With the new South African visa regulations, it’s not just the small B&amp;Bs taking a hit – the high-end is feeling the effects too.
Foreigners who want to visit South Africa must apply for visas in person at South African embassies to have their biometric data captured. Residents of countries who require a short-stay visa for South Africa, and do not have a South African embassy in their country or city, will have to travel. Parents and guardians traveling with children must be in possession of an unabridged birth certificate.
The travel and tourism sector directly employs an estimated 679,500 people, is growing at a rate of 3% and contributes directly and indirectly to 9.4% of South Africa’s GDP. But Cape Town’s top-end is feeling the brunt of the legislature. The Westin, at R2,330 ($167) a night, is situated at the entrance of the Victoria &amp; Alfred Waterfront; with views of Table Mountain, Lion’s Head and the entirety of Table Bay. Within walking distance from town it’s a firm favorite for tourists. It’s an easy sell but the five-star hotel has already taken a hit.
“At The Westin, we have started to see the ramifications that the new visa regulations is having on the tourism industry. Damage to the local tourism industry has already begun.  We definitely anticipate a lull for the festive season this year. A further concern is the collateral damage that comes from this, such as the strain on the South African economy as well as job loss,” says Rob Kucera, FEDHASA (Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa) Cape Chairman and GM for The Westin Cape Town.
Occupancy rates have dropped significantly for The Westin. A study commissioned by the Tourism Business Council of South Africa said the tourism industry lost R886 million ($63 million) in direct spending last year because of the regulations and fears that Ebola might spread from West Africa. It’s estimated that South Africa is set to lose 100,000 tourists this year, translating into a R1.4-billion ($100 million) loss.
“We have changed our strategy to find business in other market segments and countries. We have taken a hit over our current winter period and the upcoming season will not be as good as last year,” says Kucera.
“There is no doubt that due to the new visa regulations we have challenging times ahead. As the industry body for the hospitality sector we are committed to encouraging these conversations for the benefit of the tourism industry and ultimately to safeguard the international tourist impression of South Africa as a holiday destination of choice,” he says.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma announced that a new inter-ministerial committee has been established to deal with the unintended consequences of the new travel visa regulations. The regulations are coming under fire – not only for the effects on the tourism industry but for the justification of them. The consequences come at a bad time for South Africa; the economy shrank by an unexpected 1.3% in the second quarter.
Tourism minister, Derek Hanekom, admits tourism has been hit. He said the number of visitors from China, one of South Africa’s major markets, has dropped by nearly 40% – and the numbers for other markets were similar.
In defense of the regulations, Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni briefed parliament. In his report, he claimed an estimated 30,000 children, 50% of whom are under the age of 14, are trafficked through South Africa every year, and that the new regulations would protect those children. The figure has since been dispelled by Africa Check and in parliament, it was stated that 23 children had been trafficked in a three-year period.
With too much room in the inn on all fronts, the tourism industry’s fears are mounting

