On a crisp late May afternoon in Dar es Salaam Ally Awadh, one of Tanzania’s most prominent businessmen, is waxing lyrical about a deal he has just concluded. Recently, the Competition Authority of Kenya gave his company, Lake Oil Group, the go-ahead to acquire all the fuel service stations of Hashi Energy, one of Kenya’s largest independent oil companies. “It’s a first step for us in our pursuit of regional domination,” says the 36-year-old mogul in lightly accented but supple english. “Once you conquer Kenya as a foreign company, then you shouldn’t really have much of a problem prospering in other East African countries.”
Dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans and handmade black loafers, Awadh’s look may be unpretentious. His ambitions are anything but. In less than a decade the young founder and CEO of Lake Oil Group has built his company into a $1 billion (revenues) integrated energy solutions provider, and he&#8217;s not resting just yet.
<div id="attachment_31450" style="width: 211px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Ally-Awadh.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31450" class="size-full wp-image-31450" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Ally-Awadh.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" /></a>Ally Awadh</div>
Lake Oil Group, which Ally Awadh founded in 2006, is one of East and Central Africa&#8217;s fastest growing energy trading and transportation conglomerates. The company is now one of the 5 largest distributors of petroleum products in Tanzania. Lake Oil Group also distributes and trades fuel products in Zambia, DRC, Burundi and Rwanda; owns its own oil storage facilities in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo; manufactures lubes and Ready Mix Concrete Segment, and operates a fleet of more than 400 tankers. Lake Oil Group also has trading operations and gas stations in Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, Uganda, Canada and United Arab Emirates.
Ally Awadh was born in 1980 to a family of successful entrepreneurs. His father built a considerable fortune trading agricultural commodities in Tanzania, and as a result Awadh attended the prestigious and exclusive International School of Tanganyika for his High School studies before proceeding to Brock University, Canada, where he studied Business Administration.
While studying for his undergraduate degree at Brock University, Canada, Awadh once reached out to his father, demanding an additional allowance. His slightly irritated father chided the young Awadh and asked him to start earning income on his own.
“My father basically got tired of me always calling him to ask for more money, so one day he bluntly told me on the phone that I was an adult, and if I wanted any money, I needed to start working for it. It was a reality check for me,” Awadh recalls.
Awadh soon got a job flipping burgers at McDonalds after study hours. “This was a turning point for me,” he muses. “For the first time, I was having to serve people. I was taking orders, handing people their food with a smile, building up on my people skills and just learning how to connect with customers. But more importantly, I was earning my own income, saving and building a nest egg for the future.”
<a class="link preload-hidden ng-binding" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/" target="_self">Mfonobong Nsehe </a>,  CONTRIBUTOR

