Two young Capetonian entrepreneurs, Mark Bosman and Jesse Hemson-Struthers, saw the good side of gambling on the streets of London. It inspired them to bring a fresh approach to South Africa through BetTech Gaming.
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In 2009, while the world was experiencing a credit crunch, Bosman was a business development manager and had been in that industry for about 10 years, while Hemson-Struthers was a university drop-out and entrepreneur. Both were looking for new opportunities to make money in an environment that wasn’t very promising. They met when they were in high school in Cape Town and their paths crossed again in London.
“I had been involved in the property industry at that stage and it was obviously not doing well. We wanted to come back to South Africa and do something which would be a sustainable business and would survive the recession,” says Hemson-Struthers.
At the time, he was running an online marketing business for the property industry in Spain, but the market was slowing down drastically. Hemson-Struthers was in Britain trying to keep the business going.
It was then that the duo put their heads together, throwing around ideas that ranged from starting an online nappy business to an alcohol distribution company. They identified a sustainable business in the online sports betting industry in South Africa thanks to Hemson-Struthers’ background in e-commerce.
He had previously founded SAcamera in 2004 and it became the country’s biggest online store for specialist photographic equipment and accessories. SAcamera had distribution networks throughout Southern Africa and a physical showroom in Cape Town.
“In the beginning we funded everything ourselves off the website, set up supplies ourselves, picked up camera’s from suppliers ourselves, delivered them to the post office and then built it over a couple of years to being a retail and an online store,” says the 31-year-old.
“It was a hobby and a way for me to make money when I was young. I dropped out of university after a year into SAcamera because it was actually taking off and I wanted to focus my energy there.”
In 2012, SAcamera was acquired by MIH Internet Africa, a subsidiary of Naspers, one of the world’s largest internet firms.
MIH integrated SAcamera into its e-commerce site, Kalahari.com. The acquisition allowed Hemson-Struthers to focus more on BetTech Gaming which he founded in the midst of the recession while he and Bosman were in Britain.
“Sports betting and casinos are a culture and a way of life there. We saw some exciting stuff we wanted to do in South Africa. We came back and raised some institution money through 4Di Capital,” says Bosman.
“It was a whole process which we ran through South Africa since 2009, essentially building a product, getting it nationally licensed through the national gambling board. We’ve been selling our products since 2011 and we’ve got nine platform clients now who use our software and services.”
When Bosman and Hemson-Struthers started BetTech Gaming they spent around two years trying to understand products, markets and their systems and trying to clarify what it is they were trying to build. The founders conceptualized a business for two years until they were able to make money from it before going public.
Today, BetTech Gaming develops gaming software that can either be white-labeled or used for trading sports betting positions through its platform. It started off as a sports and horseracing wagering module and has since evolved into a business that includes casino, virtual and lucky number based modules across the web, mobile and retail channels. The business allows media partners to have their own betting brand that BetTech operates.
“We are a solution provider. It’s not just about providing software. We have a full suite of products and services. For instance, if a company like SuperSport in South Africa wanted to launch a sports betting business, we’ve got the resources to run the entire business for them, software, trading, content, risk management, client support, the IP management and full works and the partner who owns the business literally just markets it,” says Bosman.
The 31-year-old Bosman is responsible for managing the marketing, business development and operational side of BetTech Gaming. He is an entrepreneurially-focused marketing strategist having worked in the fast-moving consumer goods industry and the business development position for several other companies.
Having started three other businesses, Hemson-Struthers is an entrepreneur at heart and relishes the challenge of establishing new ventures and spending hours to improve it. Bosman is similarly enthusiastic, adding that BetTech is their passion. It’s their baby and they want to see it through.
“When you start a business like we did, it requires about 15 hours a day. You never stop thinking. The job is never done,” says Bosman.
“Being an entrepreneur, you have to create something out of nothing. So it’s about building a product which you see the market needs and then going out and selling it to the right consumers and in some instances you need to convince them of the new product which they might not know they need yet.”
They hope to be South Africa’s premier online and mobile sports betting brand and are branching out into the rest of the continent. Hemson-Struthers says they already have clients in Uganda and Tanzania, will soon launch in Kenya and are eyeing Nigeria. They have also launched the world’s first licensed Bitcoin sports betting operator, BetVIP.
Following their experience with BetTech, Hemson-Struthers advises new start-ups to get their products into the market as quickly as possible and at a minimum cost. This allows for feedback from the market, more testing and time to refine the product.
“I would almost say that if you look at a 100 percent of your budget, you want to hold back as much as 70 percent for marketing. People don’t fully understand how much money it takes to get a business, whether it’s a B2B or a B2C business, out there.”
Sage advice from a young entrepreneur.

Bet On Them

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

It was a sombre and belated ceremony. On August 19, after years of negotiations, South Africa welcomed home the remains of Nat Nakasa nearly half a century after he died after falling from a hotel window in New York. Nakasa was reburied on September 13 in Heroes’ Acre in Chesterville, Durban. The gravesite is a few kilometers from where Nakasa grew up.
<div id="attachment_3146" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3146" class="size-medium wp-image-3146" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/453858634-300x217.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="217" />CHESTERVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA- AUGUST 19: Minister of Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa, SA National Editors’ Forum executive director Mathatha Tsedu and Kwa Zulu Natal MEC for health Sibongiseni Dhlomo on August 19, 2014 at King Shaka International Airport in Durban, South Africa. The men attended a small ceremony at the airport to welcome back home well known late journalist, Nat Nakasa whose remains were brought back from the USA to be reburied in Chesterville Durban. (Photo by Gallo Images / The Times / Tebogo Letsie)</div>
In October 1964, the 27-year-old Nakasa enrolled at Harvard University to study journalism. It meant he left South Africa forever as his government denied him a temporary visa. Nakasa was the second African to receive the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. The other was his colleague Lewis Nkosi. Nakasa’s death in exile remains a mystery.
At the time, Harvard University made a statement saying Nakasa committed suicide because he was homesick and depressed as the United States (US) government refused to extend his stay. But there was speculation that Nakasa, who was believed to have been watched by intelligence services, could have been pushed from the high hotel window.
Although Nakasa had no political allegiance, the apartheid government feared that he worked for the banned revolutionary organizations of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe.
“As I have never been active in politics except as a journalist, I expect no difficulty in obtaining a passport,” Nakasa wrote to the Nieman Foundation.
“If I shall leave this country and decide not to come back, it will be because of a desire to avoid perishing in my own bitterness – a bitterness born of being reduced to a second-class citizen,” Nakasa wrote in a column before he left South Africa.
Former journalist and academic, Professor Keorapetse Kgositsile, knew Nakasa well. Kgositsile, who was in exile with Nakasa in the US, first met him in the early 1960s when he worked for the left-wing publication The New Age and Nakasa for Drum magazine in Johannesburg.
“The general assumption is that Nat committed suicide. But I am not convinced that he did. As I have said before, I have no evidence to argue that he didn’t but also there’s no concrete evidence that he did. And knowing him, and the general African attitude towards suicide, especially our generation, it would be very strange because I don’t know of any South African who committed suicide around that time. I find the issue of suicide very problematic… It was misguiding that Nakasa wanted to return to South Africa during apartheid. He understood clearly he would not be allowed back. Those who said he wanted to return were undermining his intelligence,”
says Kgositsile.
“I respected Nat because he didn’t have any complications. He was what he was. He was humble, almost reserved, quietly spoken, honest and frank. He was almost withdrawn. When you met Nat, the man was not different from Nat the writer. He wrote what he believed and lived.”
South African musicians living in New York, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, and photographer Peter Magubane raised money to bury Nakasa at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, near where the assassinated Malcom X had been laid to rest few months earlier. At the time of his death, Nakasa was working on Makeba’s biography.
Nearly 30 years later, Nakasa’s plight stirred journalists back home. In 1993, an article by an Afrikaans newspaper journalist, Dana Snyman, pressured Harvard University to put a modest headstone on his grave. Five years later, the South African National Editors’ Forum inaugurated the Nat Nakasa Award for brave journalists.
In 2012, Kgositsile joined a South African delegation, including Siphiwo Mahala, the Deputy Director in the Department of Arts and Culture, and Vusi Shongwe, a KwaZulu-Natal provincial representative, to negotiate the return of Nakasa’s remains from New York. It took two years and went to the Supreme Court.
It was a sad end to what could have been a hopeful story for African journalism. A reminder of this hope is a picture of a young African in the front row of a Harvard scholars’ group, dressed in a tweed jacket buttoned over a thin striped tie. The context makes it even more intriguing. In 1964, America was a staid and conservative place. It was a time when many black people lived in fear of being lynched. A year before the country elected a Catholic, John F. Kennedy, for the first time in nearly 200 years of democracy.
Nakasa, the second of three children, was born in Lusikisiki in the Pondoland region of the Eastern Cape. Poverty forced Nakasa to leave school, without qualification, in 1954. His family moved to Durban where he cut his teeth working for the Ilanga Lase Natal newspaper, in both Zulu and English.
Johannesburg beckoned; Nakasa joined The Post and later Drum magazine and freelanced for international publications. He became part of the iconic Drum team: Henry Nxumalo, Casey Motsitsi, Can Themba and Lewis Nkosi.
Nakasa also became the first black columnist on The Rand Daily Mail,
a white liberal newspaper
in Johannesburg.
As Drum magazine struggled against growing press restrictions, Nakasa met John Thompson, an American who led the Fairfield Foundation, an organization supporting international cultural endeavors, at one of the mixed-race parties that Nakasa frequented. Thompson convinced Nakasa to found the first black-owned literary journal, The Classic, in 1963. Later, Thompson encouraged Nakasa to enrol at Harvard.
In another world, Nakasa would have returned to Africa as an erudite professor to enrich and train his fellow journalists; sadly, he didn’t.