Too Much Room In The Inn

The first thing you notice when you step onto Tesla Motors’ production floor are the robots. Eight-foot-tall bright-red bots that look like Transformers, huddling over each Model S sedan as it makes its way through the factory in Fremont, Calif., on the eastern, shaggier side of Silicon Valley. Up to eight robots at a time work on a single Model S in a choreographed routine, each performing up to five tasks: welding, riveting, gripping and moving materials, bending metal, and installing components. Henry Ford and the generations of auto industry experts who have followed would dismiss this setup as inefficient – each robot should do one task only before moving the car on to the next Transformer.
The first thing you notice when you step onto Tesla Motors’ production floor are the robots. Eight-foot-tall bright-red bots that look like Transformers, huddling over each Model S sedan as it makes its way through the factory in Fremont, Calif., on the eastern, shaggier side of Silicon Valley. Up to eight robots at a time work on a single Model S in a choreographed routine, each performing up to five tasks: welding, riveting, gripping and moving materials, bending metal, and installing components. Henry Ford and the generations of auto industry experts who have followed would dismiss this setup as inefficient – each robot should do one task only before moving the car on to the next Transformer.
It’s a $3 billion criticism, to be specific. That was the amount shaved off the company’s market value in early August after Tesla cut its sales forecasts for the year by 10% to 50,000 vehicles, citing delays in teaching the robots to make both the Model S and the new crossover SUV Model X. “The Model X is a particularly challenging car to build. Maybe the hardest car to build in the world. I’m not sure what would be harder,” admitted Elon Musk, Tesla’s billionaire founder and visionary CEO, who also serves in those same roles at SpaceX.
But neither delays nor the cash burn ($1.5 billion in the past 12 months) particularly fazes Musk. He just wants to focus on making the world’s best car, and the $90,000 Model S, by all rights, can claim that prize. An all-electric vehicle, it offers a week’s worth of driving on a single charge from any one of a nationwide network of free solar-powered charging stations. It goes from 0-60 in under three seconds in “ludicrous” mode, the fastest of any four-door production car on the planet, and is also the safest car in its class. When it collides with the crash-test machine, the crash-test machine breaks. You can order it online and have it delivered to your door, get software updates beamed wirelessly and receive maintenance alerts before bad stuff happens. Plus, it’s beautiful. The door handles reach out to be opened as you approach, then fold flat for better aerodynamics. Don’t believe us: Consumer Reports called it the best overall car on the market for the past two years.
These are the kinds of superlatives that shoot Tesla Motors to the top of FORBES’ World’s Most Innovative Companies list in the first year we’ve had enough financial data to consider the company. The word “disruptor” gets attached to Tesla all the time. For several years we’ve closely studied the phenomenon of disruptive innovation, identified in the late 1990s by Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen. We quantify it, based on the difference between a public company’s market value and the measurable intrinsic value of its existing business – an innovation bonus, if you will. Despite all the buzz – and that’s something we try to factor out when measuring the premium – we were initially puzzled by Tesla’s growing success. Unlike classic disruptive innovations such as steel mini-mills, personal computers and, in the car business, cheap Japanese imports, Tesla never pursued the classic route of going after low-end, price-sensitive customers first with cheaper, inferior technology. It doesn’t pursue nonconsumption, or customers who don’t currently drive cars. Tesla automobiles look and drive much like other cars, use established infrastructure like roads and confine much of their product innovation to only one aspect: the power system.
These facts don’t fit the required mold for successful low-end disruption – a traditional case study would point to Tesla hitting a wall. Even Musk wasn’t sure at the beginning. “I didn’t ask for outside money for Tesla, and SpaceX, because I thought they would fail,” he says. But Tesla has instead proved to be a different kind of disruptor, a high-end version that can be just as troublesome for the incumbents.
High-end disruptors produce innovations that are leapfrog in nature, making them difficult to imitate rapidly. They outperform existing products on critical attributes on their debut; they sell for a premium price rather than a discount; and they target incumbents’ most profitable customers, going after the most discriminating and least price-sensitive buyers before spreading to the mainstream. If you look within some large companies, you can flesh out previous examples: Apple’s iPod outplayed the Sony Walkman; Starbucks’ high-end coffee drinks and atmosphere drowned out local coffee shops; Dyson’s vacuum cleaners now have solid market share; Garmin’s GPS golf ­watches have taken much of the business from range finders. The incumbents didn’t react fast enough, and the high-end disruptors took over their market.
Tesla has built its entire company around this idea. The Model S and X will be followed in 2017 by a cheaper Model 3, a $35,000 Tesla for the masses, if all goes according to plan. And despite the fact that Tesla abandoned its forecast of turning a profit this year (even with its unusual and pro-company lease accounting), investors can’t get enough of it: Musk has raised $5.3 billion in equity and debt for Tesla since 2010, with each round increasingly oversubscribed by investors, including a $650 million secondary offering in mid-August, partly to complete its giant battery-making Gigafactory in the Nevada desert. “The willingness of the markets to support the company with various financing structures leads me to believe that everything will probably be okay, assuming the model proves viable,” said Jacob Cohen, senior associate dean at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
That viability moment should come around 2017, say analysts at Credit Suisse, when Tesla is expected to show its first significant dose of free cash flow, or operating income after capital expenditures (see charts, p. 28). The other metrics look golden: It is on track to gross $5.5 billion this year, up 54% over 2014. Its shares have soared 15-fold since its 2010 IPO to a recent $33 billion market capitalization.
Meanwhile, incumbent automakers face the same challenge now and long term: If much of the auto business ends up going electric (and that’s a big if right now with sub-$3 gas and sales falling overall for electrics and hybrids) Tesla will be miles ahead at the high-end and coming down-market to eat away at the $1 trillion industry. Detroit finds it easy to dismiss Tesla as a moneylosing startup, but it has changed the industry. “[In 2001] GM crushed all of its electric models in a junkyard,” Musk says. “When we came along and made the Roadster, it got GM to make the Volt and then Nissan felt confident enough to go with the Leaf. We basically got the whole ball rolling with electrification of cars. The ball is rolling slowly, but it is rolling.”
Peel back the aluminum skin of a Tesla Model S and you will see what high-end disruption looks like. The motor and gearbox are a fraction of the size of a combustion engine drivetrain, mounted low between the wheels to create a larger crumple zone for passenger safety. The chassis is like a giant skateboard built to accommodate lots of battery wattage.
To create a car that looks this different, Musk has engineered a team and process that look different. Call it the Musk Way. Most car companies try to capture value with an established product. Laboring under radical uncertainty, Tesla has a process that is centered on a single purpose: speed. Like the big automakers, Tesla stamps its own body panels in-house, but it also makes its own battery packs and motors in the Fremont assembly plant. It even makes its own plastic steering wheel casings – a part easily and usually outsourced – because suppliers (much to their regret) tried sending their B teams and took months to turn around designs.
Tesla cannot wait – it updates designs continuously, borrowing ideas freely from its sibling SpaceX, including its extensive use of aluminum in both the body and the chassis of the Model S, as well as drawing and casting techniques used to produce the aluminum bodies of SpaceX’s Falcon rocket and Dragon capsules. “It’s very helpful to cross-fertilize ideas from different industries,” says Musk.
You’ll rarely find someone at Tesla who worked at GM, Ford or Chrysler or an automotive supplier (Aston Martin is one notable exception). Sterling Anderson, a former McKinsey associate and MIT-trained expert in self-driving cars, was hired in the summer of 2014 to work on Tesla’s autopilot systems. Now he’s the program manager of the Model X. The reason Tesla will occasionally put someone in a position without prior industry experience is that Musk is known for selecting people based upon their ability to solve complex problems—not based upon experience. Says Tesla Chief Information Officer Jay Vijayan, “Elon doesn’t settle for good or very good. He wants the best. So he asks job candidates what kinds of complex problems they’ve solved before … and he wants details.”
Musk’s team screens job applicants for their ability to learn under uncertain conditions. Every new employee, no matter which department, has to have proven some kind of ability to solve hard problems. “We always probe deeply into achievement on the résumé,” says Musk. “Success has many parents, so we look to find out who really did it. I don’t care if they graduated from university or even high school.”
Promotions and bonuses at both Tesla (and SpaceX) are built around a 1-to-5 rating system, with 4 and 5 being “great” and “phenomenal”, respectively. “You don’t get the two highest ratings,” says Musk, “unless you have done something innovative. It has to be significant in the case of phenomenal, something that makes the company better or the product better. Anyone can be an improver: HR, finance, production, they can all figure out how to improve things.”
When Tesla first called Vijayan to ask him to consider the CIO job, he said maybe but then pulled himself out of contention. He had a cushy CIO job at Silicon Valley blue-chip software firm VMWare and wasn’t looking to step out on any ledges. Tesla appeared to be taking huge risks, and Elon Musk had a reputation of making monumental demands of the leadership team. But 18 months later he got a call back and was asked to reconsider. During his interview with Musk he became convinced this company could change the world.
Vijayan’s first major task? Build all the software to run the business, from scratch, in three months, for one-fifth the cost. Typically big companies spend millions of dollars on enterprise resource planning software – which handles product planning, finance, manufacturing, supply chain and sales – from large vendors like SAP and Oracle. When Vijayan told him such a task wasn’t possible, Musk simply stated, with a Steve Jobs-like confidence: “Let me know what you need from my side to make this happen.” Says Vijayan, “He doesn’t accept constraints as ‘givens’ the way most people do.”
Vijayan and his team implemented a basic but functioning homegrown system in four months, and with steady improvements it now gives Tesla a lightning-fast feedback loop. “We have a seamlessly integrated information system that gives us speed and agility like no other automaker,” says Vijayan. By comparison, GM outsourced its entire IT function after spinning out EDS in 1996, and only since exiting bankruptcy has it rebuilt its IT strength, but at huge cost.
After hiring folks with a demonstrated ability to solve complex problems, Tesla deploys them in small teams that sit cheek-by-jowl to hasten the solutions. “Our communication allows us to move incredibly fast,” says chief designer Franz von Holzhausen. “That is an element that isn’t happening in the rest of the automotive world. They are siloed organizations that take a long time to communicate.” Von Holzhausen was able to design the award-winning Tesla S with a team of just three designers sitting next to their engineering counterparts. Bigger automakers typically have 10 to 12 designers working on each new model.
Even the car itself is designed for speed of learning. Customers are continuously connected to Tesla via their car’s 4G wireless connection and 17-inch touchscreen control panel, which sends usage data to the manufacturer in real time. Tesla will release fixes via overnight software download or make physical ­changes at a moment’s notice. That ludicrous mode that shaves the zero-to-60mph time by 10% on the top-of-the-line P85D Model S sedan is available as an over-the-air $10,000 software upgrade. And in 2013, after receiving feedback that the back seats in the Tesla S were uncomfortable, Tesla service workers changed every owner’s seats in a matter of weeks, midyear.
Learning in an environment of uncertainty requires a willingness to admit mistakes and move quickly rather than digging in and doing nothing for fear of admitting failure. In fact, obsessively attempting to avoid failure can lead to the greater failure of missing the big opportunity.
When the Model S was introduced in June 2012 it came with a “smart” air suspension system that automatically lowered the car at highway speed for better aerodynamics and range. One day a Model S owner was zooming down the highway and ran over a three-ball trailer hitch. It punctured the underbody’s ballistics-grade armor and the battery pack above it with incredible force. No one was hurt; the car’s warning system told the passengers to exit the vehicle before a fire started in the front compartment. Tesla quickly added a titanium underbody shield to the existing armor on all new cars and made it a free upgrade on existing ones, and it updated the software so the car doesn’t automatically lower at highway speed.
Most automakers lay out their shop floor once to minimize costs and plan model lines that will remain unchanged for several years. Tesla’s production engineers are continually changing the layout of the factory to learn as much as possible. Over time, as Tesla wrings out the uncertainty in the development and manufacturing process, it will transition to a more familiar arrangement, a process that is already starting to happen in the second and third production lines for the Model S and Model X. Tesla learned the benefits of staying nimble early on with the Roadster when, in an effort to reduce costs, it tried to establish a global supply chain similar to a giant carmaker’s. Tesla wasn’t ready for that setup, and having manufacturing spread out over the world led to massive coordination problems. “We definitely don’t get it perfect on the first try, not even close,” says cofounder and chief technical officer J.B. Straubel. “But that’s how we learn.” The stakes will go way up when Tesla adds the future Model 3 on another production line. If one part isn’t right, the whole factory can grind to a halt. FiatChrysler, for example, delayed the launch of the popular Jeep Cherokee by about six months because of problems with its new nine-speed transmission.
Tesla’s innovation process is neither easy nor comfortable. A recent Musk
biography tells the story of the time when, after asking already overworked employees to continue pulling overtime before the launch of the original Tesla Roadster, one employee said, “But we haven’t seen our family in weeks.” Musk’s response: “You will have plenty of time to see your family when we go bankrupt.” Musk also looks down on holidays, having nearly died from malaria following a trip to Brazil and South Africa in 2000. “That’s my lesson for taking a vacation: Vacation will kill you.”
The Tesla team is successful at achieving seemingly impossible goals not just because they work harder than anyone else. It has a process for solving complex problems that is effective. “I operate on the physics approach to analysis,” says Musk. “You boil things down to the first principles or fundamental truths in a particular area and then you reason up from there. Then you apply your reasoning to those axiomatic principles to assess what is really possible and what is simply perceived to be possible.” This method leads to innovative solutions that even Tesla executives didn’t think were possible.
Says Straubel: “Musk challenges everyone to work incredibly hard.  I know that sounds stereotypical, but I think he does it to a degree that is pretty unusual, and it is highly uncomfortable for most people, but the results are fairly undeniable. If you challenge people to work hard, they achieve more than they think they can. Most leaders don’t want to do that.” Adds Doug Fields, vice president of engineering: “We take leaps of faith that are like jumping out of an airplane and designing and building the parachute on the way down.”
That’s the necessary approach when you’re making the transition from a one-car company to a multi-car company, and doing it at scale, while simultaneously building a giant indoor energy-storage business. That’s the Musk Way.