Ally-Awadh

Meet The 36 Year-Old Entrepreneur Who Built A $1 Billion Oil Company In Tanzania

The long delayed signing of a new trade agreement with the European Union further exposes the chaotic state of integration within the East African Community (EAC) bloc.
The pact, known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), was originally set for ratification on October 1, 2016, but, five months later, that is still to happen.
The impasse has split the EAC bloc. While Kenya and Rwanda signed the agreement in September last year, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi are yet to do so, citing the need for more time to analyse the deal.
The stance taken by Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi means that the pacts signed by Kenya and Rwanda are inconsequential – a new agreement with the EU must be endorsed as a bloc.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli and his Uganda counterpart l have remained vocal against a rushed deal with EU, even as Kenya’s frustrations deepened given the risks of not concluding a deal with Europe.
“It is better if the signing of the deal is shelved until further consultations are made,” Museveni told a media briefing while on a state visit in Tanzania at the end of February.
Kenya stands to lose the most if the deal falls through. The other EAC member states – Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda – would continue to get duty- and quota-free access under the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, since they are classified as the least developed countries.
This whole quandary shows how shallow the EAC integration has been, despite the bloc attaining the critical customs union status way back in 2005 and a common market in 2011. Integration goes beyond just having such structures; other aspects, such as trust and solidarity, are critical to moving things forward.
A review of recent key events in East Africa reveals massive levels of negative rivalry and mistrust which doesn’t augur well for the bloc. Things have not been well since 2013 when Tanzania fell out with Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda following the formation of their short-lived ‘coalition of the willing’, ostensibly to push for faster integration.
The now collapsed initiative was a terrible diplomatic mistake by Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya because it weakened the spirit of consensus and teamwork in the bloc. Since then, the chaos and mistrust triggered by this wild experiment has been evident in key issues involving the bloc. For instance, a new infrastructure and energy partnership between Tanzania and Uganda has left Kenya frothing at the mouth, especially after Kampala pulled out of an initial deal to build a joint crude pipeline with Kenya in favor of a route through Tanzania.
Kenya clearly feels slighted by the latest dalliance between Dar es Salaam and Kampala as was shown during the recently held election of a new chairperson of the African Union Commission. When Kenya’s candidate in the elections, Amina Mohamed, was defeated, Nairobi promptly pointed accusing fingers at Tanzania and Uganda for allegedly sabotaging its efforts to clinch the position it had highly campaigned for. Both Tanzania and Uganda denied the claims.
“Uganda wishes to state categorically that our support to the candidature of Amina before and during elections was unequivocal. Uganda wishes to reassure the government and the people of Kenya, and Amina in particular, that we remain a reliable ally and partner given our warm and close relations and our commitment to the EAC integration,” Uganda’s Foreign Affairs ministry said in response to Kenya.
Tackling the mistrust and clandestine power rivalry will be critical in putting the EAC back on a clear path to full integration which would help address challenges such as those being experienced in the elusive EPA deal. The big brother syndrome has no place in regional integration and all partners must inculcate a spirit of comradeship to excel.
Kenya and Rwanda must not been seen to be bulldozing the rest to sign a pact with Europe. Their decision to sign the deal ahead of the rest sent the wrong signal to other EAC partners who read mischief in the whole process.
Concluding the deal with Europe is critical for the EAC as it would help settle anxiety among investors. Business loathes a vacuum and efforts must be made to clear all hurdles to find a deal that would be favorable to all.

The Elusive Trade Deal  that split east africa

The tense, but eventually successful, haggling of a natural gas supply deal between Tanzania and Nigeria’s Dangote Cement is a pointer to what awaits East Africa as the region sets off the delicate journey of exploiting its new found vast reserves of oil and gas.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli on December 10 announced that an agreement had been reached to supply natural gas to Dangote’s $500-million cement factory in the East African nation’s southeastern town of Mtwara, ending tensions after price negotiations with the state-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) stalled.
“They (Dangote Cement) will now buy natural gas directly from the state-run TPDC instead of going through middlemen,” Magufuli said after a meeting with the company’s chairman, and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.
Magufuli blamed unspecified middlemen for “interference”, saying Dangote Cement had sought “at-the-well prices” and that the issue had now been resolved to supply the company with the commodity at a “reasonable” tariff.
The Tanzania-Dangote price haggle offers a sneak-peek of the tough oil and gas supply contract negotiations that authorities in East Africa are certain to face in the exploitation of newly struck reserves.
East Africa has caught the attention of the global energy industry following the discovery of huge reserves of oil in Uganda and Kenya and natural gas in Tanzania. An estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil were discovered in Uganda’s Albertine basin near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In Kenya it is estimated that the recoverable reserves total 750 million barrels of crude.
Tanzania said in February 2016 that it had discovered an additional 2.17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of potential natural gas deposits, increasing its total estimated recoverable natural gas reserves to more than 57tcf.
The exploitation of these vast reserves will however require caution to ensure the region avoids the pitfalls of the unpopular oil curse. The nature of contracts reached with buyers has a direct impact on the country’s development.
Supply contract negotiations are not an easy task because one has to juggle maximizing revenue for government and investor protection from high cost of doing business. Given the lengthy life and complex nature of supply contracts, a miscalculation has monumental effects on either of the negotiating parties and it is vital that keen attention is paid during the entire process to attain a balance.
“One of the key concerns is that African governments that are major producers of fossil fuels (and other minerals) do not receive sufficiently large rents or revenues from the production of these extractive products. This is attributable to a number of reasons, including contracts and regimes that are not designed to extract maximum rents,” the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union (AU) say in a joint study titled Oil and Gas in Africa.
Oil and gas supply contracts are particularly complex because they are not fully driven by demand-supply factors; at times they are driven by geopolitical factors. Newcomers in the game must tread carefully or risk being short-changed by the more experienced industry insiders who are privy to sale strategies.
The middle-men have a nose for quick cash and will not miss a chance to ride on the inexperience of new players in the industry to profiteer through deal-cutting. The middle-men, in most cases, fan graft in order to thrive, leaving in their wake massive damage.
Benchmarking with peers and best practice is the way to beat such odds because it helps build on contract experience. The World Bank-backed Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) can help address such challenges by laying bare all the deals.
“Accountability and transparency in the management of public resources is critical in ensuring positive development results impact – and perhaps nowhere more so than when significant natural resource wealth such as oil and gas are present,” the AfDB and AU say in the report.
Under the EITI, mining firms are required to publish payments made to governments and to make public revenues received available for audit and monitoring. The EITI monitors and reconciles company payments and government revenues. Each signatory country owns the process, which is overseen by participants from the government, companies and national civil society.

