, mining and industrial companies.
The public view is negative, and notwithstanding the understandable loss of trust, the government has paid little attention to the damage to the South African economic revival that we all hope for.
The localization of the nuclear program and the infrastructure embedded in the National Development Plan are wishful thinking.
There is a new group of transformational CEOs appointed into many of the large construction groups. We realized a massive wake-up was required. The old guard had gone and we had to deal with the fallout and culture change required to root out historic anti-competitive behaviors and racist tendencies. We found we were not close enough to government and black business and we were not listening to the messages nor understood the outrage directed at the industry.
A few of us traveled a lonely journey trying to facilitate a new beginning and open dialogue between a diverse and relatively untransformed industry peer group leadership and the fragmented approach from four ministries that purported to have control or influence over the industry.
It was not until the chasm between traditional business and government claimed its first victims, through the heavy fines imposed by the Competition Commission and the threat of further action, that the attitudes of some of the diehard leadership among the peer group changed.
They had finally realized it could not be business as usual. Their anger was misplaced. Government and black business action was not about a perceived vendetta, it was fueled by the perceived exclusion of black business and broken trust in the construction leadership’s apparent lack of commitment to transformation and clean business.
After five years, the unproven remnants of the competition matter remains disputed. The Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), the industry’s regulatory body, continues to threaten to impose blacklisting sanctions and state-owned corporations charged with implementing the major infrastructure works remain short of capacity and technical skills to be able to manage the projected infrastructure projects worth R4 trillion ($245 billion).
Yet the economy is screaming for the infrastructure to be built to attract regional and international trade and investment.
Construction leaders have fast tracked the inclusion of black business interests, cleaned house and retained capacity at great cost to support the national infrastructure agenda. Yet government remains distant and unengaged, while some black business structures continue to bark demands with self interest in mind.
It is suspected that tenders for much needed infrastructure are being withheld pending a resolution of the trust and empowerment issues. It also appears that cabinet is unsure of which politically acceptable route to follow. This is very worrying and is preventing the country’s progress.

Inaction And Ineptitude

Will the announced nuclear program energize South Africa’s manufacturing and construction?
My background is power engineering. Building power plants across Africa generates as many stories as they do megawatts. It is ironic that, in Africa’s most electrified economy, there are tales of powerless people and an economy running out of juice.
Eskom, South Africa’s national power generator, is cooking with gas (turbines) – at the cost of around $78 million a month – while grinding away at the late completion of the new 9,000MW Kusile and Medupi coal power plants. Medupi’s first 800MW unit is generating power and will be on commercial load in September, with up to 1,600MW coming onto the grid each year for the next five years.
Keep your gas cylinders full and your camping lights charged – there’s more to this story!
South Africa has a 40GW-headache to cure in the next 20 years. The first 10GW is merely to match current demand. Generation capacity is 40GW with only about 30GW available due to the UCLF (unplanned capacity loss factor) being high. The national demand is over 40GW as mines and smelters have shut down to help Eskom. Medupi and Kusile will merely tick this box.
The second 10GW is needed to replace the old coal plants before 2025. They have been run hard well beyond their time. The third 10GW is needed to attract investment for growth and the fourth 10GW is for reserve capacity to allow for maintenance.
Coal may be easier and cheaper, but it’s dirty stuff and our economy has to be environmentally attractive to foreign investment. Few investors will stump up if it will worsen their carbon footprint.
So, 40GW in the next 20 years! Simply put, double Eskom. It has to be greener than ever before too – no dirty coal. That means nuclear topped up with clean coal IPPs. Wind and solar may be very sexy but they don’t deliver the big base load power that we need.
Like it or not, nuclear is the leading renewable energy source and South Africa is in play on the global nuclear stage to procure 9,600MW of nuclear power.
Contrary to the naysayers, nuclear energy’s lifetime cost is lower than most technologies, it’s expensive at the start, but cheaper to run.
South Africa’s nuclear regulatory body has defined that only the safest technology will meet the environmental and safety specifications for any new build program.
Russia, France and China are likely frontrunners, but who has the better and safest kit and who can offer a compelling financial deal? That’s where technology, money, politics and common sense meet in a witches brew.
The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) sets the readiness criteria for building nuclear plants. A nuclear power plant is split into three main sections: The Nuclear Island, The Conventional Island (Turbine) and the Balance of Plant. South Africa is ready to manufacture and construct on the last two sections, which are similar to the local content of Medupi and Kusile, with some nuclear safety alignment.
The nuclear codes and quality standards take a quantum leap in the Nuclear Island and that is where the nuclear certified contractors like Group Five, Lesedi Nuclear Services and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) are qualified. The country’s industry will have to partner with the successful vendors to hone those skills, train a workforce and learn from the build program in Europe, China and Russia.
There’s a buzz again. Nuclear vendors expected a request for proposals in August with a preferred Nuclear Vendor Country announced by March. Next year will see tendering for the local manufacturing and construction sector, with contracts signed in 2017 and construction starting in 2018.
The capital expenditure for 9,600MW will be approximately $40 to $50 billion, plus government costs and interest on capital. All this leads to trillions being spent over 15 years. That’s a big number that will reignite local industry and a knowledge economy after the last seven years of power cut misery.
Could we “boom” again?
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Additional reporting from Des Muller, head of Group Five Nuclear Construction Services.

double or quit?