Tesla’s secret formula

Let them be gay in the US, Europe and elsewhere, they will be sad people here,” so says President Robert Mugabe at the roadside in Harare in the eye of his anti-gay storm in the winter of 1995.
I cast my mind back to these words when I heard President Barack Obama talk of an end to discrimination against gays in Africa, during his visit to Kenya 20 years later. I cast my mind forward to the look on Mugabe’s face when Obama said this. In those desperate August days of 1995, people railed against homosexuality saying it was un-African and another disease visited upon the continent by Europeans. We investigated and the answer – politely put – is that this is nonsense.
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The big man in Zimbabwe had been on a roll for weeks. The rant at the roadside, just outside government offices in Samora Machel Avenue, to members of the Zanu-PF women’s league, was vintage Mugabe. We heard late on that cold day, August 18, that he was making the roadside speech and rushed to set up our camera. Mugabe, the consummate orator, spoke his mother tongue, chiShona, keeping a weather eye on our crew. As soon as the cameraman had stopped fumbling and looked down the lens, Mugabe switched seamlessly into English to tell the world gay people would be sad people in Zimbabwe.
“It degrades human dignity. It’s unnatural, and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings?” says Mugabe –a few days earlier.
Mugabe had shocked the world with a maiden and an astounding and caustic attack on gays, in his speech to open the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. Now, the book fair was always supposed to be the celebration of reading, erudition and light. In 1995, it was the dim, murky power of brute force that ruled the day.
The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) bore the brunt of it. All they asked for was a stand on which to display their books. The government said no and threatened to withdraw support and the organizers acquiesced and GALZ members were vilified.
“If we accept homosexuality as a right, as is being argued by the association of sodomists and sexual perverts, what moral fiber shall our society ever have to deny organized drug addicts, or even those given to bestiality,” says Mugabe at the opening of the fair. On the way out of the opening I asked Mugabe what his problem was.
“I do not think men should give birth by having wombs,” he replied, surely the answer to another question? It struck us as an obsession too far.
On that night, we ran a TV news item on two black men living in Harare as man and wife. It included a goodbye kiss in the morning that sent shockwaves over the airwaves. Both knew they were risking their lives in telling their story.
If they were in any doubt; the following year, GALZ got its stand at the book fair. A mob burned it down hurling abuse and threats, under the cynical eye of police, at the brave people who tried to run it.
This was a story that reached far beyond the chattering classes. I got to interview a lot of the activists in GALZ over these months and grew to respect them; many working class black lesbians and gays went through hell in the townships far from the middle class book fair. Thugs carried out assaults and burned down houses; families ordered men to rape their daughters in a bid to “convert” them. Even against the background of plummeting human rights in Zimbabwe, it stank to high heaven.
We journalists wondered how a people who had fought against the deprivation of human rights could so easily wipe out the rights of brothers and sisters.
I will never forget the unflinching dignity of those Africans who stood up against it. It is just a shame that so many Africans across the continent are still being forced to do so.

“I Do Not Think Men Should Give Birth By Having Wombs”

In May, 90,000 people were at Wembley Stadium, in London, for the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Aston Villa. A special guest was Yvonne Johanneson whose father played, against the tide, in the final half a century before.
“My [younger] sister Alicia and I were too young to see him playing, but we certainly remember him training at home and really enjoying the physical fitness that his career afforded him. He also loved to play football with the boys in the neighborhood whenever he had a chance,” Yvonne says.
On May 1, 1965, at Wembley, Albert Johanneson made history, but the African winger was sick as hell. The rain belted down. To the intimidating chants of 100,000 supporters, 22 footballers limbered up in the tunnel. This was the FA Cup final between Leeds United and Liverpool. This was also a small piece of history as Johanneson became the first African in an FA Cup final.
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Minutes before the game, Johanneson had been throwing up in the toilet and struggling with diarrhoea. Because of his condition, he asked Don Revie, his manager, to drop him. Revie refused; he thought Johanneson was being too soft and never forgave him.
In the tunnel, an opponent turned to Johanneson.
“You have got no chance looking like that. Our fans will murder you,” he said.
The final was goalless until three minutes into extra time. Roger Hunt broke the deadlock to give Liverpool the lead. Captain Billy Bremner equalized for Leeds. Liverpool scrambled the winning goal on 111 minutes, with a diving header from Ian St John. This ended Liverpool’s 75-year wait for a trophy. Johanneson had a poor game but it was remarkable that he was even there.
Before his English career, Johanneson grew up with racism and violence in South Africa. He remembered an incident when he was six years old playing football with friends in the street in Germiston. According to the history of Leeds United, a car stopped and a white boy of his age jumped out and spat in his face. Johanneson didn’t move while his tormentor laughed. The boy spat again. Then the driver, his father, also jumped out with a cane and whipped Johanneson across his neck. Johanneson’s friends ran away, leaving him bleeding on the ground.
These same mean streets also brought Johanneson luck. Barney Gaffney, a Germiston school teacher scouting for Leeds United, spotted the young Johanneson. The 20-year-old went to England for a three-month trial in late 1960. This changed his life. He was signed and made his debut in April the following year.
This was England in the 1960s – the days when boarding houses displayed signs in the window that read: ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’. There were virtually no black players in the English Premier League. Gerry Francis, also from Johannesburg and a Leeds player, was one of the few. It is believed Francis was one of the reasons Johanneson chose to go into the tough world for outsiders.
“My dad was even reluctant for my mother to attend the matches, which she initially found odd; but now we have a better understanding of why that could have been. It appears obvious that he wanted to protect her from hearing racial slurs being hurled at him. As you know, he left apartheid South Africa, only to be greeted with the same level of racism and discrimination when he arrived in England,” says Yvonne.
Yvonne says her father bottled everything up. She says one of the things she admired him for was not speaking badly about anyone; he made friends easily.
Johanneson also made a remarkable debut, on the wing, in a home 2-2 draw with Swansea on April 8, 1961. He created one of Jack Charlton’s two goals with a pinpoint cross. As his teammates ran towards him to celebrate, Johanneson froze. Back home, in South Africa, it meant trouble if a black man saw white men running towards him.
It was his deft and silky skills, plus devastating speed, that earned his nickname: The Black Flash. In the 1963/64 season, Johanneson was the top scorer for Leeds United with 15 goals, as the club won the second division title.
“He showed all the flair and loose-limbed speed for the game… High of action, he moved with supple grace, his feet scarcely touching the ground as if it were hot coal,” says Jack Charlton, a World Cup-winning center half and recipient of many of Johanneson’s crosses, in the club’s archive.
The shy and unconfident Johanneson was even daunted by the team bath. He was not sure whether he could bathe with his white teammates. The Leeds players saw this and stripped him naked and hurled him into the bath, good naturedly, to show him he was one of them. Johanneson was also puzzled when a white apprentice cleaned his boots. It would have never happened in South Africa.
The Times described him, rather patronizingly, as the colorful, popular, Johanneson from Johannesburg, whose gazelle-like speed down the wing draws the crowds to the terraces; an exciting player in the mould of the dusky Brazilians.
It helped make Johanneson a target for rough defenders. In an FA Cup semifinal, against Manchester United, he limped off before half time, thanks to a crunching tackle from midfield hard man Nobby Stiles. He lost his first team place and was never the same player again.
“Albert had no confidence. He could play, he was bloody quick… But it was as if Albert couldn’t believe it was happening to him, as if he thought a black man wasn’t entitled to be famous,” Bremner, the late Scottish international, says in the Leeds United archives.
“On his day he could skin any fullback, but he lacked the consistency and it was unfortunate that Albert was around at the same time as Eddie Gray. He was one of Don Revie’s most promising signings but when Eddie got a grip of his place on the wing, something had to give and Albert found himself in the reserves.”
“Albert was a jovial character around the dressing room, you know, and obviously he had a lot of talent. When I first came to the football club I played as a midfielder and Albert played as a winger. Eventually I took over from Albert because the manager at the time, Don Revie, felt we had a lot of good midfield players and he wanted me to try and play outside left. Albert had terrific pace and could dribble by people, could score a goal. I think Don was a little concerned that he couldn’t take it in the Premier League, the bigger league, because when Albert started playing we were in the second division,” says Gray.
“I never played with an African player and funnily enough it was very rare for a black South African player to come and play in England then… Albert was a pioneer. I feel he was the first black player from South Africa to make a name for himself and he did very well for Leeds United, he was a colorful lad and he was joyous and loved to play football.”
In his nine years at Leeds, Johanneson scored 76 goals in 200 appearances, with a couple of hat-tricks. In 1970, he was on the transfer list, as well as in the reserves, and was snapped up by a fourth division York City. At his new team, Johanneson managed 26 league games, with three goals, as York clinched promotion. He set up many of the 26 goals for leading goal-scorer Paul Aimson. In the 1971/72 season, Johanneson was offered a free transfer, but there were no takers. He retired as his injury problems grew.
Brendon Batson, the FA consultant and Arsenal’s first black player, says Johanneson helped pave the way for the scores of successful black players in the English game today.
“For a young black aspiring player seeing him playing in Wembley was fantastic. So his impact in terms of history became significant; more black players started coming to the fore. I think clubs started to see black players could make a contribution even though the stereotypical views would be expressed at that particular time,”
he says.
Sadly, Johanneson’s later life saw steep decline.
“It is not a secret that my dad suffered from alcoholism which affected his marriage. When the situation became too difficult for my mother, we returned with her to Jamaica in 1975. My mother and her sister subsequently moved to the United States in the 1980s and I joined her with my family in the late 1990s,” says Yvonne.
Johanneson remained in England with scant contact with his family. But Yvonne was to see her father again when she was a postgraduate student in France in 1984. Johanneson died alone on September 24, 1995, in Leeds. American poet Maya Angelou agreed to a family request to have her poem ‘Still I Rise’ inscribed on his headstone.
“Despite the humble beginnings from which he came, he engendered hope in others as a pioneer and brought pride to his race. Today, in spite of the fact that many have tried to disregard his contribution to the sport, his legacy can never die, as the poem says, ‘Still I Rise’,” says Yvonne.
It is arguable Johanneson has not received the recognition he deserves.
“My sister and I would very much like my father to be remembered for the joy he brought to the people watching him play. We firmly believe Albert should be recognized for the contribution he made in [British] football as a pioneer, who like Arthur Wharton, Andrew Watson and Walter Tull, paved the way for the black footballers. Although his influence was most prominent in [Britain], we would also like his legacy to be known in the land of his birth, South Africa. Lucas Radebe and Philemon Masinga are names synonymous with British Premier League football in South Africa, we feel that Albert should be equally recognized by his countrymen as a trailblazer who paved the way,” she says.
The last word on Johanneson goes to another battler, Angelou: I am the dream and hope of the slave, I rise, I rise, I rise.