Prepare For  tough negotiations

Tanzania’s reluctance to adopt a joint tourism visa arrangement with its East African neighbors offers an opportunity for the scheme’s proponents to rethink underlying challenges of security and illegal immigrants.
Since 2014, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda have implemented a joint $100 tourist visa. Tanzania, though, instead demands its own $150 visa fee for visitors entering its borders.
Having a joint visa arrangement is a no-brainer for the East African Community (EAC) bloc that is trying to increase earnings from visitor bookings and attract foreign investment into its budding tourism industry. A seamless visa boosts the attractiveness of a bloc because visitors are spared the hustle of having to make multiple arrangements to enter each of the partner states.
Dar es Salaam however maintains that there are always two sides of a coin and will not jump onto the bandwagon until it conclusively assesses the impact of the scheme.
Because of this, there is bad blood between the EAC partners and Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s neighbors see it as standing in the way of a potential game-changing concept.
Kenya’s Tourism minister Najib Balala recently kicked up a fresh storm when he claimed that Tanzania had pulled out of the joint EAC single tourist visa pact because it was dissatisfied with the manner in which it was ratified. Tanzania denies this and maintains it has never been part of the deal and would only join if there was deeper consensus on security and revenue sharing formulas.
Dar es Salaam’s concerns, especially that of security, must be taken seriously by Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, rather than just focusing on tourism and investment.
It’s not new for some members of economic blocs to reject seamless travel arrangements with other partners. The UK and the Republic of Ireland opted out of the EU’s Schengen visa scheme over concerns on the security risks of seamless travel by visitors to member states. The UK opted to maintain its own borders, and Ireland preserved its free movement arrangement with the UK rather than join Schengen.
This issue has recently featured in key debates in the wake of terror attacks in France and Belgium, with some analysts linking the attacks to the lax border scrutiny that comes with the seamless border arrangement.
Similar challenges are present in East Africa where Islamist militants continue to pose a threat from their hideouts in the lawless parts of Somalia. Kenya and Uganda have borne the brunt of the militant groups, such as al-Shabaab, and the question of border security and immigration should be an obvious concern.
Kenya has also become a major transit route for illegal immigrants heading south in search of jobs, thanks to a raft of poorly implemented regional agreements that allow for the free movement of people.
For example, although Ethiopia isn’t a member of the EAC, its citizens are allowed visa-free travel to neighboring Kenya. This scenario has inadvertently seen Kenya become a transit route for illegal immigrants from Ethiopia looking for jobs as far as South Africa. Hundreds of Ethiopians and Eritreans have been arrested on Kenyan soil for being in the country illegally as they try finding their way to southern Africa.
This poses a serious security risk because militants can sneak into Kenya and onward to other countries in the region. The illegal immigrations also pose a challenge to the targeted countries because of the disruptions caused to their economies, exacerbating the scramble for jobs and housing and other basic amenities.
Countries targeted by the illegal immigrants that pass through Kenya, such as South Africa and Zambia, have witnessed xenophobic attacks due to pressure caused on resources by the uninvited guests.
The EAC partners need to then find workable solutions to keep out any cross-border security threats and illegal immigrants, even as they pursue a dream of a common tourism industry which has its obvious benefits.
On a visit to Kenya in mid-October, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma raised this issue with immigration controls in Kenya and said they posed challenges.
“We have to ensure that there are no loopholes for criminals to take advantage of,” he said in response to a request by his host President Uhuru Kenyatta to review visa conditions for Kenyans.