As former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed in his Millennium Report, “New technology offers an unprecedented chance for developing countries to ‘leapfrog’ earlier stages of development. Everything must be done to maximize their peoples’ access to new information networks.” Information and communications technology (ICT) is considered an important tool for growth in developing economies.
Not only does ICT have immense benefits to an economy but some argue that, in an increasingly globalized economy, countries that fail to get connected will fall even further behind. One such proponent of this argument, and a man who is passionate about preventing Ghana from such a dismal fate, is Herman Chinery-Hesse, the founder and chairman of SOFTtribe, the largest indigenous software firm in Ghana.
Born to civil servant parents in Dublin, Ireland, Chinery-Hesse and his two siblings grew up in many African and European cities. This may have contributed to his restless desire to discover new things. He attended Westlake High School in Texas and then graduated from Texas State University with a degree in manufacturing and engineering technology. Chinery-Hesse then moved to London where he worked as a manufacturing engineer. It was here that he discovered his love for software.
“I was working for a company who were carrying out the computerization of the company and they selected me to be part of the team because I was schooled in the States, hence it was assumed I would be good at programming,” he says.
With some basic experience in robotics, Chinery-Hesse took up the challenge and learned everything he needed to know about the new computerization software. After a short period of time, he mastered the programming and was managing the company’s new production system.
This was when his love for programming was born.
“I liked programming more than engineering because you can see the results of your work straight away, with engineering you can spend your whole lifetime just building a bridge,” he says.
Chinery-Hesse already had a basic knowledge of programming. While in college, he and his roommate used software programming to generate call cards to make illegal calls. However, his skills were honed when he was in Britain. With his first paycheck he bought a computer and taught himself programming. His skills developed so well, he quit his engineering job and started programming and consulting from home.
Despite his success, Chinery-Hesse missed Ghana.
“The pan-Africanist in me never wanted to stay abroad, so I packed my stuff after a while, came back to Ghana for a holiday and never went back,” he says in his usual offhanded and matter-of-fact way.
On his return to the motherland, Chinery-Hesse had to decide whether to do manufacturing or programming. He originally chose manufacturing but realized there was one key barrier in his way.
“I didn’t have any money to set up a factory, but I had a computer and that was my factory.”
Chinery-Hesse set up his ‘factory’ in his bedroom with one computer and began programming. His company, SOFTtribe, grew organically with no major investment. Soon, Chinery-Hesse developed enough software programs to buy a second computer and then a third. His first client was a friend who, about 20 years ago, gave him a contract to computerize his farm for around $4,000. Without properly assessing how much work needed to be done, Chinery-Hesse accepted the challenge and began working. Other contracts, with clients such as Expertravel and Ghana Airways, soon followed.
At a time where information technology was almost non-existent in Africa, it was a risk to start his business.
“[President Kwame] Nkrumah told me there was nothing I could not do. If we want to build rockets, we can build rockets, it is just a matter of decision,” says Chinery-Hesse.
Following the dream of the man who led Ghana to independence, Chinery-Hesse was determined to prove that information technology was the way forward. There were challenges; in those days, a lot of clients had no idea what they needed and Ghana also has a culture of preferring not to pay for services.
Chinery-Hesse had to be innovative in his approach. He decided to package products, which provided key services, and sell it. SOFTtribe marketed and sold all its products to different sectors. Point of sale software was created for all the major multinationals, networking platforms developed for small businesses, as well as solutions for oil and gas, software products for the agriculture sector and consumer products for households.
SOFTtribe immediately made a turnover and doubled its growth each year until, at its peak, it had over 100 employees. Inevitably, the company had to move from Chinery-Hesse’s bedroom to its own office. Today, SOFTtribe is the most significant player in the software market in Ghana.
With growing competition from established brands, like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM, SOFTtribe is one of the last indigenous Ghanaian software firms still fighting the good fight.
Chinery-Hesse believes the government should do more to help local business win contracts and provide services that local business’ can utilize.
“When you help a foreign company set up in Ghana, they make money and transfer their money into dollars and ship it out of the country, which causes greater strain on the cedi,” says Chinery-Hesse.
Local business, like SOFTtribe, will keep the money within the Ghana’s borders and create more jobs for Ghanaians.
Chinery-Hesse believes Africans have the power to solve Africa’s problems. With SOFTtribe, he has proved this.