The Brilliance And Sadness Of  The Black Flash

There are two African countries playing in the Rugby World Cup. One is a powerhouse of the world, the other a minnow; neither is likely to win.
South Africa and Namibia carry the continent’s hopes when the tournament begins in England on September 19. The best Namibia can hope for is a headline-grabbing upset. South Africa are expected to win every time they play. That’s where the problem lies; they haven’t won an official match this year. Narrow defeats to arch-enemies Australia and New Zealand were followed by a first loss to Argentina.
<div id="attachment_4051" style="width: 173px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4051" class="size-medium wp-image-4051" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/unnamed-1-163x300.jpg" alt="" width="163" height="300" />Schalk Burger (C) of the Springboks during the Castle Lager Rugby Championship match South Africa v New Zealand at Emirates Airline Park, Johannesburg South Africa Saturday 25 July 2015. Photo by: Christiaan Kotze/SASPA</div>
The embarrassment of this result was coupled with fury from the rugby-mad South African public. Just weeks before the World Cup starts, there were calls for the coach, Heyneke Meyer, to be sacked. It also reignited the debate on quotas. Labor union, Cosatu, former Springbok coach, Peter de Villiers, and journalists joined the uproar over the lack of black players in the national team.
A lack of transformation has always been a criticism the sport endures in South Africa. Although there have been high-profile black players in the green-and-gold jersey, such as World Cup winners Bryan Habana and Chester Williams, they are still too few. Critics say a country with a black majority should reflect this in its rugby team.
Meyer denies any racial bias in his selections, claiming players are chosen on merit. The only way to silence his critics, perhaps, is to win a record third title for South Africa.
Former Springbok player, Jan Boland Coetzee, is not giving up on a South Africa that is given little chance.
“In modern times, any team can beat any other team on any day; it just depends on the team. But you need to put yourself in the way of luck. Luck won’t come to you. You prepare properly and you play properly, and you can change your game-plan while playing,” he says.
Fans are praying he is right.

Never Turn Your Back On A Thirsty All Black

Green And Gold But Not Black Enough

In his autobiography, Andre Agassi states that tennis is the loneliest sport. He’s probably never been engulfed by the solitude of water! The fact is every sport is taxing on different levels, with demands that develop strengths in some areas over others. The common thread that binds us all together is our determination to never give up. To get through my training and competition I use the inspiration I find from people I can relate to, from whom I can draw strength.
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<h4>Passion: Chris, Dudley, Devon and Michael</h4>
One of my favorite movies, Cool Runnings, shows how passion can take the average athlete to an elite level. It’s what gets us up in the early hours, shields us from the non-believers, and inspires others to do what they love. A lack of experience, financial troubles, injury, negative media, and critics around the world did not stop the Jamaican bobsled team. Just as I became a successful swimmer from a landlocked country in Africa: Chris and Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris and Michael White came from a tropical island and competed at the Winter Olympics in 1988. Circumstances can dictate where we end up but if we are truly passionate about something, we can change our destiny.
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<h4>Courage: Jesse Owens</h4>
Every journey begins with an idea but starts with courage. In 1936, racial segregation in the United States was strong and Germany’s dictator, Adolf Hitler, was declaring that white people were superior. The young black American track and field athlete, Jesse Owens, was a champion on the field but marginalized off it. He would sleep in different hotels, travel on separate sections of the bus, and even lost endorsement deals because of the color of his skin. Owens not only had to overcome a rigorous training program but also this discrimination. However, his courage to continue in the face of adversity would turn him into one of the greatest athletes in history. He has been my inspiration ever since my first Olympics in Sydney in 2000, around the same time the political and economic turmoil began in Zimbabwe. Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He helped bridge the racial divide by proving that everyone can be equal, as an athlete he was superior.
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<h4>Commitment: Paula Newby-Fraser</h4>
If you have the courage to take an opportunity, and are passionate and committed, you will succeed. As a female athlete, Newby-Fraser is someone I admire because of her commitment to the most grueling single day race in the world. The Ironman is a 3.8-kilometer swim, 180-kilometer cycle and 42-kilometer run. She competed for Zimbabwe from 1985 to 1996 standing on the World Championship podium 11 years in a row, winning eight gold, one silver and two bronze medals. As the most decorated Ironman athlete in the world, she has proven just how hard we can compete at this level over a long period of time.
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<h4>Focus: Nick Price</h4>
Zimbabwean golfer, Nick Price, is putting on the 18th hole. Everything is intensely quiet. I am part of the millions of people watching from around the world. What is he thinking about, how does he handle the pressure from all those cameras and spectators, how does he handle the pressure within himself? I was young and in awe of ‘Uncle Nick’. Growing up, I used to imagine the same quiet, the same million people watching me, and the same pressure while I stood on the starting block. Before I knew it, I had started clearing my mind from all the clutter. I learned that focus is not about the ‘18th hole’ but about the countless hours you train to develop the trust you need for that short period of clarity. If you can trust your training then you can focus on the present and do what you need to.
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<h4>Positivity: Natalie du Toit</h4>
Natalie du Toit is a swimming champion, legend, remarkable person and a friend. She is a year younger than me so we would often compete against each other. At the age of 14, she had already qualified to compete for South Africa at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. After missing the qualifying times for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she dedicated her training for Athens four years later. But in 2001, on her bike to training early one morning, Du Toit was hit by a car and her leg had to be amputated. I cannot imagine what she went through. This didn’t prevent her from doing what she loved, and a year later Du Toit won gold at the Commonwealth Games. She continued hauling in medals during the Athens, Beijing and London Paralympics. She has since retired but, knowing how demanding our training is and what she had to overcome, Du Toit will always be one of my heroes.
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<h4>Confidence: Muhammad Ali</h4>
All athletes train hard. What separates us at the end of the day is the ability to take a knock, stand up, and still believe that we are stronger than our opponent. Even after he stopped boxing, Ali believed he was the greatest. My admiration for Ali is so strong that I took up boxing as an alternative exercise to swimming. You have to remember to breathe, and block, and hook, and move, and weave, and jab. If you have no confidence going into the fight, or it falters while you’re in there, you’re finished. Ali’s confidence gave him the ability to lead, inspire and teach. He chose to be a good role model. Ali is to sport what Nelson Mandela is to mankind – ‘the Greatest’.
We all have the potential to do extraordinary things and inspire others, but it has to become a way of life. The path to success is not a trend, you need to be a positive and focused person for the commitment required, confident and brave to overcome the inevitable challenges, and passionate to keep enjoying what we do. There are no excuses.

The Idols That Inspire

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

double or quit?

Time and again, we read of celebrities who have made and lost huge fortunes. Behind the veil of celebrity, are ordinary people that make mistakes with money just like everyone else; however their mistakes can appear to be more pronounced, as they cannot be easily reversed. Here are some important celebrity money lessons for us all.
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<h4>Overspending</h4>
Celebrities are under enormous pressure to keep up appearances and often live a lifestyle far beyond their means. But spending excessively over a period of time without corresponding inflows can have dire consequences. Celebrity is almost synonymous with luxury; it is a lifestyle that is associated with visible success, not financial stability. Building wealth is not about how much you make, but how much you keep.
<h4>Poor investment choices</h4>
Seeking professional advice is always recommended, as advisors have a plethora of information with which to make informed decisions. However, not all financial advisors are honest or appreciate the fiduciary duty that comes with money management. Many celebrities delegate total responsibility to “advisors” who may end up mismanaging their money, defrauding them or making some poor investment choices. It is important to do thorough due diligence before engaging any professional.
If you pay little attention to your investments and do not understand what you are getting into, you become very vulnerable. Even though you might not have the time or expertise to manage your own finances, you ought to have a basic understanding of what you are investing in as well as the implications of doing so.
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<h4>Not paying taxes</h4>
Tax laws can be confusing and are constantly revised. Whether you are the ordinary worker or a celebrity, tax obligations cannot be ignored or they will come back to haunt you. Many celebrities have fallen foul of tax laws as they have not kept abreast of this important aspect of their financial lives. Remember that you are obliged to pay tax and if you fail to do so, the law will eventually catch up with you.
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<h4>Not having a prenuptial agreement</h4>
The pressures of celebrity, in the full glare of the media and the public, can put tremendous strain on relationships. If you bring substantial assets to a partnership, particularly where this might be a second or third marriage, it is worth considering a prenuptial agreement to protect assets before getting married. It may not be romantic, and it might not feel right to keep assets and properties separate, but it can save a couple from drawn out agony during a divorce.
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<h4>Not reviewing an estate plan</h4>
An estate plan should be updated to address any major life event, such as the birth of a child or grandchild, a marriage, or a divorce. If one fails to do this, beneficiaries that you planned to bequeath assets to might end up being left out of a will or trust.
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<h4>Not having adequate insurance</h4>
A serious illness or disability can obliterate one’s finances, especially if you have a career in sports or the entertainment industry. People tend to overlook the financial implications of a serious illness and ignore the need for insurance until a major mishap occurs; it is only then that the impact of inadequate insurance coverage or emergency savings is glaring. No matter how meticulous you are with your finances, failure to purchase adequate insurance can impair your financial future and put you in a desperate situation in an instant.
You may not be a celebrity but there are countless lessons to learn from their lifestyle. Plan for what could be an uncertain future by diversifying earning streams, investing and protecting the large sums of money earned today for tomorrow to avoid the road from riches to rags.
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For more personal finance tips, follow Money Matters With Nimi on Twitter: @MMWITHNIMI and Facebook: MoneyMattersWithNimi