The Native Of Nowhere Is Home

Before it scraped the skies it had to pay a $4 road toll. The plane that can fly 500 kilometers an hour also caused a traffic jam for Sunday churchgoers as it trundled 40 kilometers from the factory along the N1 highway to the airfield. Amid all the confusion, it also needed a traffic permit and a police escort.
“The person in the toll gate didn’t know what to charge us. We were larger than a car, but the plane only had three wheels. In the end she let us decide. So we paid the maximum [$4] considering we had stopped the entire highway,” says Paul Potgieter Junior, Program Manager of ARHLAC Holdings, which worked with Paramount Group in designing and building the multi-purpose military aircraft.
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“We brought Pretoria to its knees on Sunday church time,” says Ivor Ichikowitz, Executive Chairman of Paramount Group, at the post flight briefing.
Nearly three months later, on a chilly August morning the advanced High-Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (AHRLAC), worth $9 million, soared into the skies on its first public flight.
“This is without doubt a truly historic moment in the South African aerospace and aviation industry. What we have witnessed today has relevance for the whole country and the continent. It marks the rebirth of a dormant industry that has been devoid of innovation for years… this project proves we can build things in Africa and the world is noticing,” says Ichikowitz after the plane lands.
It took four years for 60 engineers and technicians, all African, working 315,000 hours, to do what many thought was crazy.
The ARHLAC can do four jobs in one, cutting costs. It can be fitted for combat, disaster management, intelligence gathering and surveillance within 4 hours.
Along with features like a pusher prop, which allows for unobstructed views in the cockpit, the plane can also carry an 800-kilogram payload; enough for a fighting wild fires from the air. It comes with rugged landing gear for harsh terrain.
“While it’s a terrific feat of South African engineering and a wonderful achievement to have designed, built and flown a new aircraft type, until the details of the proven flight envelope, its handling characteristics, range, payload and endurance are published, it is impossible for anyone to give an independent view of the aircraft,” says Linden Birns, MD of Plane Talking.
Potential customers will also want to know the costs of service plans, its spare parts and its lifespan, an issue all new planes face, says Birns.
“This was the challenge that faced Denel in 1994/95 when it tried to sell Rooivalk to Malaysia and other nations &#8211; the new South Africa had just been born and there was uncertainty about Denel’s future and that it might not be around to support the helicopter in the long term.”
In the near future, Paramount plans to make 30 planes a year. That will amount to a lot of toll fees.
Before it scraped the skies it had to pay a $4 road toll. The plane that can fly 500 kilometers an hour also caused a traffic jam for Sunday churchgoers as it trundled 40 kilometers from the factory along the N1 highway to the airfield. Amid all the confusion, it also needed a traffic permit and a police escort.
“The person in the toll gate didn’t know what to charge us. We were larger than a car, but the plane only had three wheels. In the end she let us decide. So we paid the maximum [$4] considering we had stopped the entire highway,” says Paul Potgieter Junior, Program Manager of ARHLAC Holdings, which worked with Paramount Group in designing and building the multi-purpose military aircraft.
“We brought Pretoria to its knees on Sunday church time,” says Ivor Ichikowitz, Executive Chairman of Paramount Group, at the post
flight briefing.
Nearly three months later, on a chilly August morning the advanced High-Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (AHRLAC), worth $9 million, soared into the skies on its first public flight.
“This is without doubt a truly historic moment in the South African aerospace and aviation industry. What we have witnessed today has relevance for the whole country and the continent. It marks the rebirth of a dormant industry that has been devoid of innovation for years… this project proves we can build things in Africa and the world is noticing,” says Ichikowitz after the plane lands.
It took four years for 60 engineers and technicians, all African, working 315,000 hours, to do what many thought was crazy.
The ARHLAC can do four jobs in one, cutting costs. It can be fitted for combat, disaster management, intelligence gathering and surveillance within 4 hours.
Along with features like a pusher prop, which allows for unobstructed views in the cockpit, the plane can also carry an 800-kilogram payload; enough for a fighting wild fires from the air. It comes with rugged landing gear for harsh terrain.
“While it’s a terrific feat of South African engineering and a wonderful achievement to have designed, built and flown a new aircraft type, until the details of the proven flight envelope, its handling characteristics, range, payload and endurance are published, it is impossible for anyone to give an independent view of the aircraft,” says Linden Birns, MD of Plane Talking.
Potential customers will also want to know the costs of service plans, its spare parts and its lifespan, an issue all new planes face, says Birns.
“This was the challenge that faced Denel in 1994/95 when it tried to sell Rooivalk to Malaysia and other nations &#8211; the new South Africa had just been born and there was uncertainty about Denel’s future and that it might not be around to support the helicopter in the long term.”
In the near future, Paramount plans to make 30 planes a year. That will amount to a lot of toll fees.

Is It A Car? Is It A Plane?

For 127 years, the Rand Club, in the heart of downtown Johannesburg, has been home to the rich, ambitious and gentlemanly. It was born in 1886 when Cecil John Rhodes, the colonialist extraordinaire, walked from the mine diggings, marked a small dusty spot and said ‘This corner will do for the club’.
In those days, £10 bought you membership and in flocked the Randlords, the millionaires who mined Johannesburg’s gold and turned it from bush to the biggest city in Africa. On raucous nights, behind its oak doors, Rhodes would walk in and roll handfuls of rough diamonds like dice on the green baize of the billiard table to show everyone the fruit of his mines.
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There could be few clubs who can claim to have accomodated Rudyard Kipling and Winston Churchill, when he was a young journalist.
Conspirators met in the Rand Club to hatch the Jameson Raid in 1895. They plotted for a bunch of armed horsemen, lead by Leander Starr Jameson from Pitsani, in Botswana, to stage a coup against Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, who controlled the gold mines. The Afrikaaner rulers raised taxes and controlled the treasury but refused foreigners, who worked the mines, the vote. Jameson hoped to ride in and foment an uprising in Johannesburg among disgruntled mine workers but only got as far as Krugersdorp where marksmen captured them.
These days, the membership is $1,200 a year. But down the years fewer have taken it. With an aging membership, the welcome is getting warmer. The club is changing to attract a new generation to liven it up.
“In 125 years, much has changed in the business center. Most of our core members have moved out of the city center of Johannesburg going to Sandton or closer to their mining operations. As a result, there are not enough people using the club anymore. In 10 years, the club has not made an operating profit. We want people to use the club, especially with the inner city revival, but we haven’t had the outsource capacity to do that,” says David Williams, Rand Club deputy chairman.
Williams announced in August that it would sell the catering business for $0.01. A new private banqueting company will operate from within the club. It will try to rejuvenate a tired marketing strategy for a building, as much a museum as a club, with Africa’s longest bar.
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Every second Thursday evening, you’ll find David Lobban taking new members around the club to learn its history. But, unlike a lot of museums, the building has changed little since 1904. Not even a fire in 2005 changed it, says Lobban.
“I remember that day so well. As the building was burning, we had two of our oldest members at the bar. I remember them saying ‘we’re going down with the ship’, they refused to leave ‘their spots’ at the bar. In the end we convinced them to finish their drinks on the balcony, whilst the smoke was coming out the windows,” he says.
It was a sign of meaner times when the club was forced to increase its security after a $205,000 book was stolen from its library.
Lobban has worked for the club for 15 years, after he left his old job as a bodyguard for the most famous Rand Club member, Nelson Mandela.
“He was one of the hardest people to look after. I used to hate it. The man had no sense of security. Often he would stop in the middle of a street to get out and talk to people,” says Lobban.
A painting, donated by the great man, hangs above the stairwell, to commemorate his membership.
As the club struggles to survive, surely Rhodes would approve of the one last roll of the diamonds.