‘If We Want To Build Rockets, We Can Build Rockets’

Freddie Achom does not look like the stereotypical investor or entrepreneur. Sporting dreadlocks that tumble to his shoulders, he is dapper, yet relaxed, in a blazer over a shirt and jeans. Achom is articulate and humorous as he recounts his journey to the pinnacle of global enterprise. He might not have got there if he wasn’t encouraged to take a chance while moving from studying medicine to business while at university.
“I started working for a stationery company and it was then that a more senior member of staff said to me, ‘you are really good at business development. How long have you been doing it?’ And I said, ‘this is my first job. I’m just here for the summer and when university starts again, I’m off.’ Then he said to me ‘you should consider it. Your bosses are not telling you that you are doing something really special.’”
“There was a commission sheet where you recorded what you brought into the company and for me it was never enough so I had to flip it over and fill it out all the way to the bottom of the next page. I did that week in, week out. He said ‘I’ve been here five years and I’ve never seen anyone do that, so you should consider it.’ He actually encouraged me which is strange because here’s a man getting all the accolades of training me and he’s telling me, ‘you need to get out of here.’”
Aware of his talent, Achom moved to work for a surveying firm. While there, he was headhunted to join a professional business development firm, an experience which he credits for developing his self-confidence.
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“The director was pretty quirky but he had a lot of faith in me. I think I got most of my conviction and belief there because he was self-made; an interesting guy from up north (of England)… He said I could do whatever I wanted. He said ‘you should set yourself a target where you can touch things.’ And he said to me ‘what watch are you wearing?’ I said ‘just some regular watch.’ So he said ‘buy yourself a Rolex watch. How long do you think it’s going to take you?’ I said ‘I don’t know.’ He said ‘just set yourself that target and do it.’”
Six weeks later, Achom saw the director sitting in his office and showed him his watch.
“He went ‘you’ve bought the watch already!’ I said ‘yes, I bought it a couple of weeks after I saw you.’ I set my target and I checked how much it was and I think I bought it about a fortnight after he told me. He was genuinely impressed.”
The next phase of the journey saw Achom establish his first company in partnership with a group of associates. They built a consultancy and strategic funding agency and sold it after three years. Cash in hand, Achom went on to explore other ventures that led to the establishment of his private fund and flagship company, Rosemont Group Capital Partners. Achom serves as the chairman of the group which holds a diverse portfolio of companies including Communication Power Engineering Company (CPEC), a renewable energy service company and one of the oldest listed companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Other companies under the group include BWC Management, a wine brokerage company and Hershey Pascual Fashion, a high-street women’s fashion brand. Achom’s interests also reach into the restaurant and nightclub industry where he holds stakes in a number of leading spots, including Jalouse in Mayfair and the famous Scotch of St. James in Westminster.
Recently, Achom has diversified his interests by switching his focus to the technology industry. Never one to play small, he announced plans to invest in 20 start-ups by 2017, an excursion that will see him invest around $9.2 million. Considering the skyrocketing valuations in the industry, he is aware of the pitfalls that lurk beneath opportunities.
“The technology space is almost like back in the Wild West where everyone has got their tools out searching for gold. And we all know that though everyone went out, only few came back with lorries of it. Everybody wants to be the next Google and Facebook, but that is not going to happen. But, if you have the right kind of mechanisms in place, if you are looking at the market with your entrepreneurial brain fully on it, I think you’ll do ok,” he says.
“What I find is that the early technology entrepreneur success stories are stumbled upon. Those guys are always guilty of labeling themselves as entrepreneurs and they then embark on this continuous journey to replicate their success, disregarding the fact that the first one was an accident. It just doesn’t work. The people that are really replicating success within the tech space are those that are genuine entrepreneurs and have criteria that they follow and a philosophy that really works for them.”
Achom is also keen to have an impact in Africa where he believes there is significant opportunity.
“We specialize in is renewable energy, so we are looking at Ghana, Nigeria, because West Africa will be our focus. Secondly, technology. We look at what we are learning here in the tech space and at some point it will be our ambition to create an incubator where we nurture ideas at the early stage. The telecommunications infrastructure has laid the foundation. The fundamentals and the user base are there, so this will be hugely profitable.”
Achom was born in Nigeria in the 1970s and moved to Britain in 1982. His parents ran an insurance firm together and sent all four siblings to boarding school. Achom credits the love and support shown by his parents with imbibing a sense of responsibility. They often flew to visit the children at short notice. With two children of his own now, Achom is determined to raise kids with these strong values.
His sense of responsibility extends to society. Achom recently launched the Rosemont Group Foundation. His aim is to encourage young people to believe in their dreams and focus on their passion despite potential distractions.
“About six years ago, I was driving a Lamborghini and I was at the petrol station filling it up. These kids came past on their bicycles and they were like ‘wow!’ I thought to myself, ‘ok, kids love cars,’ but I didn’t think there was anything special about the guy driving the car until they asked me what I did. I said ‘I’m an investor.’ They went ‘wow! How did you get into that?’ And I said to them ‘study hard, stay in school.’”
“They asked me again, ‘you are not a footballer?’, and I said ‘no’. And I thought to myself, ‘is that the only way they think you can drive a car like that?’ That’s when it hit me and I started to think I could do something to change that perception.”
“I wanted people to learn from my experience doing business in the UK, where the cards are stacked against you, where the pitfalls are, how you maintain your focus, your dignity, your true God-given character, because I come from Africa and we don’t succumb easily.”
“I’ve experienced prejudices doing business, where people had preconceived ideas of me but spent a few minutes with me and those perceptions changed. The foundation was about letting people know that people exist that you can look up to and call up if you need to and draw from and learn from their experiences, and I hope I can contribute a little towards that.”