Lessons To Learn From The Rich And Famous

As democracy gradually spread around the world, capitalism was favored over the more repressive feudal system. It meant that those who were not born of royalty, nor had genetic ties to nobles, could amass their own fortunes through innovation, hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck. It finally meant that peasants could elevate themselves from the depths of poverty to unfathomable heights of wealth.
Many would argue that there has never been an economic system in modern civilization that has liberated more people from poverty and created more millionaires and billionaires than capitalism. However, in some circles, particularly among the socialists and labor unions, there is an argument that this wealth has been accumulated through the exploitation of others. They argue that the bearers of capital offer workers lower than acceptable compensation and they in turn receiving preposterous amounts in profits.
We ought to bear in mind that no one is forced to work; every individual in the free world has the choice to be a part of the labor market and join an organization to work for in exchange for remuneration. A major proponent of capitalism is that it provides an environment for entrepreneurship. After all, all the colossal corporations of the past two centuries started small and over time grew. Today, they consistently post higher annual earnings than the entire GDP of smaller nations.
At the helm of capitalism lies the CEO, the captains who steer their companies. CEOs bring vast knowledge and experience to the party – many having studied in some of the most prestigious universities and business schools around the world.
The reality is that the CEO has one of the most challenging jobs. They are tasked with the laborious task of driving revenue for shareholders; representing the firm as its head; ensuring that all the divisions of the company function effectively, notwithstanding defining the corporate culture of the firm and instilling it in its employees.
Then there’s the socialist ideology that affirms that capitalism is a modern form of slavery masqueraded as the archetype economic system that was founded in principle on human liberty. Evidence has shown that socialist states have failed to address inequality and have compounded the issue by creating elitist factions who benefit at the expense of the majority.   It is almost paradoxical that CEOs are viewed as employees of the organization when there is a level of self-interest at play. CEOs are often granted equity in the firms they represent as a part of their remuneration packages. They then have the added incentive to protect their stake by enacting management policies and tactics that will drive profitability, sometimes at the expense of the ordinary worker. The mining sector is a prime example: when the price of commodities such as gold and platinum rises, the shareholders benefit from the increase in profits. However, when demand subsides and prices fall job cuts become the order of the day.
Several years ago, my management lecturer said the compensation that CEOs receive ought to be globally competitive.
“Great CEOs are in high demand and as such their remuneration should reflect this, but more importantly should perturb them from seeking better opportunities abroad.”
This is the world that the capitalist system has created. Instead of asking whether it is fair that CEOs earn vast amounts of money compared to others, the question should be whether this system of self-interest masqueraded as capitalism is one that is just and equitable, especially in South Africa, where there are skewed levels of income between low-income and high-income households.
Despite capitalism’s faults, there has never been a system that comes closer to benefitting all. Until such a system is conceptualized, we will continue to debate the exorbitant salaries of CEOs and why capitalism continues to fail us.

equity and  equality

Kenya’s nascent mutual fund industry is becoming an important component in the country’s financial landscape. With increasing international focus on frontier economies, the country is slowly emerging as an investment destination for foreign investment funds seeking exposure in East Africa.
Moreover, the emergence of a thriving middle class is also creating capital flows for local asset managers. The industry, which is regulated by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), now commands $430 million in assets under management, having grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.2% since 2010, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Africa Asset Management 2020 report.
For a long time, growth in Kenya’s mutual fund industry was subdued due to an underdeveloped capital market. Until 2006, equity transactions were still being done through the floor-based open outcry system, share certificates still served as proof of ownership, trading hours were limited to two hours, trade settlements took four days and less than 50 entities were listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). As a consequence, by the close of 2005, only five investment funds operated and total market capitalization accounted for less than a third of its gross domestic product (GDP). This state of affairs seriously hampered Kenya’s capital markets as an important investment destination.
However, since 2006, all this changed drastically with the number of listed companies increasing to 63 and the total market capitalization rising to nearly 41% of GDP by the end of last year. Between 2006 and 2014, equity turnover doubled to $2.15 billion, Kenya managed to successfully issue its first sovereign bond which raised a total of $2 billion, the number of operating investment funds grew to 71 and the NSE received approval to demutualize and self list on the exchange. In April, the top foreign investment funds investing in Kenya had at least 25% of their funds allocated in the country, according to PwC research.
Despite this growth, the fund industry has a long way to go as it still accounts for an extremely small share of GDP at 0.7% and 0.8% of total financial sector assets. Among other reasons, a poor savings culture in the country has been blamed for the small size of the industry. The World Bank puts Kenya’s saving rate at around 12 to 13% of GDP which is half the average for all low-income countries (at 26% of GDP) and slightly lower than Africa’s rate which stands at around 17%. Furthermore, with wealth distribution highly unequal, the fund market has relied almost entirely on institutional investors. The young industry also has to deal with rising competition from other alternative investment vehicles such as the real estate sector and private equity.
Nonetheless, a combination of certain fundamental factors are likely to drive the mutual fund industry’s speedy growth in the coming years. These factors are stable economic growth, strong market performance, widespread adoption of mobile technology which makes delivery of new products cheaper, introduction of new asset classes, cross listings, loosening of regulations, political stability, investor education and the emergence of the middle class. The latter, which now stands at 44.9% of Kenya’s total population, is projected to grow at an average of 5% every year. The expansion of this group will be instrumental in driving demand for mutual fund products such as equity and fixed-income funds.
In addition, government’s agenda to grow the financial sector as stated through the Vision 2030 development program will also boost the mutual fund industry. Through the recently launched Kenya Diaspora Policy, funds can expect to tap into the ever increasing diaspora remittances. Since the CMA has been keen to market Kenya’s financial markets through diaspora conferences, mutual funds can expect to be a major beneficiary. According to the CMA, remittances inflows have risen from $408 million in 2006 to $1.43 billion in 2014, or the equivalent of a CAGR of 15%. Average monthly remittances now stand at over $100 million. Kenya’s government estimates that 15% of the remittances are used in productive investments.
The future is indeed bright and there is little doubt that Kenya’s mutual fund industry will grow to become a strong player within the finance sector and the economy at large.