The Last Roll Of The Diamonds

Joyce Banda is wearing a cheerful fuchsia-pink chitenge (Malawian dress), but looks tired.
We meet her in a Johannesburg hotel, where she has been staying on the return leg of her six-week trip – the longest she has been away from Africa – to the United States (US).
“The last few weeks have been hectic,” says Banda, Malawi’s former president and Africa’s second female head of state.
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In the US, she had been rubbing shoulders with Hillary Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, garnering support for the Joyce Banda Foundation, which she has been running on behalf of women and children in Malawi for the last 16 years. In Johannesburg, she also met with Graça Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, to discuss a maternal and child health program.
Back home, it was an equally hectic few months. In a year Malawi is celebrating 50 years of independence, the international press scrutinized it over a high-level graft scandal and chaotic elections.
Banda left Malawi a month after her country’s closely-contested – and controversial – May elections, which saw her and her People’s Party lose to Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Banda was president of the tiny aid-dependent southern African country – among the world’s poorest – for a brief two years, following the death in office of her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika, the brother of the new president.
“I came into office at a very difficult time. The economy had almost collapsed, but in 24 months, I was able to turn [it] around,” says Banda.
Banda says Malawi’s economy grew from 1.8% in 2012 to 6.2% in 2014. She started well, winning accolades from the West for her economic reform plan and austerity measures, including the IMF-backed devaluation of the kwacha.
“What gives me pride is I left Malawi a better place than when I found it. When I came… we didn’t have fuel for a day, companies were scaling down… I had to work very quickly… By the time I was leaving statehouse, we had a harvest of 3.9 million metric tons. Companies were operating at 85%. We had a forex cover of three-and-a-half months [from a week]… We had fuel for 15 days at any given time… The one thing I wasn’t aware of when I came into office is there was so much corruption, and that corruption affects the gains you make.”
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Banda claims she started the fight against corruption, revamping Malawi’s financial management system, which she says led to 68 arrests and 30 frozen accounts.
The corruption scandal, or Cashgate, saw senior government officials in Banda’s administration charged with misallocating funds. According to Baker Tilly, the British auditors hired by Banda with financial support from the British government, the state was defrauded of about $32 million, almost 1% of Malawi’s annual GDP, between April and September 2013.
But Banda says the financial system was abused by previous governments, dating back to 2001. She knew bringing it to light was not going to be easy.
“I was warned by colleagues across the continent it’s not easy to fight corruption… because you are fighting very powerful people who are benefitting from that kind of money, and if you are not careful, you will get smeared on, be fought through and through, dragged to the ground…,” says Banda.
“I decided to go back to 2010 and 2011, as I saw the benefit of us finding the truth, [as] that is the only way to move forward. The audit reports together with the K6 billion ($15 million) stolen while I was in office, and the K92 billion ($232 million) [from her predecessor’s time] are before parliament now. The good news is that the current president has also decided to go ahead with the fight against corruption,” says Banda.
The May elections brought more grief.
In the aftermath of the polls, which she alleged were rigged, there was a point when she says she had to take responsibility, call for a recount, step aside from contesting, and concede defeat.
“People have asked me, why did you not contest, why did you concede, when the Electoral Commission had also announced there was rigging? I felt it was important for me to allow peace to prevail. I have always said Malawians come first, this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate that. Malawians must have a leader of their choice, but Malawians should also not shed blood. There is life after statehouse and so much more I can do. So I chose to concede, and have no regrets.”
The buzz in Malawi now is what’s next for Banda? Will she return to politics or philanthropy?
Banda says she will continue championing women’s rights not just in Malawi but across Africa, and since her arrival in Malawi, has been involved with projects through her foundation.
Questions abound about her political future.
“There is a sense of deja vu, with the forex situation worsening by the day, and the kwacha weakening against the dollar and other major trading currencies, many fear that a repeat of fuel shortages that characterized the DPP government may come again. That coupled with the failure to meet some campaign promises may push Joyce Banda’s popularity up,” says Mabvuto Banda, a Malawi-based journalist.
There has also been speculation she might be charged for Cashgate.
“Interestingly, the Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale [in August] lauded Joyce Banda for laying the foundation for the fight against Cashgate but he was quick to say more still needs to be done to effect more arrests. He also warned there will be no sacred cows, a statement that may have fueled speculation JB will not be left out,” says the reporter.
“Joyce Banda has a lot of powerful friends outside Malawi but it’s very difficult for me to see how she could be indicted when clearly many would interpret the indictment as trying to victimize her.”
“When you are innocent, when you are fighting for the people, prosecution does not matter,” Banda had said in Johannesburg, days before her return home.
“If I write a book about my life, it will be volumes and volumes. I want to write one book that [tells] any African woman reading it that [you] can be at the lowest in [your] life and bounce back. In my life, I have been down four times. Every woman who reads my book will know that when you fall, you get up, and run again.”

‘Malawians Should  Not Shed Blood’

The ruling Frelimo party, which has run Mozambique since 1975, is likely to struggle to hang on to its overwhelming majority, according to sources in Maputo, against opposition parties Renamo and Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). There is also a strong chance that Renamo, the former rebel forces long in Frelimo’s shadow, will drop to third place in the voting.
“I think this election could be tight and Frelimo is unlikely to win a two thirds majority,” says a senior advisor to the government, who wished to remain anonymous.
“Unless there is a miracle, I think Renamo will drop to third place behind MDM. People in this country do not want war and they were not happy with the semi-civil war that Renamo tried to start last year.”
The man who will take the reins of Mozambique is Filipe Nyussi, the anointed successor of President Armando Guebuza, who was nominated by the ruling part in March. He is the son of former guerrilla fighters and is also expected to carry on the free market of the Guebuza years. Nyussi has little experience in business, but is known for his efficiency in running CFM, the state-owned railways and ports.
Political analysts in South Africa agree the elections will run smoothly and victory is certain for the ruling party.
“Mozambicans are willing to participate in the democratic elections, there’s no place for the rebels. When Nyussi gave a public lecture at UNISA (in Pretoria) he came across as somebody who could take the growing country’s economy to another level. He definitely stands head and shoulders above the rest,” says Shadrack Gutto, UNISA professor and political analyst.
In the first week of September, Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama, returned to Maputo for talks with president Guebuza. This was their first meeting after Dhlakama went into hiding at the end of 2013 after a political dispute.
“I am afraid that if Renamo doesn’t change leadership they will definitely fail in these elections. I think it is frustrations, I have seen the party doing desperate things such as going back to the bush. But they have recently committed to put the arms down and go to the polls. On the other hand, Frelimo has been holding regular elections. No doubt, Nyussi is the party choice and there’s confidence that he will grow the economy,” says Tawana Kupe, a professor at Wits University in Johannesburg.
Dhlakama, who has run in every presidential race since 1994, saw his support wane to 16% in 2009 polls.
The World Bank forecasts the Mozambican economy will grow by 8.1% this year and up to 8.6% in 2015.
In August, president Guebuza launched the 175MW gas plant at Ressano Garcia. It was a joint venture between Electricidade de Mocambique (EDM) and Sasol, a South African energy company with a 49% stake.
“Mozambique is set to become a global top ten gas player in the near future, if all the exploration and proven reserve results are taken into account… From an investment perspective, there have already been interests both from countries in the East as well as South Africa as off takers to products,” says Johan Muller, an energy analyst at Frost &amp; Sullivan.
A peaceful election could help usher in a new era of prosperity in what was once one of the poorest countries in the world.