Buy A Rolex And The Lamborghini Will Follow

It was a golden path walked by the young Dare Okoudjou growing up in Benin. He came from a good family, a teacher father and nurse mother; he wanted for little and was able to study in Europe.
More than a decade ago, as a final year student for a Master’s in telecommunications engineering in Paris, Okoudjou had companies hounding him with lucrative job offers.
Engineering led him to New York and a job as an intern in the autumn of 1998. He was 22 years old.
“In those six months in New York, I realized I wanted to be part of a bigger plan, a bigger picture. There were a lot of offers from companies, such as Ericsson and Alcatel, but I didn’t like it there,” says Okoudjou.
The salaries in telecommunications were high and engineers were sought after, but the thought of working in the United States, far from Africa, terrified Okoudjou.
“Nineteen ninety nine was the boom of the dotcom. I was one of the first people who knew the stuff. At that time, a lot people had not heard about internet in Africa, I was an engineer of it,” says Okoudjou.
Instead, he accepted a job as a consultant in telecommunications and media at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Paris in 1999 hoping it would lead home. He says the French were doing a lot of work in Africa. His first project was to launch a mobile network in Morocco. This was fortuitous. When Okoudjou finished school, at the top of the class in Benin, he went to an engineering scholarship in Morocco, for two years.
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“At PwC, I met great people from different backgrounds but which I related to. We knew we were fortunate to be there. They were sensitive to the world around them. We shared the sense of responsibility towards the larger community. Then there was a lady who created a link between PwC and the world of NGOs,” says Okoudjou.
In 2001, he quit and joined an NGO in the north of Tanzania. The NGO looked after 30,000 people in a refugee camp in the highly populated Nyanga district.
“That was the time I heard the call of Africa. I felt I needed to do something more helpful to the people than sending money now and then to my parents,” he says.
“African people were going there [Europe] out of desperation, I was not. I was in quest of greatness. I wanted to be the best. I really enjoyed my years in Paris.”
In Tanzania, Okoudjou realized the hidden side of what he calls the business of NGOs. He regrets that the camps turned out businesses that compete to serve people but with no intention to liberate them. Their business was to keep people in the camps as long as they could, he laments.
“No offence to the [NGO] people, some people had great hearts. They wanted to help somehow but that very personal need to help translated into a situation which will maintain thousands of people in the same situation for a long time. The refugees were not allowed to work, as a result they would sell what was donated to them to the working villagers,” says Okoudjou.
“Trade business is better, it provides the right incentives. There are no hidden agendas. The whole NGO business has hidden motives, so I left the NGOs after two months and went back to PwC and later enrolled for an MBA in 2005.”
In 2005, the former Minister of Finance in South Africa, Trevor Manuel, addressed Okoudjou’s MBA classmates in Paris about opportunities that his country had. The idea of setting up in Johannesburg was born.
The following year, Okoudjou joined MTN in Johannesburg and worked in the mobile financial services section, also known as mobile money. This position allowed Okoudjou to travel Africa.
“When I was in Paris in August 2005, there was a small article about MTN mobile money. I knew then that was what I was looking for because it had all the elements. It’s about technology and I love technology. I knew money transfer inside out. We were students in France and people in Benin sent us money. When I was in France I sent money to Benin, but there were always people trying to rip us off. That’s when I wrote to MTN and said I wanted to come and work for them. By the end of 2008, I realized I wanted my own thing and that was mobile money transfer,” says Okoudjou.
It took Okoudjou six months to raise $500,000 and start his own money transfer company, with three people, in Johannesburg. This was a similar business that he managed for three years at MTN. For the next three years Mobile Financial Services Africa won plump contracts with cellphone networks. They grew from one branch in South Africa to more than 10 on the continent. Then disaster struck. The $2 million, raised by the end of 2011, dried up overnight.
“In May last year, it was so hard, I struggled paying salaries, I couldn’t pay my home electricity bill, and they cut it off. I am from Benin, I took it on the chin. We cooked outside on an open fire. I turned it into something fun for my kids,” says Okoudjou.
By June, despite the increasing pressure to salvage the sinking business, Okoudjou says he turned away several offers to sell a portion of the business, or form partnerships. The deals didn’t feel right.
Okoudjou forged ahead trying to save his business. He opened more branches and tried soliciting credible shareholders.
On a hot Friday evening in November, it got worse. Okoudjou’s flight at Abidjan International Airport, back to South Africa, was delayed for six hours. He had flown in to open a branch in Côte d’Ivoire even though his business was bleeding back home. While at the airport, a security company called to tell Okoudjou his house in Johannesburg had been broken into.
“I could hear my children crying. My wife was not there with them. I couldn’t reach her on her phone and I was sitting in that Abidjan airport without money and helpless. I have been trying to do this business for five years, but I failed. I drove this [business] to the ground, there’s nothing I could do… And I remembered I read somewhere: ‘There’s always a way. There must be a way,’” he says.
Okoudjou says in that moment of despair at the airport he took out a piece of paper and wrote all the things he should try and people he should call in the next month to plead for a lifeline.
His father Pierre-Claver Okoudjou is a retired philosophy teacher and a prolific French essay writer in Benin. He says at that lonely moment in Abidjan he took inspiration from his father’s essays.
For a month, Okoudjou worked hard to find investors to save his business. Now, it is safe with 10 shareholders and 20 employees on the continent.
“We are not completely out of the woods, we still have a mountain to climb,” he says.
That is the philosophy that emerges from the scars of a worst day when you suffer the tears of your children from far away.