Growing In Leaps  And Bounds

Alonely dirt road leads to a rustic farmhouse with old-fashioned shutters, wooden beams and creeping vines. By the entrance are a few ageing oak barrels, still sturdy and red from years of storing wine.
It is a fitting prelude to the man you are about to meet.
We are at Vriesenhof, a farm nestled between the Stellenbosch and Helderberg mountains in the Paradyskloof Valley of South Africa’s Western Cape. These winelands are rife with grapes and gossip, and boast a colorful cast of characters, mostly wine farmers who relate the valley’s stories, and often are stories themselves.
This is a world where wine and winning are spoken of in the same breath.
And in this cavernous house, a remodeled 18th century cellar, Jan Boland Coetzee, the renowned Springbok rugby player and venerable vintner, exemplifies both.
Within seconds of meeting him on this impromptu visit, Coetzee shows he is a true son of the soil. It is a warm April. Barefoot and brisk, in beige shorts, he darts from the living room, to the kitchen, to the backyard – where his elder daughter Hanle, who lives close by, is earnestly laying out tables for an evening do at the house.
In the kitchen – shelves laden with wine bottles – there are sizzling sounds on the stove, followed by the aroma of – possibly – deep-fried fish cakes. Coetzee is issuing instructions to a few laborers at the back. He soon returns to sit at the large yellowwood dining table, decked with flowers in vases set like a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Originally Dutch, Coetzee says his ancestors came to the Cape in 1679. It is here, in this valley at the foot of the Stellenbosch mountains, that he learned the game of rugby and the art of making wine.
Coetzee purchased Vriesenhof in 1980 – “for its south-facing slopes on the cooler side of the foothills” – and has been here since, cultivating plantings of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, pinotage and pinot noir, sold under the labels of Vriesenhof and Paradyskloof.
“I love to take pride in what is ours, what is South African,” says the valley’s doyen of pinotage.
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“I focused on pinotage when I was young, as it is the only grape variety since its birth that has really taken on a commercial collective in the world of wine. And if it is doing well, it means we are proud of it, because it is born under the African sun, it is performing under the African sun, and we take pride because we believe it is ours.”
Coetzee pauses between words and sentences, but when he speaks, he makes you feel the earth around you: the air, the sun, the soil. Clearly, it is his territory – and terroir.
“Wine is a mirror of the environment first and foremost, because it is a product of the soil. In that, lies our future. Man needs to understand the soil, the plant, to put it in its right place in the right environment to give it its best. And the more you care, the better it gets,” he says.
The man has a deep love for the farm, and is happy just to be in it – with his glass of chardonnay.
“I love what I am doing, I love the farm, and I love drinking good wine. It’s as simple as that,” says the sprightly 70-year-old whose days on the 85-hectare farm begin at 4AM.
Coetzee studied oenology and viticulture at Stellenbosch University.
“I didn’t become a vet so I became a viticulturist. It’s amazing how many winemakers wanted to become vets,”
he laughs.
“I still have the record for writing the most exams before I passed. So I have a very broad knowledge. Like the wooden barrel, it’s [like] the un-opening of old wine.”
While still a student, Coetzee became captain of the university’s Under-18 rugby team.
“Everyone in South Africa plays rugby from a young age,” he says.
He played for his provincial team, Western Province, from 1967 to 1979, and played flank for the national team, the Springboks, from 1974 to 1976.
He stopped playing when a tour was cancelled in 1979 on account of apartheid when South African sport also took a hit.
“From a South Africa point of view, things were bad in terms of international rugby because of apartheid. We were isolated… When the tour was cancelled, I stopped playing and went to France in 1981 to work in a wine house in Burgundy for a year,” says Coetzee.
That was the tipping point. He returned wiser, and helped lift the profile of wine in Stellenbosch. Today, he sells his wine all over the world; Scandinavia is his biggest market.
Coetzee may have stopped playing rugby, but he uses it well in his wine analogies.
“We used to export 74 percent of our crop, but now try and get as close as possible. We do 50:50 local and export. Rugby has taught me to have two legs. If you kick [with] one leg, one can hopefully stand on the other,” he says.
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Coetzee vividly remembers that tear-jerking moment when Nelson Mandela handed the trophy to Springbok captain François Pienaar during the 1995 World Cup final. Coetzee was present, as a spectator.
“It was a special day, not only for sport but also for mankind. I remember that moment clearly. I can still see it.”
Coetzee has ensured his legacy – in both rugby and wine – lives on.
“My grandsons [between the ages of five to 10] all play rugby. They also made their first wine in 2015. Each of them has a barrel from the vintage of the year they were born in,” says Coetzee.
Divorced, Coetzee lives by himself. Fortunately, his four children are all into farming in some way, and visit frequently. His daughter Hanle says the most remarkable thing about her father is his humility.
“He has 40 years plus of experience of harvests and climates in the wine industry. He has seen good vintages, and bad. The new, younger winemakers are well-traveled, whereas in his time, the exposure and material were limited. He has old-world knowledge. If he drops dead tomorrow, it’s all gone, I don’t know how to capture it,” she says.
How much is he worth? Coetzee thinks long and hard, before answering: “I actually can’t put a number to it; we are not [into] numbers. We want to be loving and caring people, and that you can’t measure in currency. Money is an evil necessity. I am a big believer of the barter system – milk farmers and cheese farmers must drink wine, and I must eat cheese. They must produce meat, and they must drink wine. I try to convince all my farming colleagues in the mutton, beef, cheese, fish and lobster businesses to [barter].”
And are they listening? For sure, he says with certainty.
Coetzee has many admirers in the valley, across generations. About three kilometers from his Vriesenhof farmhouse, at the Kleine Zalze estate, its owner Kobus Basson, another Stellenbosch success, says Coetzee was instrumental in exposing him to the lifestyle around the wine business. He turned the rugby-playing lawyer into one of the region’s top wine farmers.
“Jan Coetzee is one of the characters of Stellenbosch, you can’t tell a wine story without him,” says the 57-year-old Basson of the senior entrepreneur.
“He is the type of guy [who] if there is snow in the mountains, would still walk in his short pants, with muscles like he has. He is a Stellenbosch legend, one of the five wine personalities that built this industry.”
Basson’s father was a figurehead in the local rugby club and that was his first connection with Coetzee. Plus, Basson’s initial 10-year legal practice ensured he interacted with most of the wine farmers.
“When you work with them, it’s like a friendship. Jan was the guy who spent a lot of time in France, and knew all the wine areas well. In 1996, I went with him and a few other prominent guys – while I was still a legal guy – on a trip to Argentina, and that gave me a completely different perspective of the industry. They were much ahead of us.”
Basson says South Africa’s wine industry matured only in the last 20 years. After he finished his law degree at Stellenbosch University, Basson took a year off to go to central Europe to be a rugby coach.
“I went there to play and coach and work on relationships, in what they called the European B-League rugby countries. It actually exposed me to other things – to wine, food and the lifestyle around it… I understood how the Germans, Dutch and French work in a different way with wine… I immediately got this idea about lifestyle and food and wine combinations.”
Returning to Stellenbosch, he practiced as a lawyer, and got into the wine business more by default than design.
“My wife came from a wine family, and told me she wanted to live on a farm. I said ‘forget it, I am not farming’. Eventually, in 1996, her brother was running the family farm, and was looking for an opportunity with a winery, and I told him about Kleine Zalze [that I had heard] was on the market. He asked me for money to pay the deposit, and that’s how I got involved. He said ‘in the meantime, you can have 50 percent share of it’, and before I realized, I was sucked into it, because this is a business that sucks in money, in terms of capital investment.”
They bought the 40-hectare farm and after the first harvest, signed up with importers from Britain, who had high expectations.
“I thought, ‘either you do it properly or bail out’. In retrospect, I can see how the year in Germany helped, how my friendship with Jan Coetzee formed me,” says Basson.
During the nineties in South Africa, golf and wine tourism was just starting, so he thought: “Why do we go to Tuscany and Provence, when we actually have everything here? Why can’t we create it here?”
It was hard work. Every day, for a decade, Basson woke up at 3AM.
“I had no choice. It was crazy and difficult years, the interest rates went up between 1998 and 2002. I had to invest my shares and everything I had. Cash flow was the challenge during those years; we had to slowly and steadily build this up.”
Today, Kleine Zalze is 280 hectares, including the wine estate, an 18-hole golf course, a 47-bedroom lodge and the award-winning Terroir restaurant with chef Michael Broughton. Basson says all the businesses are doing very well.
“We are doing well in terms of exports [too]; I would say we do more than 200,000 cases of Kleine Zalze wines a year. And we have won several awards,” he says.
Chenin blanc is the brand’s specialty.
The last season for wine tourism in Stellenbosch was wonderful, adds Basson, who is also a director of the Stellenbosch Wine Route.
“If we stay calm and focused, it’s a very exciting period ahead… We have done research and the interesting thing is they compared different regions, and Stellenbosch has by far the highest visitor return rate. We have guys who have come to Stellenbosch 18 years in a row. You won’t find [a place] more beautiful. You have no idea how sexy Stellenbosch is.”
And like any good sportsman, he says his greatest asset is his team.
“You need strong players in your team… [The wine industry] is a little bit like top-end sport. It’s so competitive, if you don’t play with your best team, you are not going to win.”
What is it they say about wine and winning in the valley? It’s the same thing. And Coetzee agrees.