Old Foes To Take A Beating

Independence celebrations in Nigeria have traditionally been marked by the Head of State urging citizens to be thankful for how far the country has come and promising new beginnings.
Now, it is also a stark reminder of lingering trouble: terrorism. The last few national celebrations have taken place in the confines of the presidential residence, instead of the traditional Eagle Square, after a bomb blast during the 2010 celebrations killed several people.
<div id="attachment_3124" style="width: 195px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3124" class="size-medium wp-image-3124" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/153160755-185x300.jpg" alt="" width="185" height="300" />Nigeria&#8217;s President Goodluck Jonathan arrives to attend the ceremony marking the country&#8217;s 52nd anniversary of independence from Britain, on October 1, 2012 in Abuja. AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL WOLE</div>
This year, there will be even more reason for the day to be subdued. The Nigeria that will be celebrating its 54th anniversary will be smaller than the one that turned 50. The militant group Boko Haram, in brazen defiance of the government’s resolve to subdue it, now takes pride in seizing portions of Nigerian territory.
The insurgency shaved half a percentage point off the GDP this year, says Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. In addition, the threat of the Ebola virus, which has swept through West Africa since April, has alarmed investors. From an economic point of view there is much cause for worry.
Nigeria has a history of navigating through choppy waters. A decade ago, militants in the Niger Delta were busy stoking frustrations and amassing weaponry, which they would use to cripple the oil industry that is the country&#8217;s mainstay. The force majeures that followed, combined with the global economic meltdown, left the country in a precarious position.
The country that gained its independence on October 1, 1960 – one of 18 African countries that would break free from the colonial grip that year – was a hopeful one. From the day it dawned on Nigerians, three years earlier, that that the much smaller Ghana had beaten Nigeria to freedom, enthusiasm had swelled in the then federal capital Lagos.
“This is a wonderful day, and it is all the more wonderful because we have awaited it with increasing impatience, compelled to watch one country after another overtaking us on the road when we had so nearly reached our goal,” said Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa in his Independence Day speech.
“I promise you, we shall not fail for want of determination. And we come to this task better-equipped than many.”
Barely six years later, it was all over. The republic crumbled, partly under the weight of corruption that critics say has grown worse. They claim corruption is depriving Nigerians – more than half of whom live below the poverty line – of the benefits of hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue.
While the road to independence may have been, in Balewa&#8217;s words, without bitterness nor bloodshed, the road since has been rocky. So, like several other African countries, bloodshed has defined much of Nigeria’s post-independence history. From a succession of coups to a bloody civil war, that claimed more than one million lives, and ethno-religious crises.
Added to that is the copious number of deaths from needless causes that Nigerians have long got used to: infants dying from easily treatable diseases, car crashes, petroleum pipeline spills and adulterated drugs.
Amid the gloom, however, Nigeria has never been better placed than it is now to pull off a long-awaited economic miracle. The last decade has been marked by solid growth – averaging in excess of 6%, and placing Nigeria among the fastest growing economies in the world. In April, it emerged, after a long overdue reassessment, that Nigeria, not South Africa, is Africa’s largest economy.
<div id="attachment_3126" style="width: 244px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3126" class="size-medium wp-image-3126" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/104408801-234x300.jpg" alt="" width="234" height="300" />The Duchess of KENT Katharine WORSLEY presiding over Nigeria&#8217;s independence ceremonies on October 1st, 1960. Le 1er octobre 1960, la duchesse de KENT Katharine WORSLEY préside les cérémonies d&#8217;indépendance du Nigéria.</div>
Investor confidence is strong in spite of the country’s challenges. The confidence is fed largely by a large youthful population. A large diaspora also remits around 4% of GDP annually.
A regime of relative macroeconomic stability, dating back more than a decade, also contributes to the confidence. A debt relief package obtained in 2006 freed the country from crippling interest payments, and, with a sovereign wealth fund launched in 2011, signposted the country’s intent to be taken seriously by the international community.
The biggest challenge facing the managers of the economy has been – and will continue to be – converting that abstract progress into a visible lift in the fortunes of millions of citizens.

A Gloomy And  Stark Reminder

It was déjà vu for South Africa’s African Bank Limited (ABIL) when it was put under curatorship on August 10. It was for the very same reason too, liquidity. The Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Leon Kirkinis, resigned with immediate effect in August. This marks the third time the bank finds itself in trouble.
ABIL was founded by the National African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NAFCOC) as a black-owned bank that could fund black-owned businesses during apartheid. The first branch opened in 1965 in Ga-Rankuwa, a small township outside of Pretoria.
A man that knows ABIL better than most is Gaby Magomola, currently the Executive Chairman of Thamaga Investment Holdings. A veteran of the ruling party, the ANC, and former Robben Island prisoner, Magomola was recruited in 1979 by Citibank, in New York, where he was trained to become an international banker and eventually grew to become its second black manager.
When he returned to South Africa, Magomola was driven by the desire to promote commerce as a career for people of color, as well as create a platform to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs.
From 1986 to 1989, ABIL was placed in curatorship for the first time. In 1987, Magomola joined ABIL after three offers from the bank. He says the bank had a relatively good business model at the time.
The reserve bank persuaded the four big banks, at the time, to purchase preference shares to rescue ABIL.
After proving its worth and getting out of curatorship, Magomola was thrown out of the African Bank by the board because of a business model he’d been working on for the bank. This model is now commonly used nearly 30 years later.
The downfall of ABIL played itself out in public when the bank announced an $800-million financial gap. Trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was suspended after investors began dumping shares and its credit rating was downgraded.
The troubles at ABIL have affected South Africa’s banking industry. Soon after the news broke on ABIL, Capitec Bank was downgraded two levels and placed on review. The top four banks, Standard Bank, Absa, First National Bank and Nedbank, were prematurely later downgraded a level. The downgrading of these top lenders could very well lead to the downgrading of the country’s sovereign rating.
“Effective policy includes the resolution of financial firms in trouble in a way that imposes losses on those investors who profited from that firm’s activities and who were in a position to exercise influence over that firm’s management,” said South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, at the Southern African Internal Audit Conference.
The Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Gill Marcus, said that a substantial portion of the non- and under-performing assets and high-risk loans will be bought from ABIL, separating them from the good book, which has a book value of $2.4 billion after impairments.
A $938-million recapitalization is also on the cards.
ABIL’s curatorship does not interfere with the bank’s day-to-day running. Customers’ deposits are guaranteed and loans remain legally binding.
The bank says its vision is to improve its customers’ quality of life through affordable, convenient and responsible credit. It also says customers will always receive the necessary information to understand what they are committing to.
“The unfortunate thing [about ABIL] is that it threw people into a perpetual debt trap… it was an accident waiting to happen,” says Magomola.
In 2013, branches in KwaZulu-Natal were fined $1.8 million for breaching the National Credit Act. ABIL wrote-off loans, removed blacklistings and rescinded court judgements against borrowers.
Although insecure lending leads to an increase in retail sales, it also leads to an increase in household debt. It’s a bad way to finance the economy. Increased limitations on lending will result in a decline in retail sales and manufacturing. South Africa’s inflation was sitting at 6.3% in August.
Magomola believes the bank needs to revert to being a deposit-taking institution that encourages saving and use those savings to make loans where they are merited.
One long standing and loyal customer is Malesela Maraba, a resident of Seshego, a town in the province of Limpopo. Maraba was a member of the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo), one of the radical political parties during apartheid. He and his wife were asleep in their four-bedroom house when it was petrol bombed by the police in the early hours of 27 March, 1986.
“It was around 4AM and I was with my wife. When we came out, the police wanted to throw me into the burning house. The idea was to get me killed,” says Maraba.
It is a heavy price to pay for protesting for freedom. However, he survived to see another day.
The fire gutted the house. Maraba took the case to court but without success. He was never paid a cent for the damages. A few years later, he decided to rebuild the house at the very same location.
Maraba says he approached other banks which wouldn’t give him a
good deal.
“Then I heard about African Bank. A friend of mine told me about his friend, Jack Monyepao, who worked there. He told me I must discuss with Jack and he won’t give me a problem,” says Maraba.
At African Bank, Maraba delivered the building plans. The bank also requested that he get quotes for all the materials needed for the house. Everything added up to about $4,200 and the loan was approved in just three weeks. The house got rebuilt with 11 rooms. Much bigger than the home that was petrol bombed.
Maraba says the bank gave customers cash in the past and people paid back their loans. He says he took seven years to pay back the loan and he took other loans after that.
“That’s the African Bank I knew. We paid back the money on a monthly basis. Now I don’t know how this problem came about,” says the 58-year-old Maraba.
“Banking is about assessing risks and managing those risks,” says Magomola.
Some of the outcry from the public comes from customers becoming over-indebted, with multiple loans in play at ABIL. Greater limitations should have been placed on the level of debt these clients were allowed, but one has to question the reasoning behind racking up numerous loans before paying any off. Are South Africans living beyond their means?
Magomola calls for an investigation into why the regulators allowed the bank to provide unsecured loans.
But what should happen to ABIL? Does it deserve to be saved yet again?
“There is a need in South Africa today for a banking institution held predominantly, and owned predominantly, by black South Africans. I’m not saying that African Bank is necessarily that entity, but there is a huge gap and you cannot have a free nation that governs an economy as sophisticated and as large as South Africa that does not have a bank owned by its own people, the indigenous people,” says Magomola.
It remains to be seen if the people will continue to rally behind this bank.

