A giant tobacco leaf carving greets visitors to Boka Tobacco Auction Floors, a few kilometers outside Harare city center, along the road to the Beitbridge border with South Africa. Carved by sculptor Dominic Benhura, the towering tobacco leaf is an embodiment of the past and present of the biggest tobacco auction floors in Africa.
The tobacco auction floor is part of a diverse business empire that was built by Roger Boka, one of Zimbabwe’s most controversial and successful black businessmen. Rudo Boka, the eldest of seven children, has been the CEO of Boka Tobacco Auction Floors since 2011, but only after an acrimonious battle to have the family inherit their father’s business, after he died onboard a private jet in February 1999. The 54-year-old was returning from the United States, where he had undergone treatment after a lengthy illness.
He is said to have been the first black Zimbabwean to own a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and was no stranger to controversy. At the time of his death, he was under investigation by the central bank for alleged money laundering. For 34-year-old Rudo Boka, and her siblings, who are co-shareholders, it has been a bumpy ride. Growing up, they had no interest in his business empire, which spans gold and chrome mining, agriculture, transport and construction. Rudo was more interested in the photography sessions her father, a former teacher, conducted. Today, Rudo and her sister, Chido, who is 10 years her junior, have a keen interest in photography when they are not busy during the peak tobacco selling season that runs from mid-February to October. When the auction floors open, Rudo spends seven days a week at work and rarely has time to relax.
“I literally live here when it’s auctioning season. I start at five in the morning and don’t go home until there is an acceptable level of satisfaction for clients. It’s always a long day,” says Rudo.
Boka Tobacco Auction Floors is the biggest and most lucrative entity under the family’s wings. It handles 15% of Zimbabwe’s tobacco crop of around 148 million kilograms. The company auctions 10,000 bales on peak days and pays up to $2 million a day. In 2013, the company auctioned tobacco worth $92 million, according to Rudo.
“This year we should exceed this because we have a bigger crop. It is our ability to function through all conditions that makes us the preferred auction floor for tobacco in Zimbabwe.”
Rudo’s first day at the company was also the worst of her career.
“My dad built this place in 1996 and he first operated as an auction floor in 1997. When he died, his other businesses, especially the bank, collapsed. ”
With the collapse of the bank, the liquidation process attempted to liquidate everything that Roger Boka had.
“I was only 19 years old and I had to start defending what my father had built. From 2000, these premises were leased to ZITEC and we battled, they didn’t pay rent and they ran the facility down. We eventually won the court case in 2010.”
Just when the family thought their troubles had ended, the following day they discovered that this was only the beginning of another taxing period.
“We had just won the court case and thought we are going to patch up the place and rehabilitate it, only to be told that the farmers wanted the place opened because they wanted to sell their tobacco,” she says.
Rudo had plans to use the premise for warehousing, while contractors worked to rehabilitate the sections that were in bad shape. And there was no money to start. So how did the company manage the situation?
“By the grace of God, I must say, the farmers were very understanding. They knew that we were not fully prepared, but they had pressures and they wanted money.”
The advantages of a family-run business is that the family motivates each other when times are tough. While some family businesses crumble due to fights over inheritance, this has not touched Roger Boka’s empire.
“All of us [the children] are accountable. All of us are involved in certain areas where we are qualified, some in accounts, others in marketing and we all go through performance appraisals. But we have external people who run this company and keep it going, like our finance manager and managers, they are all professionals whom we are not related to,” she says.
The credit for building the empire goes to the late businessman, but Rudo says that it was her late mother, who inspired him to pursue his dream of becoming one of Zimbabwe’s wealthiest black businessmen.
“A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. It was my mom who said to him, ‘why don’t we start something of our own?’ Sometimes it takes a woman to tell a man that you will do it. Not that you can do it, but that you will do it.”