“I Could Hear My Children Crying”

Busi Mabuza was born in Barbeton, a white town in Mpumalanga, South Africa, but grew up in the townships. At the age of 12, she went to a private Catholic boarding school in Limpopo but finished her matric in Pietermaritzburg.
Her nomadic life was just beginning. Hoping to acquire an engineering degree, Mabuza enrolled for it at the University of Natal in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. However, this did not happen as she didn’t do well in one of the subjects – engineering drawing – mandatory to complete the course. Undeterred, she commenced a degree in mathematics at the University of the North (now the University of Limpopo); she didn’t finish this either due to the state of emergency declared in 1986 by the old South African government. Mabuza was arrested and then banned from all educational institutions.
With nowhere else to go in South Africa, Mabuza moved to Atlanta, United States, where she had to start her mathematics and computer science degree all over. She worked part-time in the computer room and at a systems integration company. Working helped her realize that she didn’t know much about the business world, so she enrolled for an MBA in finance and information systems.
“The lesson that sticks in my mind is how integrated the world is, and that you have to understand every single economy and product in the global context,” says Mabuza.
She says that big business in South Africa knows this while start-ups are inward facing until the businesses grow or face failure.
“Since coming back into the country I’ve had a fair amount of time looking at the investment environment,” she says.
When Mabuza returned to South Africa, she joined Investec Asset Management in Cape Town, where she learnt all about analyzing companies and management strategies.
In the mid to late 1990s, there was a growing trend towards Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) transactions. This meant she had to start looking at non-listed investments too. This required more contact with management to understand the business and was therefore more personal.
Mabuza moved to Johannesburg hoping to be a BEE queen. After a couple of years on her own, a group of women asked her to join the Woman’s Private Equity Fund, later moving on to Ethos Private Equity, where she became a director.
After three years as a board member at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), Mabuza’s appointment as chairperson of the board came as somewhat of a shock to her. She was asked if she would stay on for another term on the board but it wasn’t until the Annual General Meeting that Ebrahim Patel, the minister of Economic Development, pulled her aside to let her know of the new responsibility placed on her shoulders.
The development component of the IDC has a personal appeal to Mabuza. She thinks the IDC will have done well if it has a visible impact on the economy through backing more black entrepreneurs to play a meaningful role in the country’s economy and in reigniting manufacturing. The Department of Trade and Industry launched the black industrialist program, which the IDC will support but not be directly involved in.
She also says we need infrastructure that can continue to attract foreign investment and help local businesses to worry less about basic infrastructure.
The IDC is South Africa’s largest development finance institution with a R100 billion ($8.4 billion) plan over the next five years and Mabuza believes the board is a guide, the conscience of the organization and custodian of values. She says the board will advise the good management team in place and make sure they focus on the necessary sectors.
“I’ve had a very interesting career in financial services,” says Mabuza. And it’s a long way from being over.