‘An Accident  Waiting To Happen’

The Ebola virus is spreading across Africa, taking fear with it.
“They say Ebola has no cure. The unknown has arrived. Nobody knows how to deal with this Ebola, not even the government!” John-Thomas Mensah, an Accra-based taxi driver tells FORBES AFRICA in the Ghanaian capital.
The Ebola scourge has spawned new social rules, with people being told they are not allowed to hug or shake hands. New superstitions have arisen, with some believing that drinking or bathing with salty water and eating the West African plant, bitter kola, will treat the disease. Some businesses are cashing in on the rush for disinfectants, soaps and hand sanitizers.
In August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the West Africa Ebola outbreak a public health emergency. It triggered global alarm as countries stepped up precautions and testing. It is the largest Ebola outbreak to date and began in Guinea in March. Liberia has been the worst hit, with 70% of the casualties. Ebola has infected nearly 2,500 and claimed 1,427 lives, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria recorded 5 deaths as at the end of August.
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Beyond medicine, the epidemic has dampened business and left the informal economy, that fuels West Africa’s cross-border commerce, in a coma. Millions of West Africans are traveling traders and workers who crisscross the region’s porous borders for their daily bread.
Nigeria, which accounts for around 168 million of West Africa’s 260 million people, has not shut its borders, but almost every other country in the region has stopped border traffic, all in a bid to restrict the spread of Ebola.
Airlines discontinued flights to and from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and neighboring countries. Freight rates to West Africa are expected to rise as ship owners avoiding the region are choosing to berth at alternative ports. In mid-August, a Chinese-flagged ship heading out of Sierra Leone to Cape Verde had its crew quarantined in Sao Vicente.
The Ebola scare has also reared its ugly head in South Africa. The most worrying was a patient in August who displayed low risk symptoms and was admitted to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital as a precaution. Luckily, the patient tested negative for Ebola at the special diseases ward at the hospital.
&#8220;The patient is in isolation and there is no need for the general public to panic. He will not be put in contact with another patient. He is in isolation, in a special ward that deals with hemorrhagic fever,&#8221; says Joe Maila, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.
Eleven hospitals across South Africa were issued with protective gear in preparation for any possible outbreak, says Maila.
East Africa is also taking precautions.
The health sector there is poorly funded and all member states agree that they need to coordinate efforts to keep Ebola at bay. Little of this is evident on the ground.
Uganda has suffered from Ebola in the past and claims it is well prepared. Together with Rwanda and Burundi, Uganda borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has confirmed strains of the virus.
The region is on high alert and any slight indication of the virus in these countries may lead to the type of isolation experienced in West Africa. Business, including East Africa’s fledging oil and gas sector, will be hit hard.
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WHO classified Kenya as a high-risk area because of the number of flights from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the infected countries. Kenya Airways, the third largest carrier on the continent, is feeling the pinch after suspending some of its flights to West Africa. RwandAir and Ethiopian Airways are yet to follow suit but promise stringent surveillance.
Help has come from far and near. The United States’ (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has about 60 disease detectives and other health experts in the region. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has reportedly committed $14.5 million. The Wellcome Trust and Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) have also announced a joint $10.8-million emergency research fund.
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, through his Dangote Foundation, has given $3.2 million to the Ebola Emergency Operation Centre in Lagos, where the nation’s first case of Ebola was diagnosed in Liberian-American national Patrick Sawyer who died in a Lagos hospital four days after arriving from Liberia.
Despite these measures, and assurances by the WHO and local authorities, sections of the international community continue to fear that Ebola could spread across the vast African continent. With multinationals placing travel restrictions to West Africa, trips to Africa are either being postponed or canceled. The tourism sector in East and Southern Africa has been the hardest hit.
Ebola is not going away in a hurry.