Electrifying

Alonely dirt road leads to a rustic farmhouse with old-fashioned shutters, wooden beams and creeping vines. By the entrance are a few ageing oak barrels, still sturdy and red from years of storing wine.
It is a fitting prelude to the man you are about to meet.
We are at Vriesenhof, a farm nestled between the Stellenbosch and Helderberg mountains in the Paradyskloof Valley of South Africa’s Western Cape. These winelands are rife with grapes and gossip, and boast a colorful cast of characters, mostly wine farmers who relate the valley’s stories, and often are stories themselves.
This is a world where wine and winning are spoken of in the same breath.
And in this cavernous house, a remodeled 18th century cellar, Jan Boland Coetzee, the renowned Springbok rugby player and venerable vintner, exemplifies both.
Within seconds of meeting him on this impromptu visit, Coetzee shows he is a true son of the soil. It is a warm April. Barefoot and brisk, in beige shorts, he darts from the living room, to the kitchen, to the backyard – where his elder daughter Hanle, who lives close by, is earnestly laying out tables for an evening do at the house.
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In the kitchen – shelves laden with wine bottles – there are sizzling sounds on the stove, followed by the aroma of – possibly – deep-fried fish cakes. Coetzee is issuing instructions to a few laborers at the back. He soon returns to sit at the large yellowwood dining table, decked with flowers in vases set like a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Originally Dutch, Coetzee says his ancestors came to the Cape in 1679. It is here, in this valley at the foot of the Stellenbosch mountains, that he learned the game of rugby and the art of making wine.
Coetzee purchased Vriesenhof in 1980 – “for its south-facing slopes on the cooler side of the foothills” – and has been here since, cultivating plantings of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, pinotage and pinot noir, sold under the labels of Vriesenhof and Paradyskloof.
“I love to take pride in what is ours, what is South African,” says the valley’s doyen of pinotage.
“I focused on pinotage when I was young, as it is the only grape variety since its birth that has really taken on a commercial collective in the world of wine. And if it is doing well, it means we are proud of it, because it is born under the African sun, it is performing under the African sun, and we take pride because we believe it is ours.”
Coetzee pauses between words and sentences, but when he speaks, he makes you feel the earth around you: the air, the sun, the soil. Clearly, it is his territory – and terroir.
“Wine is a mirror of the environment first and foremost, because it is a product of the soil. In that, lies our future. Man needs to understand the soil, the plant, to put it in its right place in the right environment to give it its best. And the more you care, the better it gets,” he says.
The man has a deep love for the farm, and is happy just to be in it – with his glass of chardonnay.
“I love what I am doing, I love the farm, and I love drinking good wine. It’s as simple as that,” says the sprightly 70-year-old whose days on the 85-hectare farm begin at 4AM.
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Coetzee studied oenology and viticulture at Stellenbosch University.
“I didn’t become a vet so I became a viticulturist. It’s amazing how many winemakers wanted to become vets,”
he laughs.
“I still have the record for writing the most exams before I passed. So I have a very broad knowledge. Like the wooden barrel, it’s [like] the un-opening of old wine.”
While still a student, Coetzee became captain of the university’s Under-18 rugby team.
“Everyone in South Africa plays rugby from a young age,” he says.
He played for his provincial team, Western Province, from 1967 to 1979, and played flank for the national team, the Springboks, from 1974 to 1976.
He stopped playing when a tour was cancelled in 1979 on account of apartheid when South African sport also took a hit.
“From a South Africa point of view, things were bad in terms of international rugby because of apartheid. We were isolated… When the tour was cancelled, I stopped playing and went to France in 1981 to work in a wine house in Burgundy for a year,” says Coetzee.
That was the tipping point. He returned wiser, and helped lift the profile of wine in Stellenbosch. Today, he sells his wine all over the world; Scandinavia is his biggest market.
Coetzee may have stopped playing rugby, but he uses it well in his wine analogies.
“We used to export 74 percent of our crop, but now try and get as close as possible. We do 50:50 local and export. Rugby has taught me to have two legs. If you kick [with] one leg, one can hopefully stand on the other,” he says.
Coetzee vividly remembers that tear-jerking moment when Nelson Mandela handed the trophy to Springbok captain François Pienaar during the 1995 World Cup final. Coetzee was present, as a spectator.
“It was a special day, not only for sport but also for mankind. I remember that moment clearly. I can still see it.”
Coetzee has ensured his legacy – in both rugby and wine – lives on.
“My grandsons [between the ages of five to 10] all play rugby. They also made their first wine in 2015. Each of them has a barrel from the vintage of the year they were born in,” says Coetzee.
Divorced, Coetzee lives by himself. Fortunately, his four children are all into farming in some way, and visit frequently. His daughter Hanle says the most remarkable thing about her father is his humility.
“He has 40 years plus of experience of harvests and climates in the wine industry. He has seen good vintages, and bad. The new, younger winemakers are well-traveled, whereas in his time, the exposure and material were limited. He has old-world knowledge. If he drops dead tomorrow, it’s all gone, I don’t know how to capture it,” she says.
How much is he worth? Coetzee thinks long and hard, before answering: “I actually can’t put a number to it; we are not [into] numbers. We want to be loving and caring people, and that you can’t measure in currency. Money is an evil necessity. I am a big believer of the barter system – milk farmers and cheese farmers must drink wine, and I must eat cheese. They must produce meat, and they must drink wine. I try to convince all my farming colleagues in the mutton, beef, cheese, fish and lobster businesses to [barter].”
And are they listening? For sure, he says with certainty.
Coetzee has many admirers in the valley, across generations. About three kilometers from his Vriesenhof farmhouse, at the Kleine Zalze estate, its owner Kobus Basson, another Stellenbosch success, says Coetzee was instrumental in exposing him to the lifestyle around the wine business. He turned the rugby-playing lawyer into one of the region’s top wine farmers.
“Jan Coetzee is one of the characters of Stellenbosch, you can’t tell a wine story without him,” says the 57-year-old Basson of the senior entrepreneur.
“He is the type of guy [who] if there is snow in the mountains, would still walk in his short pants, with muscles like he has. He is a Stellenbosch legend, one of the five wine personalities that built this industry.”
Basson’s father was a figurehead in the local rugby club and that was his first connection with Coetzee. Plus, Basson’s initial 10-year legal practice ensured he interacted with most of the wine farmers.
“When you work with them, it’s like a friendship. Jan was the guy who spent a lot of time in France, and knew all the wine areas well. In 1996, I went with him and a few other prominent guys – while I was still a legal guy – on a trip to Argentina, and that gave me a completely different perspective of the industry. They were much ahead of us.”
Basson says South Africa’s wine industry matured only in the last 20 years. After he finished his law degree at Stellenbosch University, Basson took a year off to go to central Europe to be a rugby coach.
“I went there to play and coach and work on relationships, in what they called the European B-League rugby countries. It actually exposed me to other things – to wine, food and the lifestyle around it… I understood how the Germans, Dutch and French work in a different way with wine… I immediately got this idea about lifestyle and food and wine combinations.”
Returning to Stellenbosch, he practiced as a lawyer, and got into the wine business more by default than design.
“My wife came from a wine family, and told me she wanted to live on a farm. I said ‘forget it, I am not farming’. Eventually, in 1996, her brother was running the family farm, and was looking for an opportunity with a winery, and I told him about Kleine Zalze [that I had heard] was on the market. He asked me for money to pay the deposit, and that’s how I got involved. He said ‘in the meantime, you can have 50 percent share of it’, and before I realized, I was sucked into it, because this is a business that sucks in money, in terms of capital investment.”
They bought the 40-hectare farm and after the first harvest, signed up with importers from Britain, who had high expectations.
“I thought, ‘either you do it properly or bail out’. In retrospect, I can see how the year in Germany helped, how my friendship with Jan Coetzee formed me,” says Basson.
During the nineties in South Africa, golf and wine tourism was just starting, so he thought: “Why do we go to Tuscany and Provence, when we actually have everything here? Why can’t we create it here?”
It was hard work. Every day, for a decade, Basson woke up at 3AM.
“I had no choice. It was crazy and difficult years, the interest rates went up between 1998 and 2002. I had to invest my shares and everything I had. Cash flow was the challenge during those years; we had to slowly and steadily build this up.”
Today, Kleine Zalze is 280 hectares, including the wine estate, an 18-hole golf course, a 47-bedroom lodge and the award-winning Terroir restaurant with chef Michael Broughton. Basson says all the businesses are doing very well.
“We are doing well in terms of exports [too]; I would say we do more than 200,000 cases of Kleine Zalze wines a year. And we have won several awards,” he says.
Chenin blanc is the brand’s specialty.
The last season for wine tourism in Stellenbosch was wonderful, adds Basson, who is also a director of the Stellenbosch Wine Route.
“If we stay calm and focused, it’s a very exciting period ahead… We have done research and the interesting thing is they compared different regions, and Stellenbosch has by far the highest visitor return rate. We have guys who have come to Stellenbosch 18 years in a row. You won’t find [a place] more beautiful. You have no idea how sexy Stellenbosch is.”
And like any good sportsman, he says his greatest asset is his team.
“You need strong players in your team… [The wine industry] is a little bit like top-end sport. It’s so competitive, if you don’t play with your best team, you are not going to win.”
What is it they say about wine and winning in the valley? It’s the same thing. And Coetzee agrees.