Busi-Mabuza-037

The Boardroom Queen

Sitting in the foyer of a Kigali hotel with Raj Rajendran, sipping Rwandan tea, the conversation centers around Coimbatore, the bustling textile town in South India about 3,500 miles from Kigali.
When Rajendran speaks about his hometown, in the South Indian language of Malayalam this writer is familiar with, he manages to create a vision of Coimbatore that is a mirror image of Kigali.
The balmy air, the foliage, the clean roads and the warm enterprising people of Coimbatore could be cut and pasted in Kigali, and nothing would seem out of place.
<div id="attachment_3154" style="width: 215px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3154" class="size-medium wp-image-3154" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Raj-Rajendran_3924-701x1024-205x300.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="300" />Raj Rajendran MD of GreenLeaf, founded about a year ago to market farm products to high-end hotels and restaurants. They are opening a new shop in June selling packaged vegetables and fruits. He is also a partner in two other companies he started recently</div>
It is little wonder Rajendran feels at home in Kigali, and although his family lives in Coimbatore, this is where he will spend the rest of his working life, and even retire in.
The affection this affable entrepreneur has for Rwanda is evident in the love Rwanda has for him. Rajendran is very popular amongst his friends and business associates here.
RwandAir CEO John Mirenge calls him munyaneza, meaning ‘joyful’ in Kinyarwanda.
“He is very well-liked,” says Mirenge.
For Rajendran, the journey from Coimbatore to Kigali was one of discovery – and serendipity.
Like any Tamil boy born and raised in Coimbatore – known as the Manchester of South India for its ubiquitous spinning mills – Rajendran studied textile engineering like his bespectacled peers, from the prestigious PSG College of Technology.
Not surprisingly, he started his career in a spinning mill in Coimbatore in 1974, thereafter arming himself with an MBA in marketing and foreign trade. After a stint with the National Handloom Development Corporation, an Indian government organization, which saw him traveling across India, he joined as the group president of a global company with interests in finance, education, real estate and plantations.
He was in Coimbatore when in 1999, somebody tipped him off about an opening in a country called Rwanda.
“I didn’t have any chance of knowing, I didn’t know where it was,” says Rajendran.
The job offered was as the Managing Director of UTEXRWA, the only textile manufacturing company in Rwanda at the time.
“I did a quick search on Yahoo and saw a picture of Kigali’s commercial street. It looked so pathetic, much worse than our [Indian] villages at the time. I found that all of Rwanda only had one textile company, unlike Coimbatore which had so many. I also read up on the genocide and found that about 300 people in the company [UTEXRWA] had been killed; that got me interested.”
UTEXRWA was started in 1985 as a family-owned company and fabric processing house.
“They had $18 million in 1993 which was very good. But in 1994 [during the genocide], everything was looted, all their raw materials. They incurred heavy cash losses in the subsequent years until 1998,” says Rajendran.
By the end of 1999, Rajendran was on board. He was yet to discuss the terms and conditions of his contract, but he came – relying solely on instinct.
He was in for a pleasant surprise –
and has never regretted his decision.
“I loved the country’s beauty, the climate and the people. I have traveled all over Africa, but Rwanda is incomparable. Africa may be synonymous with filth and corruption, but everything here is reliable and systematic. They have a culture of cleanliness. And they have the best leadership.”
Rajendran recalls his first meeting with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.
“My first interaction with him was the day he was sworn in, at the cocktail party held in his honor. We shook hands and I got a picture taken with him. He is not known to smile, but that picture had him smiling, and people asked: who is this guy who made him laugh?”
In 2000, Rajendran says he was invited as the only foreigner from the private sector to be part of the delegation for the president’s state visit to Nairobi. That is when Rajendran told him about the possibility of producing silk in Rwanda – like they did back home.
“The climatic conditions for silk in Rwanda are the same as in India. About 85 percent of India’s mulberry silk is from [the South Indian state of] Karnataka. The soil, the climatic conditions and terrain were similar to those of Karnataka in those days. I told him we don’t need to import silk, that Rwanda is fully capable of producing it,” says Rajendran, who was consequently asked to explore the possibilities at UTEXRWA.
He traveled to Karnataka, and brought back with him 100 mulberry stems, which he planted at UTEXRWA, and also in Rwanda’s eastern province.
“They grew so well and with leaf sizes four times bigger than we have seen in India, and much healthier,” says Rajendran.
In 2003, the Food and Agriculture Organization sent a Korean expert to meet with Rajendran, bringing with him silkworm eggs. The mulberry trees had grown by then.
“The cocoons were much bigger than the ones I saw in India. The Koreans gave a positive report. We wanted a bigger project to create more employment. And at the annual retreat that year in Rwanda, it was decided that sericulture is big business.”
Starting with four model units and machinery, UTEXRWA started processing. Rajendran also introduced Indian handloom fabrics.
“I brought a little bit of South India into Rwanda. We made silk ties, scarves, garments, and even exported silk pyjamas to Canada. I once made 20 different ties for Kagame,” says Rajendran.
After about 12 years with UTEXRWA, Rajendran decided to head home. He boarded the plane to India, but he left his heart in Kigali.
He returned to Rwanda a year later, this time, as an entrepreneur, co-founding an investment promotion company called Proman Associates, and Payoda, handholding investors, offering them all the information they needed to easily set up business in Rwanda.
Rajendran is also currently the Managing Director of Green Leaf, an enterprise in Kigali linking farmers with retail and offering packaged fruits and vegetables for the high-end market such as five-star hotels, restaurants and department stores.
He is also keen on reviving the sericulture business in Rwanda. From Coimbatore to Kigali, the silk route beckons again.