Our Worst Nightmare

It’s a hard life for farmers who have lived for generations in the Karoo, South Africa’s vast expanse of nothing. Every day, they fight cutting winds and soaring temperatures in bone-dry valleys to nurture their stock. To the visitor, the Karoo is a barren place between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Here the communities are small, Twitter is scarce and there are more goats than people. Soon there could be more rumbling trucks than goats.
This is all because of a mining method called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. It’s been hailed a savior of the United States (US) economy, during the 2008 recession, making it one of the largest producers of natural gas in the world. It is now on its way to South Africa, because the government and oil and gas companies believe, beneath the Karoo, lies an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas; enough to fuel the country’s economy for up to 20-30 years. It could also bring $100 billion and thousands of jobs.
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For some, like Harry Memese, who grew up in the small town of Graaff Reinet, in the heart of the Karoo, the sound of thousands of trucks full of gas grinding along the highways could be music to his ears.
“I have worked as a petrol cashier for eight years, there is no job other than that in Graaff Reinet. The people are suffering. There are 30 youths here where I live, and only two of them are working in my street. Fracking is going to help the people get jobs. If you look around our townships, like here in Graaff Reinet, and the rest of the Eastern Cape, people are not working. Fracking is supposed to bring in 300,000 more jobs. At least there is something that people can earn earn,” says the 33-year-old.
Grey hair, from a life harder than the land he grew up in, makes Memese look older than he is. His life is a struggle and the $420-a-month he earns is barely enough to feed his wife, children and younger brother. The promise of fracking could mean a new lease of life for his family. He dreams of seeing his 19-year-old brother Ayanda one day qualifying as an electrical engineer on a fracking well.
No one really knows how much shale gas is in the Karoo. When estimates emerged in 2010, Econometrix, South Africa’s largest independent macro-economic consulting firm, believed there was 485 tcf, enough to make South Africa the fifth largest producer in the world.
But these days the figure has been downsized. Another task team set by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), in September 2012, spearheaded by the Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (PetroSA), believes there is a mere 30 tcf.
No matter the figure, companies want to explore. Shell, the largest bidder in the Karoo, wants to frack 90,000 square kilometers &#8211; the size of Sierra Leone.
“It’s a potential resource. It certainly can be a big player. Scientists initially thought it was 485 tcf but the latest from the same people is 370 tcf. If you listen to petroleum companies, it could be fractions of that. To put things into scale, PetroSA has been running on 1 tcf for their gas to liquid plant in Mossel Bay. The challenging thing for South Africa is the environmental impact and the regulations,” says Chris Bredenhann, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ oil and gas advisory leader in Africa.
Bredenhann thinks natural gas may have captured investor interest, but Africa has its challenges. In his company’s 2014 Africa oil and gas review, companies operating in Africa face fraud, corruption, theft, poor infrastructure and a lack of skills. Investors are also concerned about regulatory uncertainty.
“Some key players have delayed or canceled projects until further clarity can be sought in their respective jurisdictions as they cannot move forward with doubts given the long-term nature of the needed investments,” says Bredenhann.
According to the report, Africa has proven natural gas reserves of 502 tcf, with 90% of the continent’s annual production of 6.5 tcf coming from Nigeria, Libya, Algeria and Egypt. China has an estimated 1,115 tcf, the largest supply of shale gas. With African countries like Mozambique looking to exploit reserves, the competition for sales and investment is tough.
“There is also the fact there is tight international competition. Asia, who is the main consumer of gas, is being fed by the United States and the likes of Australia who managed to set up their operations far faster than expected. It means companies operating out of Tanzania and Mozambique, who have met various delays in operations, will lose out as the price decreases in a competitive market,” says Bredenhann.
Falling prices could spell disaster for the up-and-coming countries looking to sell their surplus gas.
“The sentiment of Africa being open is applicable to South Africa. Total, Chevron and Shell have made investments offshore. If you had this conversation five years ago this would have been a different conversation,” says Bredenhann.
The only certainty for those who want to frack, is that they have a fight on their hands.
<h3>Rallying The Cheques</h3>
In a year, the fighting fund for farmers in the Karoo has swollen. 
A sure sign that the gloves are off.
Like his fellow 3,000 farmers, Dickie Ogilvie won’t let fracking vie without a fight. Ogilvie gave up teaching to help his wife, Colleen, take over her brother’s farm, Doorndraai, 100 kilometers south west of Graaff Reinet. His fears have led him to pledge R3 for every hectare on his 14,000 hectare farm to fight fracking in court. Most farmers across the Karoo are as trenchant as him.
“Some guys have given a lump sum payment. Most of the other moneys are per hectare basis, the pledge varies from R1 a hectare to R10 ($1), depending how strongly a farmer feels.  There is a lot of money to fight this if it goes to litigation process. Farmers have realized now how serious this can be,” says Ogilvie.
“Our resolution from the Aberdeen district is dire. I don’t believe they understand that if something goes wrong the Karoo is finished. You cannot rectify the water contamination, once it’s been contaminated it’s over, we will have to move off. It’s not only farms; the towns rely on underground water. My small little family can make a plan, but we are talking about whole communities in towns. It’s a huge problem, no answers are given, there is so much uncertainty.”
The fierce litigation between big business and the Karoo’s landowners has been brewing since 2009, when fracking explorations were stopped to allow for regulations. Landowners locked horns with government over the lack of consultation and what they call flawed laws and uninformed environmental assessments.
Their lobbying has seen some results, says Derek Light, the small-town lawyer from Graaff Reinet. The small offices he works in have been consumed by fracking for three years. Light even took a cell phone when he went for hip surgery so he wouldn’t miss anything. He represents hundreds of landowners, including millionaire Johann Rupert, the second richest man in Africa, who lives around the corner.
In September, four years after the first applications were submitted, baseline water testing began. The study, researched by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and financed by the Eastern Cape provincial government, looks at the Karoo’s underground water system.
“Baseline testing is not done overnight, it’s a long process that takes two to three years. The timing of it has been poor, and it is something the oil companies should have done in their environmental management plan process, which they failed to do. It’s now being done by the taxpayer. The government should have had this information at their disposal when they first made their decisions on the whole process,” says Light.
He adds that the government jumped the gun. Drafts, issued in 2013, were flawed and focused on regulating fracking while forgetting about the mining operations around it, says Light.
“Drilling in South Africa is not regulated at all. Shell and other companies feed off the fact that there are few documented cases of contamination from the actual fracking process. Because the wealth of contamination comes from the other process, you can’t divorce the one from the other.”
Another loud and stringent voice against fracking is that of Jonathan Deal, CEO of Treasure Karoo Action Group (TKAG). Strangely enough, he didn’t know about fracking until he read a news article in 2011 when Rupert was speaking out against it.
“I began to investigate and attended the Shell public meetings. It was very clear to me that Shell was trying to control the meetings. There was a very specific aim in those meetings and it wasn’t to tell the truth as far as I was concerned,” says Deal.
From his 40,000-hectare Eco-farm near Montagu, in the Karoo, Deal has been calling on the Presidency, the Public Protector and gas companies to revise their actions before fracking takes place. He’s not alone; Julius Kleynhans, the Head of Environmental Affairs at the NGO AfriForum, has declared it will back TKAG financially should it go
to court.
“It is the balance of convenience. If companies and the state have invested enormous amounts of money and the public sits and watches what happens and wait for everything to be built and then goes and complains. It’s very difficult for a court to literally throw its investments away.”
“If something goes wrong with a fracking well ten years later and those chemicals migrate 30 kilometers away, even if a farmer ends up with polluted water, what chance has he got of proving that it was from that well&#8230; if people get sick from air and water pollution, like what is being happening in the United States, who is going to pay for it? The state is; the people who pay tax. Not the companies that have shut down their operations when they have moved on somewhere else,” says Deal.
It’s not just a Karoo problem, says Deal.
“If fracking starts in this country and the gas reserves are there. We will see the technology of fracking march across this country just like it did in the United States. Geologically speaking the Karoo basin is where the gas bearing shale is thought to reside, and that extends into Gauteng and parts of Mpumalanga. In fact it extends out of the northern borders of South Africa.”
Despite plans to halt explorations until proper research is completed, the government remains adamant it will go ahead and be a game changer.
“New regulations should be released in September, but we don’t yet know what they contain. All of this has happened without consultation. It seems what will happen are inadequate regulations will be passed, with inadequate consultation. We are then faced with serious decisions where we go from there. If the regulations are unlawful, that may have to be challenged in the Constitutional Court. It seems, from the ministers announcements, hot off the heels of the new regulations will be the issuing of licenses which seems to indicate government has already taken a decision on those, which should not be granted because they don’t comply with the new laws,” says Light.
The impact of exploration could be catastrophic, says Deal, especially since companies refuse to disclose the chemical composition of the additives. Chemical additives make up 1% of the 20 million liters used for a well. On one pad there can be 32 wells.
“With exploration, the same risks are there, they have to frack to see if it’s there. Don’t come to this country and look for secrecy privileges. Don’t come and try hide behind commercial interests to hide the mix of chemicals, this is not America,” says Deal.
“The minute these licenses are issued, these corporates are going to carry on with what they want to do anyway. It’s going to be challenged. People are well aware of it. The minute those licenses are issued, they will be challenged,” says Ogilvie.
Landowners seem to be putting their money where their mouth is. One wonders what people across Africa, who don’t have money will do.
<h3>What’s The Problem?</h3>
Independent geologist, Wlady Altermann, believes fracking fears are full of hot air.
Imagine a rock with thousands of pockets. Then imagine you have to drill, thousands of times, to release the gas from these pockets. This is what the Karoo looks like underground and the amount of drilling needed could make fracking costly, says Wlady Altermann, a geologist at the University of Pretoria.
“All the knowledge of these compartments and the distribution of pockets are very poor. [The Karoo] would require a very good geophysical investigation. After that, the drill hole positions need to be drilled to investigate the properties of the rock, the stability of the composition and the wealth of the gas. Only after that, can a decision be made as to the wealth of the shale gas,” says Altermann.
The German- born professor knows a thing or two about rocks. Apart from studying them since he was a child, Altermann spent years studying rocks from Mars. Space travel was out of the question so Altermann flew across the globe and has been studying mineral deposits in South Africa since the 1980s.
Altermann, now the Kumba-Exxaro Chair in Geodynamics of Ore Deposits at the university, believes that fracking is harmless if it’s done properly.
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“The misconceptions are basically based on poor information. It comes from the direct comparison with the United States, which I think is not comparable. Secondly, it comes from the perceptions that the surface and the shallow subsurface have something to do with shale gas deposits. Shale gas deposits are much deeper.”
“The fracking itself is such a tiny part of the entire process. It’s not the dangerous part of the process. The dangerous part of the process is the later methods of production. Fracking itself, I think, it’s the wrong discussion,” says Altermann.
Water contamination by drilling through the Karoo’s aquifers, 300 meters below the surface, is also unlikely says Altermann, because the distance between the underground water and the shale gas is far.
“The shale in the United States is at much shallower levels. Between 1,000-1,500 meters. The deeper you go, the less the risk of contamination. The pressure in the ceiling holds the gas better. The chance to contaminate groundwater through that type of production is so low; you really must act like an idiot to do this. It’s not impossible but if it’s done properly, there’s no problem,” he says.
The fracking process has made significant technological steps since it began 70 years ago, says Altermann. Wells can be spaced further apart because drilling horizontally can stretch for 5 kilometers. Ten years ago, that same reach was a kilometer.
The risk lies with the waste after fracking. Companies in the US have been guilty of reusing this water to save costs, instead of disposing of it.
“This is what causes most of the problems. In other countries, it is forbidden, there are environmental laws. That should be avoided in South Africa as well, controlled in a way that you can be sure nothing happens,”
says Altermann.
Natural gas is a greener fossil fuel than coal, says Altermann.
“South Africa’s energy demand is expected to increase by 60% up to 2050. Coal cannot supply it; if coal supplied it we would sit in darkness and not see our beautiful sunsets under the African sun. At today’s state of technology, the best way to mitigate climate change and CO2 emissions, the cheapest thing technically is to switch from coal to gas combustion. It reduces CO2 emissions by 50%. It’s a much more effective way of producing energy,”
says Altermann.
“People talk about fracking and groundwater; no one realizes that actually in many areas where groundwater is scarce, where there is not enough water to supply the population, fracking is used to extract groundwater. They frack the rocks, the aquifer, without chemicals with just water and sand and crack the rocks, so that water can flow out the cracks easier. It is used by many countries especially in sub-Saharan Africa.”
According to the professor, fracking could change the face of South Africa and not cause too much worry.
<h3>Last Gasp For Eden</h3>
It’s a small corner of the Karoo: a corridor of private land that stretches 300,000 hectares from the Camdeboo National Park, in Graaff Reinet, east to the Mountain Zebra National Park. It took 66 farmers over three years to buy into this project that promises a Garden of Eden teeming with wildlife. It could become known as the last piece of untouched land in the Karoo if fracking begins.
“The first meeting in Graaff Reinet was a little tense. I think a lot of the landowners thought we were going to attempt a big land purchase and buy out hundreds of thousands of hectares. Also, I think they were a bit worried that we were going to tell them what they had to do on their own land. Once this was clarified, there was little problem,” says Matthew Norval, the Director of the Conservation Programme at the Wilderness Foundation.
The corridor project is the brainchild of Norval, in collaboration with South Africa National Parks (SANParks). He wants to create a reserve for future generations.
“The farmers in this area have looked after the land for many generations, some of them are third and fourth generation. The reason you can build a natural corridor in that region is because the land has been so well looked after and is still in good condition and there is a strong affinity from the farmers who own that land,” says Norval.
The application is with the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa.
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“Fracking raised its head at almost the same time we started working in that area. There is no doubt that it influenced the way we worked and the way some of the landowners decided how to collaborate with us. I think fracking hit a lot of the landowners, sort of right between the eyes. They suddenly realized that properties that had been in their families for generations were now under threat. It was possible their land would get damaged and their children or their children’s children wouldn’t be able to make a livelihood from farming. You have to bear in mind its prime natural rangeland grazing for sheep and cattle,” says Norval.
“I think it would be near impossible to rehabilitate the Karoo after fracking. In some areas, to a layman it may look like gravel plain. Somebody that doesn’t understand the intricacies of that ecosystem might just assume you can level it and there you go. But it’s not like that.”
“This is our last gasp. Never mind rhino, we’re losing lion; we’re losing pangolin by the ton. When it comes to land, the opportunity to build corridors and create landscapes that are going to have some relevance in the future, this is our last chance. ”
Over to the minister.