Secure Borders Before Making Them Seamless

Africa has had its fair share of great leaders, like Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah. However, political power in Africa is often seen as an easy path to become wealthy. Too often, cronyism and patronage oil the wheels of governments, ensuring that corruption goes unpunished and impunity reigns. Enter Tanzania’s President John Magufuli, who is defying all the purportedly accepted norms of African leadership.
Magufuli wasted no time in implementing his campaign promises, quickly living up to his nickname &#8211; the Bulldozer. Tanzanians first felt the effect of his fresh leadership when he ordered the funds for their extravagant Independence Day celebrations be redirected to buy much-needed beds for public hospitals, immediately gaining him worldwide admiration.
His firm stance on fighting corruption, his introduction of severe austerity measures, and his seemingly aggressive development agenda, have earned him accolades. The United Nations Economic and Social Council recently named him the World’s Best President.
With just one year in office, Magufuli has amalgamated several ministries, downsizing his cabinet from 30 members to 19. He has banned the purchase of first class air tickets for ministers, and government meetings and conferences are now held in state buildings rather than high-end hotels. To the dismay of senior officials, he auctioned off their luxury cars, seen as both a right and a necessity, with the generated income being channeled into public services. He has also banned any future purchase of such vehicles.
“The president’s approach so far has been commendable and his battle with corruption impeccable. I think he will sustain his current style and won’t be putting his guns down anytime soon,” says Nicodemus Minde, a Tanzanian political analyst.
By channeling resources back into Tanzania’s economy, Magufuli’s austerity measures have been lauded and the impact is already being felt. His somewhat autocratic style is facilitated by the powers allocated to the Tanzanian Presidency. These allow him to appoint and dismiss officials, and to leverage state security apparatus to flush out and punish corruption and economic crime. He has pledged to double development spending, funded by cutting government wastage, which may enable economic gains to trickle down.
Although a chemical engineer by profession, Magufuli is not new to politics. He has been an active member of parliament for two decades, heading various ministries throughout his tenure. His radical, yet effective, methods of governance set an example for transparency, good governance and strict control of government spending. Tanzanians have grown to love his style, while citizens of neighboring nations look on enviously, hoping their leaders will take a leaf from his pragmatic book.
Ali Mufuruki, Chairman and CEO at InfoTech Investment Group, describes Magufuli’s style as steadfast.
“He has demonstrated a unique kind of consistency, an undiminishing stamina and an unswerving steadiness in his fight against the vices of corruption, abuse of office and waste of public resources.”
While Magufuli’s first year in office has been impressive, it remains to be seen whether this will translate into more economic growth, given that Tanzania was already growing by 7.9% in the second quarter of 2016. His success so far has been met with skepticism in some quarters, with some pundits warning that celebrations may be premature.
Magufuli has taken up the challenge of transforming his developing nation into a world-class economy and shown a willingness to challenge the long-standing negative views about African leadership. Years from now, Magufuli’s name might be mentioned alongside Mandela and Nkrumah.