The Silky Entrepreneur  Who Made Kagame Laugh

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class has always been the pinnacle of luxurious motoring and the latest incarnation is no different. This car has leapt forward and completely redefined the future of motoring.
The S-Class is an engineering masterpiece loaded with technology that is so well infused into the design of the car that it seems completely natural. The beauty of great tech is that one doesn’t think it is necessary until it is presented to you.
<div id="attachment_3002" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3002" class="size-medium wp-image-3002" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/241153_Full_HiRes-347726-1024x768-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" />Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse, 2013</div>
The contours of the S-Class strike the perfect balance of elegance and subtle sportiness. It certainly looks like an S-Class but the 5.24-metre length is suitably disguised to make it seem like a smaller car from the outside. Step inside and you will be completely blown away.
The cabin is a state-of-the-art master class in interior design. There is nothing I have had the pleasure of driving that brings together top-quality metal, leather and wood in such a perfect blend of comfort, luxury and ease of use. Every function is performed by a button, switch or swivel that has been crafted to the highest level of quality. All driver information is displayed with two 31.2-inch TFT screens which present incredible graphic layouts.
From the pilot seat you will experience redefined refinement. It exudes comfort beyond what you thought possible through the car’s Magic Body Control. This system constantly scans the roads ahead and adjusts the damping systems to best deal with the road surfaces. The cabin has been impeccably insulated thanks to double glazed windows and enhanced door seals. It’s a cabin in which you could conduct business meetings without any interruptions from the outside world flashing by.
From the driver’s seat one can also experience the pleasures of being able to afford an S-Class: seat heating and cooling; seven massage functions, including hot-stone treatments; seat support that can be tailored to suit any shaped body, including active side support that hugs you when cornering; an impressive Burmester sound system; an easy to use COMAND online system that includes the operating manual in electronic form, something that is absolutely necessary in a car that is as complex as this.
At this level and price, safety need not be mentioned, but in the S-Class these features have shifted the paradigms of what I thought was possibly another 10 years away. The latest generation Mercedes Intelligent Drive system ensures the safest way to travel. The Distronic Plus cruise control reduces the need for driver inputs by braking and accelerating to maintain a pre-determined speed and distance from the car in front. It will even go as far stopping the vehicle if the car in front of you comes to a halt.
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The Night View Assist system is another intelligent safety feature that alerts the driver of any animals or pedestrians before they can be seen with the naked eye. The beauty of this system is that it will automatically warn the driver of impending danger which could not always be said with some of the previous systems like this. An incredible array of parking assistance systems is also included. Part of this is the 360-degree camera that superimposes the car graphically into the surroundings by employing the views of the various cameras around the car. The result is an accurate bird’s eye view of the car as you manoeuvre in tight spaces.
The S-Class will be bought by distinguished gentleman, even presidents, and as such the rear passenger compartment is just as important, if not more important, than the front seats. In this area, the magic continues. The rear seats are soft, supple and comfortable, which have electrical adjustment to find the perfect position. As optional extras, rear passengers can also enjoy an electrically operated footrest as well as a business console that includes two AUX and USB ports, two 12V sockets and heated/cooled cup holders, folding tables as well as fridges and phones. You can also enjoy all forms of media on the screens. Thankfully, these screens can be operated from either the occupants themselves or by the driver, which when traveling with children can become a necessity.
The entry-level S-Class is the diesel powered S350 BlueTEC that is powered by a 190kW engine. The petrol powered cars are the S400 Hybrid, the S500 that is powered by a V8 4.7-liter bi-turbo motor, and the range-topping S63 AMG and S65 AMG derivatives. All these motors are amply suited to provide the thrust for this spectacular car and ultimately, the choice will most probably be swayed by a budget rather than a preference.
If looking at an executive, luxurious grand saloon, then you also have the option of the recently face-lifted Audi A8. Having spent some time in this car as well, I can vouch for the fact that it is superbly built, very comfortable and amply spaced in its long wheelbase guise. The 4.2-liter TDI Quattro is the pick of the bunch in my opinion but at the end of the day, it is still an older car with cosmetic and aesthetic revisions. The most talked about new feature of the Audi A8 is the introduction of Matrix LED headlights. Composed of 50 individual LEDs, the lighting system sets new standards in night time driving. The system works automatically and dims the light that shines on oncoming vehicles, while still keeping a full beam on the areas next to the car. So, as a driver you are able to see more of the road without fellow drivers being blinded. This fascinating technology extends to the indicator lights by allowing them to flash in the direction you are turning.
That said, the Audi A8 L 4.2 TDI Quattro is the same price as the Mercedes-Benz S500. Although the Audi is a good car, it is nowhere near the S-Class in terms of safety, comfort, innovation, technology and most importantly desirability. At this price, the S-Class is, dare I say it, fantastic value for money.
The Mercedes Benz S-Class has not just redefined its segment, it has redefined the future. Nothing else comes close.