I Want A  Fracking Future

A few days before Yusuf Randera-Rees left for Oxford University, he lay alongside a pool at a game reserve, basking in the African sun. It was another rare opportunity for the Harvard graduate. He cast his eye on the people walking by.
“I know there are people here who are more talented than me, smarter than me and more talented than the people I was with at Harvard, or at least they could compete. I see these people every day and yet I’m about to go off to Oxford and these people are never going to get that chance,” says Randera-Rees.
Randera-Rees took these thoughts with him to Oxford where he met a fellow student who shared his vision. Together they conceptualized the idea for a business that would later become the Awethu Project. The company is dedicated to turning poor people into successful entrepreneurs.
In their first year at university, the two men entered the 21st Century Challenge – a business competition at Oxford University that recognizes solutions to worldwide problems. After being shortlisted for the $40,000 cash prize, they dreamed of spending it.
“We didn’t win, we were told the idea was aspirational, which really pissed me off,” says Randera-Rees.
The winning team came up with a business that used wheelbarrows to purify water for women in the villages.
Randera-Rees was unimpressed.
“You want the idea of an African women walking to the village; you don’t want the idea of Africans who can compete with you.”
He completed two Master’s degrees, in Financial Economics and African Studies, and moved back to Johannesburg where he worked on bringing the Awethu Project to life.
Randera-Rees saw a market in the many people who were excluded from becoming entrepreneurs because government funding and investors require a business plan, a certain amount of turnover and qualifications.
At 26, Randera-Rees moved back in with his parents and started the business with the $5,600 he had saved. He headed for the township of Alexandra where he promoted the company with flyers, posters and radio adverts. Within weeks, he garnered interest from more than 1,000 people. From the large pool of applicants, three were chosen.
“On a test of pure cognitive ability, compared to an American norm group, so basically compared to a world standard, these guys scored in the top three percent in the world. So they’re in the top three percent of intelligence compared to anybody else in the world and they’re sitting, not contributing nearly as much as they could.”
After a bumpy start, the Awethu Project received a $280,000 investment from financial services group Discovery Holdings and later $6.5 million from other investors. This made it possible for a taxi driver, airport baggage handler and cleaner to start businesses.
Each entrepreneur receives between $90,000 and $470,000 in co-investment from the Awethu Project. Over the years, they are guided by one of the company’s 25 mentors. After six years, the entrepreneurs need to pay the money back and also have the option to gain ownership of the company.
“First the entrepreneur earns it and then we empower… The big problem with the South African empowerment model is empowerment first and earning is later,” says Randera-Rees.
Empowerment and equality are principles Randera-Rees values. He grew up in a mixed-race family during apartheid. His dad, an Indian doctor, left the country at the age of 17, and went to England where he met his wife, a white doctor. The two moved to South Africa in 1984 where they were subject to constant discrimination. Randera-Rees’ dad worked in Soweto and his mom worked in Alexandra.
“To see their example was important to me. They did what they needed to do because they believed in it and for no other reason.”
With offices seated at the heart of Constitutional Hill overlooking the hustle and bustle of downtown Johannesburg, Randera-Rees looks down and smiles. Where some see dust; he only sees gold.