The Bulldozer Crushing Corruption

It was Ernest Hemingway who lured Dan Olofsson to Africa. “I read all his books,” says the Swedish technology entrepreneur who heads the consultancy Sigma, and they lodged in his imagination.
So when he and his wife, Christin, decided in the early 2000s to build a winter home someplace warmer than their native Scandinavia, they considered the Caribbean but eventually set their sights farther south. “There’s fantastic wildlife and nature in South Africa,” the 65-year-old Olofsson says. “You don’t have that in a lot of places.”
Their plans grew to include a guest lodge at what is now the well-regarded Thanda Safari Private Game Reserve, which opened in 2004. (“Thanda” is Zulu for “love”.) Soon after, the Olofssons set out to acquire a private-island counterpart to their safari lodge and settled on one in the Shungi Mbili Island Marine Reserve in southern Tanzania. After years of negotiation and sustainability-minded construction it was rechristened Thanda Island and welcomed its first paying guests in August. The property, which has five bedrooms and rents in its entirety for $10,000 a night (for up to 10 people), is roughly 20 acres ringed by coral reefs in protected waters that teem with sea life, including whale sharks, dolphins and five species of turtles. The closest inhabited land is Mafia Island, home to more spectacular marine life, trustworthy dive centers and traditional villages. Thanda Island’s hospitality director, Antigone Meda, likens it to Zanzibar 30 years ago – and while Zanzibar now has 200-room hotels, Mafia has about 200 hotel rooms. (Thanda guests who don’t helicopter in from Dar es Salaam fly to Mafia, where Thanda staff greet them and ferry them over in a sleek mahogany boat that would do James Bond proud.)
The Olofssons envisioned the island as a private paradise where they could escape with their three children and eight grandchildren. But the Tanzanian government wouldn’t let them buy it unless it would contribute to tourism in the country and protect marine wildlife. The couple complied but remained committed to building a private family home. And here they were inspired by another 20th century American icon.
“We were at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port around the Fourth of July three or four years ago,” Olofsson recalls. “Looking around, we liked the New England style. Our South African property is more Zulu style. Here we wanted something different, and we decided on New England.” The resulting house on Thanda, with its white wainscoting, peaked rooflines and pastel palette, mixes the American and the Scandinavian, with a few African flourishes like bird’s-nest lamps in the living room and colorful fabric on the chairs in the library.
<div id="attachment_32044" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32044" class="wp-image-32044 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="768" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO091316_019-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Water world: The exotic rim-flow pool on Thanda Island was designed by owner Dan Olofsson, who has a degree in engineering</div>
The design is intentionally hard to classify.
Olofsson invested millions – “Less than 10,” he clarifies, though he is unsure of the exact amount – to build something that exists in very few places in the world. That’s in addition to the island itself, with its perfect white sand and clear turquoise waters just feet away from the house.
The Olofssons were very hands-on with the villa and two freestanding beach bandas (open-air bungalows, which allow the island to accommodate groups of up to 28 people), with Christin designing the interiors and Dan, a civil engineer by training, collaborating with the architects.
He was also the visionary behind the villa’s most striking feature, a glass rim-flow swimming pool that gleams with blue mosaic tiles and rises up from the deck to form a luminous cube. “This pool was quite exciting to design,” he says. “I felt like I was just out of university, even though that was 40 years ago.”
The food is far better than might be expected in such a remote location. Much of it is caught nearby. Staff will harvest some of the abundant oysters on demand and serve them with champagne.
While importing luxury foods and wine comes with a carbon footprint, the island was designed to be self-sufficient. It’s constructed with sustainable materials, and there’s a field of solar panels and a desalinization plant. The house and all its infrastructure were also built in such a way that would allow them to be taken apart and leave no trace on the island.
That eco-consciousness is important to Olofsson, who has invested heavily in conservation in the marine reserve. Thanda is working with the Tanzania Marine Parks department and a leading NGO, Sea Sense, on research projects involving sea turtles, whale sharks and coral reefs. It’s a continuation of the commitment Olofsson, the biggest Swedish philanthropist in Africa (and plenty generous at home), made when he established the Thanda Foundation in South Africa in 2005. Among other achievements, its Star for Life arm has put 110,000 children through HIV-prevention education programs.
“We are at a point in our lives where we’re able to give back to society, and I think when you’re there, you have to do it,” he says.
While Thanda has made a point of hiring most of its staff from Mafia Island and is working to improve education there, marine conservation is the main focus. Not that guests would suspect that much of the wildlife is on the endangered species list. There are frequent turtle and dolphin sightings on the boat ride from Mafia, and it’s not uncommon for guests to find themselves swimming among half a dozen whale sharks, the biggest fish in the sea.
That, it turns out, is Thanda Island’s greatest luxury: the access to such an ecosystem – and a solicitous staff to make it easier to commune with it. (They’ll even drag a copper bathtub onto the beach for a sunset soak.)
“Being a big family on an island to yourself,” Olofsson says, “there is a special feeling to that.”
And if it’s a rainy day, there’s still plenty to enjoy – Thanda Island is home to what was the largest Hemingway collection in Sweden, now sitting on shelves spanning 20 feet in a clean, well-lighted place.