The Future Is Now

Traditionally, women have not been associated with science, mathematics and engineering. Kirsty Chadwick is the antithesis of stereotypes that dictate who techies should be and what they should look like. The 39-year-old New Zealander is the founder and chairperson of The Training Room Online.
The company designs bespoke e-learning platforms for some of South Africa’s biggest private and public sector institutions, such as: FNB, Investec, ABSA, Standard Bank, Nedbank Discovery, PwC, Woolworths and the department of basic education.
Chadwick has a varied career. She was a teacher for three years, after studying towards a bachelor of music at the University of Auckland and receiving a teaching diploma. Relocating to the United Kingdom allowed her to take her first step into the corporate world, where she eventually became a director at mortgage broker Ashley Moore Financial and remained for six years.
In 2004, she moved to Cape Town where she began a call center, which she ran until 2008. The move to the ‘Mother City’ was largely a lifestyle choice that made sense due to the fact that Cape Town is in the same time zone as London, which worked well for her business.
Motivated by the desire to get back into the education space, especially after spotting a gap in the market for training solutions, she founded The Training Room Online in 2008, with seven employees. While Chadwick is passionate about incorporating technology into training, the primary focus of the company is the content that is delivered through an online platform. The technology facilitates learning. It presents an exciting opportunity to bring creativity and human interaction through the use of gamification and animation.
People are central to the creation and development of the technology. Over the last five years, the company has grown tenfold to employ 70 people. Given the shortage of skills required for the technology, content development and instructional design, Chadwick says it cannot grow quickly enough. In the short term, she outsources a number of processes to India. It is merely a stop-gap measure because the quality of the output often leaves much to be desired. To remedy this, her medium- to long-term goal is to develop the Creative Technology Hub that will develop the talent and skills required for this industry. This will contribute to job creation on the continent and will keep content creation on local shores.
Despite the challenges, the company is doing well; it has offices in Cape Town, Johannesburg, London and the Seychelles. Chadwick recently sold 49% of the company to Open Learning Holdings. Despite the strong strategic fit, the move has been one of the most difficult, as she had to deal with bringing new people onboard.
Globally, online training is a multi-billion dollar industry. According to Chadwick, South Africa is well positioned to be a leader in this space, for her it is a destination of choice by virtue of its time zone and the quality of the instructional design. The local market has become increasingly receptive, as they have realized that e-learning goes beyond Powerpoint slides. The industry has grown and she has five other similarly-sized competitors. While many tech companies are moving into the mobile market, she works primarily in the computer and tablet space. But learning via cellphones still has limitations.
Expansion into the rest of the continent is on the cards, with Botswana first in line. In each new market she will employ locals and retain each country’s content production.
For Chadwick, technology is part of the solution to South Africa’s challenges and she is keen to get involved with the education department. She sees an opportunity for a mass-scale e-learning revolution in South Africa. Low-cost, high-quality, centralized learning management systems are key to this revolution that can enhance the performance of pupils and teachers. Across the world, through examples such as the Khan Academy, e-learning has helped students realize their potential and master learning material by allowing them to learn at their own pace. The success of this rollout will be dependent on collaborations and partnerships, to ensure that obstacles such as connectivity and device design are overcome.
If Chadwick’s track record is anything to go by, the future of learning on the continent is optimistic and set to be filled with graduation caps.

Tag: Engineering

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