High Fives High Hopes

It’s hard to determine Sol Kerzner’s net worth due to his complex web of properties, consultancy fees, dividend income, tax havens, and public and private interests. What’s clear is that he’s sitting pretty in retirement.
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His is a story with humble beginnings.
Born in August 1935, in Troyeville, a rough part of Johannesburg, Kerzner was the youngest of four children. A couple of years later, the close family moved to the nearby Bezuidenhout Valley. While in Johannesburg, Kerzner’s parents, who were Lithuanian immigrants, ran a café and he gives credit to his eldest sister for raising him since his parents were busy seven days a week.
Kerzner was not the best student, more of a boxer, preferring sport to books; he is surprised he made it through school without a problem. His father sent him to Damelin College for his last two years of schooling, where there was no sport to distract him.
He went to the University of the Witwatersrand to study accounting, not knowing what else to do. After graduating, he moved to Durban to do his articles at a top firm. His parents had taken up a lease for a 50-room residential hotel in the coastal city. Kerzner convinced his dad to buy another, down the road, that had a liquor license. He would work there at night, while keeping his day job as an accountant. This gave him his first taste of the industry in which he was to make his fortune.
At night, they would change the light bulbs – and the mood – in the dining room, playing some music to create a spot where the revellers and sailors could unwind. It’s a place Kerzner says was far from five-star but definitely interesting.
In 1962, things were going well for Kerzner. He was a junior partner at an auditing firm and was offered a chief financial officer job at a big industrial company. Instead he bought the lease of the Astra Hotel in the backstreets of Durban.
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“I can’t tell you exactly why, I just got the urge to give up the profession [accountancy] and actually get involved in the hotel [business].”
While he was saying his goodbyes, one of his clients, Herald Franckle, asked why he was doing this when his career in auditing was going so well.
“I’m going to build South Africa’s first great hotel,” Kerzner said.
Kerzner had been receiving brochures from holiday destinations like Miami and Hawaii, and looking around Durban he realized South Africa wasn’t in the same league.
“I’ve always had confidence that South Africa should be able to do as well as any other country.”
The Astra Hotel was just a test run to get a feel of things, complete with dinner club and cabaret to draw in a crowd. He ultimately wanted to build in Umhlanga, a few kilometres north of Durban, because he used to take his girlfriends there and thought it was a ‘nice spot’. Trying to get his vision across, and prove he wasn’t crazy, Kerzner drove Franckle to the spot he had in mind and hooked himself an investor.
At the end of 1963, the designs for his big project in Umhlanga were complete and the bulldozers were on site. But Kerzner had never been abroad, so in November he flew to Miami, via New York. After checking in at the hotel, Kerzner asked a cab driver to show him every hotel in Miami Beach. The trip lasted from midday to 2AM the next morning. By lunchtime the following day, he was back on a flight to New York and recalls hearing about John F. Kennedy’s assassination while he was in the elevator. When Americans were weeping, he spent the night in New York looking at hotel lobbies
and restaurants.
He was convinced his designs were as good as what he had seen in the United States. Kerzner recalls articles in the Sunday Times calling him crazy and over capitalized. He was in his twenties and little worried him. His bet paid off and turned out to be exactly what South Africans were waiting for.
In 1964, the 88-room Beverly Hills Hotel, boasting uninterrupted views of the Indian Ocean, became South Africa’s first five-star hotel, with a R1 million price tag at the time.
The Elangeni Hotel in Durban was bigger and attracted a lot more financing since Kerzner now had some credibility. While he was building it, South African Breweries approached him and together they founded one of South Africa’s largest hotel groups, Southern Sun, now Tsogo Sun. Kerzner later founded Sun International.
A casino license was to prove a spur. A concession was up for grabs in Bophuthatswana, an independent homeland of the apartheid regime. Kerzner and his team won the concession with a warning to deliver.
This became Sun City, a renowned resort around 150 kilometers north west of Johannesburg. The four hotels, two Gary Player-designed golf courses, manmade lake, artificial rainforest and entertainment center took about 10 years to complete. When the resort first opened in 1979, the place was so overwhelmed the doors had to be locked. The estimates of 2,000 day visitors were way off with almost 15,000 turning up that first weekend. Kerzner laughs about how he had to come out with a megaphone to turn people away. The 6,000-seater Entertainment Centre opened with Frank Sinatra in 1981, in breach of the cultural boycott imposed on the country.
“He [Sinatra] walked in, he got on stage and he started singing with the orchestra and he stopped after a few bars and said ‘Sol, I’ve played all over the world… I’ve never played in a room with the sound as what you’ve created here, this is the best room I’ve ever worked in.’”
Kerzner sold his stake in Southern Sun in 1983 and a deal to sell out of Sun International was finalized in 1992. He left South Africa for London in 1987 to break into the international market as he felt he had reached the ceiling at home. It was tough because of the negative feeling towards South Africa at the time. Sentiment changed after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.
Two months after his release, Mandela’s office called Kerzner to discuss a meeting. It took place at Kerzner’s Johannesburg home and was about his relationship with the then president of Bophuthatswana, Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope, and Zulu chief, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Mandela wanted to create a united South Africa and wanted Kerzner’s help.
When Kerzner asked Mandela about his thoughts about the controversies surrounding Sun City, the then future statesman said he thought it was great that a young man was creating thousands of jobs out in the countryside.
The business was not easy. Kerzner had to face bribery allegations. In the late 80s there was a long investigation into an alleged R2 million bribe to Transkei‘s prime minister, George Matanzima, for exclusive gambling rights.
Kerzner soldiered on to build award-winning international ventures that include Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, the One &amp; Only Resorts and The Palm in Dubai.
The Bahamas adventure began when Kerzner was approached by an investment bank to see if he was interested in American entertainer Merv Griffin’s bankrupt Paradise Island resort. He bought it in 1994 and launched into a major redevelopment and expansion program – demolishing the entire front and creating a nearly 60-hectare aquarium that allows you to walk under the sea. The resort ran throughout the construction with cheaper rates, scaffolding and all.
Paradise Island became Atlantis when the Governor General’s wife came over for tea one afternoon, heard the plans and said it sounded a lot like the lost city of Atlantis.
The response was great and occupancy high. Michael Jackson wanted to see it for himself. His tour of the water habitat ended in a mob of tourists taking pictures and getting autographs, none of which fazed Jackson or his bodyguard.
In 2002, the One &amp; Only Resorts were launched in tourist destinations. In 2009, the $128-million, six-star and seven-story One &amp; Only in Cape Town’s V&amp;A Waterfront opened six months ahead of schedule.
Located on Dubai’s manmade Palm Jumeirah is The Atlantis Palm Dubai, a $1.5–billion and 1,539-room joint venture between Kerzner International Holdings Limited (KIHL) and Istithmar World, a private equity and venture capital arm of Dubai World Corporation. Home to a seven-hectare waterpark and 65,000 marine animals, it survived a fire in its lobby before its $20-million opening. Being the biggest opening the company has ever had, a lot of the money was committed before the global financial crash, so the show went on. It featured impromptu performances from friends like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Natalie Cole, as well as fireworks by the same company that lit up the Beijing Olympics.
Istithmar bought out Kerzner’s 50% stake in the resort in 2012 and sold it last year to the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund.
Kerzner historically had no capital and relied on financing and strategy, and as a result his ventures had always been financed conservatively. This policy changed in 2006. His son Howard ‘Butch’ was chief executive officer and told him it was a great time to go private. The markets were great and everyone was doing it. The company was taken private in a reported $4 billion buyout; a $2.6 billion mortgage to finance this came at a most inopportune time.
The global recession led to a decline in leisure travel. The situation in the Bahamas was bad. The group also had to face the threat of competition from Baha Mar, which had found a new financial backer and builder in the Export-Import Bank of China and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, and was being built less than 10 miles away from Atlantis Paradise Island. Brookfield Asset Management held a small piece of the Kerzner loan, $175 million, and went into debt restructuring talks – converting the debt into equity. Brookfield took ownership of the Atlantis and One &amp; Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas, as well as a 50% stake in the One &amp; Only Palmilla, in Mexico, but KIHL held on to long-term management contracts for
the properties.
In 2006, when Butch died in a helicopter crash in the Dominican Republic, Kerzner took two weeks off to figure out if he would take the helm again. This was in the midst of building phase three of Atlantis. It was work that eventually helped him through that difficult time. It was then that he knew it would never be a family business.
“He was one of the few sons who was able to stand up in terms of talent to a great father, and you don’t see that much in my business,” Donald Trump once told the Los Angeles Times about Butch.
The ICD purchased a significant, yet unspecified, stake in KIHL for an undisclosed amount; Kerzner stepped down as chairman and was replaced by Mohammed Al Shaibani.
There is no question in Kerzner’s mind that there are still some investment opportunities in Africa’s hospitality industry. He believes that Africa has opened up and is a whole new ball game.
Although Kerzner has retired, he’s not ready to sit around and do nothing. He is involved in a joint €790-million bid for Club Med with Andrea Bonomi, a former chairman of Banca Popolare di Milano.
During his career, Kerzner planned to open hotels in Zimbabwe and built Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana. He recalls taking in Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for what was to be a two-day visit. When Kerzner got back to his friends two weeks later he found out that not only had they not left, but had decided to get married on the banks of the Chobe.
A 50-year career has its fair share of mistakes.
“In business, if you’re going to be successful and do things that are a little out of the ordinary, invariably you’re going to make mistakes.”
He just tries to avoid the very big ones and has had too much fun to do much differently. One missed opportunity was turning down an offer to be the first person to get involved in a gambling operation in Macau. Another big mistake was going private.
“It’s not only all about how much money you would have made and what you would have got. It’s about having a little bit of fun, being able to create things.”
The part of the business that excited Kerzner most was creating it all and watching it come to life. He feels that his intricate involvement in the design process is part of the reason he has succeeded.
When you are this enthused by what you do, it’s hard to balance work and family. Kerzner has been married and divorced four times, has four children and 10 grandchildren. He feels blessed to have the family and friends he has and admits that he perhaps got a little too carried away with his work.
After a quashed unauthorized biography, we can only hope for a sanctioned one giving greater insight into this private yet well-known personality.

Tag: October 2014

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