Long Days Of  Sun, Rugby And Wine

The journey to a million dollars can start in Ikot-Ekpene, a town in southern Nigeria famous for its palm oil, kernels, yams, cassava, taro, corn and raffia. As a child, Mark Essien watched his father, a graduate of the social sciences with no vocational training, build makeshift machines for communal use, such as excavators to pump sand out of the river. A proclivity to build was sown in Essien. It bore fruit decades later and thousands of miles away, in Germany, where he was attending university.
Essien got a job as a night watchman. He had to closely observe the bodily movements of a paralyzed man, which could possibly be fatal. During these long nights, Essien taught himself computer programing. He soon developed a file-sharing software that was bought by Bertelsmann Media, a German multinational mass media corporation. Essien was also hired by the company. Soon, his skills were in high demand. He made a living, and financed his university studies, by selling software to Orange SA (then known as France Telecom), Walt Disney and the United States Armed Forces. Soon, he got bored.
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“I wanted to get out of buying and selling software products and move into start-ups. Start-ups are a different beast,” Essien says placidly while sitting in his office, a recently remodeled colonial building in Yaba, a suburb in Lagos.
This time, in between wrapping up his Bachelor’s degree and waiting to begin his Masters’, Essien, in collaboration with friends, launched a start-up based on iPhone apps. This was around the time when the iPhone was first introduced to the world. The business performed fairly well, but Essien sought a new challenge and handed the reins of the start-up to his co-founders.
He was looking for a bigger challenge – one that would allow him to play a role in the technology space on the continent. In January 2012, Hotels.ng became this challenge. The online business was formed as the infant tech industry was taking off in Nigeria, and in Africa. In a few years, a content streaming service, a flight booking platform, online malls, car dealerships, real estate directories and more have sprung up in Nigeria. Hotels.ng joined their ranks, providing online solutions for people in need of temporary accommodation in Nigeria, from Ikot-Ekpene in the south, to Sabon Gari in the north.
Hotels.ng was started with financial contributions from family and friends, as well as Essien’s personal money. Starting the business was easy, making it a success would be more difficult.
“We were very lucky that we had some capital available and we were able to raise it pretty quickly. We were able to raise $75,000 after three months of operations,” says Essien.
Usually, start-ups are not this fortunate. It is believed Essien had an unnamed investor when he launched. However, in the tech ecosystem, local investors are still hard to find. Essien thinks this is because they are not seeing other investors make massive returns. He also doesn’t think much of those running start-ups in the country today.
“Investors don’t invest in ideas, especially in Nigeria when there’s so much execution risk. Every start-up has been done somewhere else successfully so the idea is good but can the person build it? I don’t think enough smart and resourceful people are in the start-up space.”
It would seem Essien doesn’t belong in this category. A few months after launching, he was made an offer by Jason Njoku, founder of successful content streaming service, iROKOtv, and start-up incubator, SPARK. He turned it down, stating he wouldn’t need investment for the next six to twelve months as he had enough from his first seed round.
“There’s a philosophy I have that every start-up should follow. You must be able to build a business with what you have. If you are dependent, your business will be vulnerable. I’d rather take no money than take bad money,” says Essien.
Hotels.ng managed to grow independently and, in 2013, Essien decided to sell 35% to SPARK for $225,000. This year, Hotels.ng raised $1.2 million from the Omidyar Network, the investment vehicle of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund, a seed-stage technology fund.
The investment was a result of a six-month search, involving 60 to 70 investors who were interested in Africa. Essien insists, however, that the investment is not a magic wand and while some problems will disappear, bigger ones will take their place.
“Scaling a company up is extremely difficult. I have gone from me and one guy, to me and 49 people. You have to build structures, management. We need to understand what it means to have regional offices across Africa. We are going to start in Ghana. The stage we are in the market is still early. We have a bit of leeway to be slow on things. When you are faster than the market, it’s the quickest way to kill your business.”
Essien makes an interesting comparison. Before YouTube, there had been a number of video file-sharing platforms that were just as innovative. However, there was no global internet penetration to support their success. There were not enough people online, or even aware, to enjoy these sites. YouTube came at just the right time. Essien believes Hotels.ng must perfect such impeccable timing.
Although Essien’s journey, and that of his start-up, has only just begun, he knows where he is going.

Millions  That Came To The Entrepreneur Who Waited

There is little more satisfying than a simple solution to an annoying problem; especially when it makes money. Thomas Edison created the long-lasting lightbulb that everyone could afford; Henry Ford did the same with the family car; in South Africa, 23-year-old start-up entrepreneur Sibusiso Ngwenya has invented an item to close the gap between his pants and shoes.
Ngwenya is a tall man; 1.9 meters in his socks and struggled all his life to find trousers that would fit down to his shoes.
So, he came up with socks to close the gap and made them in bright colors to make the point.
“I was teased growing up and given different names. I deliberately named the brand Skinny Sbu Socks because I thought I had been teased enough and it was high time we celebrate being tall and skinny,” says Ngwenya.
A sock collector at a tender age, his defining moment was reading of two Americans building sock brands.
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A few weeks later, his mother suggested he sell them.
“I had bought 14 pairs of socks for R5 ($0.40) each and I repackaged them and sold them for R25 ($2) a pair.”
He counts former Top Billing presenter Tumisho Masha, politician Tony Yengeni, TV personality Maps Maponyane, celebrity entrepreneur and philanthropist Shaka Sisulu, and the leader of opposition political party the Democratic Alliance, Mmusi Maimane, among his celebrity clients.
“I do such designs simply because I am African. At the heart of what I’m doing, I’m trying to express myself as an artist inspired by their surroundings. Our heritage is what we have to our advantage as Africans. I use that to gain the competitive edge among my international competitors,” he says.
The company also sells to Standard Bank and Cadbury. He makes R100,000 (around $8,000) a month by advertising and selling on the internet. His company employs three people and outsources bookkeepers, legal services and manufacturing staff.
“I am concentrating on building a brand, focusing on craftsmanship, artistry and the engineering of the sock while other brands are mass producing,” he says.
Ngwenya tried and failed to launch a sock store, but is working on Skinny Sbu Socks vending machines.
Skinny Sbu Socks produces five never to be repeated designs every two months.
“As men, our fashion is limited. The only things you have to play around with are your accessories which are very limited. So men want really colorful socks.”
He takes pride in the locally produced products.
“It is expensive to manufacture locally and it takes a long time because of limited colors. In China, for example, it would cost me $0.02 to produce a pair, this side it’s a thousand times more. The factory I outsource employs 60 people so I am comfortable knowing making these socks goes on to feed more than 60 families in South Africa.”
Although Ngwenya shies from divulging details, he says no business is without worst days.
“I recently lost out on a R2.5 million ($200,000) deal because I was not focused. I tried working with PR experts only to realize that I was making a mistake.”
Growing up in a three-bedroom shack in Tsakane, a township to the east of Johannesburg, he was taught love and forgiveness.
“I didn’t know we were living in a shack, I thought we were living in a mansion until someone from school came to visit and made fun of me. When I grew up, I learned that I am enough. I am not better or less than anybody. I am enough.”
His grandmother, Salamina Molokeng, is the force behind his success.
His future plans are to create designs with his grandmother entitled “stories with my grandmother”.
“I want us to promote art. I am an African woman and I want us to showcase every African nation in the sock designs,” says Molokeng.
At the risk of mixing a metaphor that knocks the socks off anything, necessity truly is the mother, and grandmother, of invention.

Socks   The New Tie

President Museveni: We had to persuade our parliament to prioritize infrastructure instead of other areas like increasing public servants salaries. We restrained them and we put up money for the roads, for the electricity, the schools, social infrastructure, for the hospitals, so I have no complaints. I am together now with our leadership. Because in the past they would be not so clear as to what comes first.
Forbes Africa: Almost every country is struggling with electricity. How big is the infrastructure deficit in Uganda?
President Museveni: It was a big problem in the past but we have now caught up with the demand and remain ahead of demand all the time. We are building new dams now, Karuma, 600-700MWs, Isimba almost 200MWs and there are new ones which are on the way. And then there are power sources which can be put up quickly like the ones using heavy fuel oil..
Forbes Africa: What about renewable energy? How far is Uganda into geothermal, solar and wind?
President Museveni: The issue about solar has been the cost, the cost per unit. For us we think that a unit cost of 4c, 5c, American cents, is the one we need for industry. So if the solar costs can go down then we can take it up. But it has been high up to now, I think it is about 16c now, it used to be 40c. It was therefore not suitable for industries, maybe it was suitable for lighting but not for industries yet.
Forbes Africa: Rwanda has had a very good track record of bringing back its skilled people. How do you plan on doing that for Uganda?
President Museveni: It is simple, just pay them better salaries, that’s all. There’s no other problem because they prefer to be near their families, so the only issue is payment of good salaries.
Forbes Africa: There’s been much talk about the oil industry in Uganda, how is that progressing?
President Museveni: Around 2018, that’s when the first oil will be coming out of the ground. So there’s no problem. The oil price has gone down globally, however we shall make money out of the petroleum. It is additional income. We are already getting money from other sectors, it will be additional and it will be useful for infrastructure building. We will not have to borrow anymore, we will just use that oil money to build the power dams, to build some of the roads, to pay the debt of the Chinese on the railway. That’s what we shall use that oil money for.
Forbes Africa: What are you doing to try and get foreign investors coming into Uganda and putting their money in?
President Museveni: Foreign investors follow profits. If the profits are good, if the investment atmosphere is stable, they come. And they are coming, especially the Chinese, they’re coming in big numbers, the Indians to some extent, the people from the Gulf, the Arabs. The western investors are fewer but they’re also there and then we have our own indigenous people both African and Indian… many of them look at the mineral sector, phosphates and steel where the Chinese are active. We’ve got another big project of copper. We’ve got another one of cement, again the Chinese are involved.
Forbes Africa: Your view on the Ugandan economy, how do you see it going?
President Museveni: Well the way I would like to summarize it for you is that in the last 30 years the economy of Uganda has been growing at a rate of 5 to 6% per annum in spite of no electricity, in spite of high transport costs and in spite of other bottlenecks.

Tag: September 2015

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Too Much Room In The Inn

Tesla’s secret formula

“I Do Not Think Men Should Give Birth By Having Wombs”

The Brilliance And Sadness Of The Black Flash

Green And Gold But Not Black Enough

The Idols That Inspire

double or quit?

Lessons To Learn From The Rich And Famous

equity and equality

Growing In Leaps And Bounds

Electrifying

Long Days Of Sun, Rugby And Wine

Millions That Came To The Entrepreneur Who Waited

Socks The New Tie

“Just Pay Them Better Salaries”