FO091316_018

Isle Of You

The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) PLC was set to list on its own main board on July 12 after raising TZS10.1 billion ($4.6 million) in an IPO. It received bids totalling TZS35.8 billion, or 4.8 times oversubscription, for its TZS7.5 billion offer of 15 million shares at TZS500 each which closed on June 3. The DSE had a “green shoe” option to take up to 10% extra and applied to Tanzania’s Capital Markets and Securities Authority to boost this to 35% with the result that it was able to take an additional TZS2.6 billion. Staff took up their full allocation of 3% of the shares.
The Tanzanian bourse is set for a boost in activity after telecoms firms were ordered to list up to 25% of their shares within six months from July 1, in terms of the government’s Finance Bill 2016 and an amended Electronic and Postal Communications Act in June. DSE CEO, Moremi Marwa, said there would be enough liquidity: “The combined 25% of all telecommunications companies’ balance sheets is about $1 billion… Our current market capitalization is TZS22 trillion and annual market turnover is exceeding TZS750 billion. Treasury bonds and bills issued per annum at DSE normally exceeds TZS2.5 trillion and they are normally oversubscribed, meaning there is more liquidity to invest in less risky assets than instruments available.”
The DSE plans to use IPO proceeds to enhance its core operating system, introduce new products and services and for “strategic and operational purposes”. One in two Tanzanians have learned to use mobile financial services, according to a FinScope survey, and investors can use phones to apply for some DSE share offers.
In May, the Botswana Stock Exchange issued a tender for its valuation as it becomes demutualized, for-profit company, BSE Ltd, and works out how to convert the proprietary rights owned by stockbrokers and its government subvention. The Casablanca Stock Exchange is also demutualizing and mulling an IPO – its shareholders include banks 39%, brokers 20% and the Caisse de dépôt et de gestion (CDG) 25%. Johannesburg and Nairobi were Africa’s first securities exchanges to complete the steps through demutualization, IPO and self-listing.
Enko Capital runs the $83-million Enko Africa Private Equity Fund, which focuses on pre-IPO investments, and says Kenyan IT company, The Copy Cat, which operates in four East African countries, and Nigerian interior design company DO.II Designs are considering IPOs. Nigeria’s government is working on privatization of eight state-owned companies: Port Harcourt Refining Company, Peugeot Automobile Nigeria, Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigerian Telecommunications, Nigerian Railway Corporation, Bank of Agriculture, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Bank of Industry.
Innscor Africa Holdings spun off and listed Axia Corporation on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) in May. Axia has three operating subsidiaries – logistics and warehousing Distribution Group Africa, furniture and appliance retailer TV Sales &amp; Home, and auto spares retailer Transerv – and $40.6 million market capitalization. Innscor’s previous unbundlings and listings were Simbisa Brands in November and Padenga Holdings in 2010 as the conglomerate focuses on light manufacturing. It was the ZSE’s second listing in 2016 after GetBucks in January.
West African utility group, Eranove, postponed its IPO and listing on the Paris-based Euronext exchange. Its owners include private equity firm Emerging Capital Partners (56%) and insurer AXA (19%) and its four core subsidiaries which supply water and generate and distribute power in Côte d’Ivoire, and distribute water in Senegal.
Miguel Azevedo, Citigroup’s Head of Investment Banking Africa, says the IPO drive will continue in 2017 as capital-raising moves from debt to equity. Bond sales have been hit by rising yields and declining local currencies.
“Sometimes entrepreneurs, all they want is debt, no equity, just debt. This crisis showed them that this can be very expensive. It makes sense to bring in some more equity,” says Azevedo.
His tips for exciting industries include consumer goods, banking, power and infrastructure.
“I see the growth profile of the continent, and in the blocs, is still there. The opportunity in Africa is still there.”
He forecast that multinationals expanding in Africa would aim to take significant positions in companies, rather than outright purchases.
“The base case is buying around 50% with an agreement to buy the remainder.”
Private equity will remain very active and there could be more consolidation among leading firms.