Turning Over A New Leaf

It is 117 years since the first motor car came to Johannesburg, South Africa. According to historian Anna Smith’s book Johannesburg Firsts it was a Benz Voiturette that was driven around before a large crowd at the Wanderers track in Johannesburg. It was described as the “rage and topic of all Europe” and a noiseless carriage. Voiturette is the French word for a small car, and this first vehicle to arrive in Johannesburg struggled to make walking pace with its wheezing engine.
Now, years later, the truly ‘noiseless’ carriages are on their way to South Africa. They will come in the shape of an electric car called LEAF, which is an acronym for Leading, Environmentally-friendly, Affordable, Family car. However, one of the concerns about electric cars is that, because they tend to be so noiseless, unwary pedestrians do not hear them coming when crossing roads.
Like the wheezing Voiturette, this car is also a “rage and topic” in other parts of the world. It came onto the market in Japan and the United States in 2010 and the following year in Canada and Europe, where it has won the Car of the Year award. In February its global sales topped 50,000.
The LEAF is made by Nissan and will start selling in South Africa later this year. It is a fully electric five-door hatchback with a battery range said to be 175km. Production has begun in North America and Europe, after the car was initially only produced in Japan, and there are two more models in the pipeline.
Nissan says the improvements in the new models include an extended driving range, greater recyclability, more interior space, better charging performance, more equipment and, of course, a greater choice. Subtle styling changes to the nose of the car have improved its already impressive aerodynamic efficiency.
Government, business and conservationists are hopeful that it will start a trend away from South Africa’s carbon-belching road traffic towards a greener system. It is aimed also at reducing the country’s heavy reliance on imported and ever-more expensive oil.
If it takes off, the car could also see the construction of intermittent ‘filling stations’ with solar-power backup along the highways where drivers could recharge their cars. The idea is to make the least possible use of the coal-fired power grid, thereby further reducing reliance on climate-changing energy.
Nissan South Africa is working closely with the government to prepare the infrastructure, most notably the recharging network. To initiate the joint project, the company has given the Department of Environmental Affairs four of the cars to test over three years.
The use of solar power to recharge the cars is part of the test. At the project’s launch in February, the department’s minister, Edna Molewa, said a 15 kilowatt solar tracking device has been installed at Environmental Affairs’ new green building, which is still under construction. She said the installation would produce enough electricity to charge the cars and to feed excess electricity into the power grid as a way of offsetting the carbon footprint of the building’s construction.
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“Any carbon footprint of the vehicle is thus neutralized through the use of free solar energy generated by the tracker. Where charging is required overnight this is offset by the excess energy that the trackers produce during the day. The amount of electricity utilized for charging and running of the vehicle is carefully monitored and logged and is offset against the amount of electricity generated by the solar tracker.”
“It is envisaged that in future, these tracking devices will be installed on the major commuter routes for the direct charging of vehicles in real time. An e-transport location analysis will be conducted in partnership with other government agencies to inform the roll-out of the solar e-cars installation package at key transportation and commuter hubs countrywide, such as key government precincts, Gautrain stations, O.R. Tambo International Airport, key commercial centers and business districts,” she says Molewa.
The move towards greener vehicles is seen also to present opportunities for making the automotive and related industries greener. South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry has already gazetted the Electric Vehicle Industry Strategy, which is meant to guide investment into car manufacturing.
Other partners in the project are the Departments of Transport, Energy, and Science and Technology, South African Revenue Services, Eskom (the electricity supply commission), municipalities and other car manufacturers and suppliers.
Molewa said in her speech at the launch of the LEAF project that transition in the design and production of alternative propulsion systems should be aimed at maintaining and increasing South Africa’s global market share in the automotive sector, while meeting its commitment to decrease its carbon footprint.
South Africa is listed as the 18th largest vehicle manufacturer in the world, though in Africa it is by far the biggest, accounting for 80% of the continent’s output. The industry contributes around 6% to the gross domestic product and employs more than 230,000 people in manufacturing, distribution and sales.
For Molewa, the first step towards capturing part of the green-car market is for South Africa to develop and grow the market domestically. Hopes are pinned on such development to provide jobs. Molewa even speaks of the transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy as a likely new engine of development.
But with the transportation sector said to be globally responsible for 30% of carbon emissions, and with the number of vehicles on the world’s roads edging towards one billion, a prime objective remains to reduce the amount of climate-changing gas coming from exhaust pipes. The LEAF project is a part of this objective.

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Turning Over A New Leaf

Pull Over And Fill Your Tank With Sunshine