Entrepreneurs Move  From Debt To Equity

David Adjaye, the renowned architect born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, has been busy. He is leading the design team behind the Smithsonian’s $500-million National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. He is also the frontrunner to design Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago. These two buildings will be the most high-profile pieces of more than a decade of work.
Although Adjaye’s work, which focuses heavily on historical cultures, is spread all over the world, it can now be appreciated, by many. He recently released his latest book, David Adjaye: Form, Heft, Material, which was published to complement his exhibition at the Haus der Kunst museum in Munich. In September, it was extended to Chicago.
“It is the most comprehensive survey of my work to date. The concept of the book was to offer an insight into current projects within the context of the trajectory of my work over the past 15 years, and framed within a broad social, cultural and historical discourse,” says Adjaye.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/David-etch-139x300.jpg" alt="" width="139" height="300" />
The discourse to which Adjaye refers has informed his multiculturalist work across every continent, and has led to projects that have placed Adjaye as one of the most distinguished architects in the world.
Adjaye’s work has shifted to public architecture.
“I think that design can provide a critical inquiry into social responsibility and civic consciousness.”
Despite this shift, Adjaye maintains a certain audacity to his work; the kind of trait that can only make a building indelible to the most discerning eye. His work surpasses the mediocrity of simply fulfilling the mere function of shelter. Adjaye is more of an artist than an architect. His work is often as much of a visual sculpture as a constructional design.
“I have always sought to cross creative platforms, collaborating with artists and designers from different disciplines and focusing on the creative discourse surrounding the act of making things. It is the dialogue – the cultural intersection – which excites me.”
Adjaye has also been embraced by the world of politics. He was commissioned by Obama to lead the design of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Such a responsibility has not been taken lightly. Adjaye describes it as “a career defining project.” The monument, in Washington D.C.’s National Mall, has been built to commemorate the momentous milestones in African American history.
“It is an incredibly exciting project and it has been a real honor to be involved in the creation of this monumental building,” he says.
Like most of the museums the architect has designed, the National Museum will be as iconic as the exhibitions inside it. It is  to open to the public in early 2016. The timing of the building’s inaugural opening could not be more perfect; Obama’s term is coming to a close, and racial antipathy continues to plague the country.
“My hope is that the museum will transcend the uneasy fact of racial tension through an open exploration of history, culture and society – thereby addressing profound aspects of the human condition and the positive value inherent in creating a forum for multiple interpretations of America’s history and demography, however uncomfortable those may be.”
Adjaye has a different hope for Africa – a continent often riddled with political instability that threatens to derail progress made in the private and public sector.
“Politics can hinder development. The four-year electoral window is often at odds with urban and infrastructure projects which can require a decade of political commitment. Nevertheless, [I] am excited about all of my work in Africa.”
A few of the projects that Adjaye has been working on across the continent include; a luxury concept store in Lagos called Alara, a school campus and residential project in Accra, building the headquarters of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Dakar, residential projects in Johannesburg, and a hospital in Rwanda.
Over the last few years, Adjaye has collaborated with Propertuity to develop one of the Johannesburg CBD’s many timeworn buildings in the Maboneng Precinct – Hallmark House. The area is undergoing urban changes, with many buildings being redeveloped and perhaps gentrified.
“The project is a dramatic transformation of a former commercial building into apartments and cultural facilities in Johannesburg’s CBD. Its proximity to the already vibrant Maboneng district will mean that it will extend this extraordinary new city quarter.”
The inspiration behind Hallmark House’s transformation has been driven by the same principles Adjaye places on all of his work. His designs are often a reflection of social, historical and environmental context. In the case of his work in Maboneng, the design of the residential building was inspired by what Adjaye lauds as “an icon of the Joburg city skyline”. The 66-meter-high structure, initially designed in the 1970s by Greg Cohen, was built to house a burgeoning diamond polishing company.
Adjaye is a firm believer that the story of a city is written in its buildings. Johannesburg reflects the complex challenges of its past.
“Johannesburg, sadly, is one of the few cities in the world that has a specific spatial architecture that is born from division,” he says.
Such a landscape does not wean Adjaye away from the potential possibilities awaiting this historically rich part of Johannesburg, but rather encourages an admiration of the city.
“Johannesburg is the most cosmopolitan city I have visited in Africa. You see in its buildings a story of a tragic past but also a city that is being very intentional about confronting its history and seeking ways to move forward.”
Adjaye dismisses the idea that his work has a clear and definitive aesthetic.
“I am part of a generation of architects which has moved away from the idea of a signature.”
He does, however, pull much of his inspiration from the continent.
“I draw from Africa, but I also draw from many other things. That’s what architects do – we are planetary creatures.”
Adjaye adds that all of his projects have been memorable.
“Each one is part of a curve, a critical piece of a narrative that is still unfolding.”
This is a story that will bring many more milestones for the successful architect on a mission in Africa.

The Brain of Africa more of an artist  than an architect

At the end of July, United States (US) President Barack Obama visited Kenya as a head of state for the first, and probably last, time.
Obama had previously set foot in Senegal, Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania in official state visits.
During his most recent visit, there were three main agendas for the US leader: he co-chaired the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, renewed relations between his country and Kenya and, finally, emphasized the US’s economic commitment with Africa.
At a dinner hosted by the Kenyan government, Obama confirmed that the idea of expanding trade and investment between Africa and the US had garnered support of both the Republicans and Democrats in his country. These words, and Obama’s attendance at the 6th Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, were apt. Kenya is one of the leading countries in Africa for entrepreneurial and innovative spirit.
Obama met entrepreneurs at an innovation fair. While in the country, he maintained a positive outlook on the pace and nature of innovation and entrepreneurship in Kenya. This is deserved. Kenya has revolutionized money transfer services with mobile technology and taken substantial steps at harnessing information technology to enhance both commercial growth and political accountability with platforms such as  .
In a nutshell, Obama’s visit to the country highlighted the innovative and entrepreneurial side of Kenya that the world may not be familiar with. It also provided a unique chance for the tourism sector in the country to receive a much needed endorsement to stem its dwindling fortunes. It is hoped that this visit will attract business back to the country.
Politically, Obama’s visit to Kenya was a welcome development to the current administration whose relations to the US had become frosty. After allegations of human rights abuses when the current government stepped into office, and threats of a more severe approach to economic engagements, the Kenyan government was forced to turn to China. Many, in the US and Africa, have been keen on ensuring that the US does not lose Kenya as an ally. This visit, which some sections of Washington referred to as a ‘renewal of ties tour’, provided the perfect opportunity for rebuilding strained relations between the two countries. Obama’s ancestral ties to Kenya were beneficial and by the time the US president was on his flight to Addis Ababa, after holding bilateral trade talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta, the relationship seems to have warmed.
It wasn’t all smiles though. Obama was critical of African leaders over corruption and gender equality. He attacked Africa’s culture of presidents-for-life, urging the continent’s leaders to respect term limits.
“I think if I ran I could win, but I can’t,” he said, referring to the end of his second and final term.
His comments came as Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in office and the Rwandan parliament voted for a constitutional change to allow President Paul Kagame to run for a third term.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe have been in power for more than 30 years.
“Nobody should be president for life. Your country’s better off if you have new blood and new ideas. I’m still a pretty young man but I know someone with new energy and new insights will be good for my country. It will be good for your country, too.”
At the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Obama kept reiterating the need for closer understanding and better economic partnerships between the continent and the US. China has quickly snatched at business opportunities in Africa, leaving many in Washington worried. China’s approach of business with no strings attached has enticed African nations into ditching the Western-based business partnership model. Trade between China and Africa reached an impressive $222 billion in 2014; triple the value of trade between the US and Africa. Obama and the 200 American investors who traveled with him would like to see this gap reduced.
To do this, the US might reconsider its approach to Africa and even try its hand at dealing with countries that it has previously disagreed with on ideological matters.

Praise, Promise And Reproach

The officer stared at me through the glass window as I tried to explain why I didn’t have a visa. I was unaware that the 90-day visa waiver to Tanzania excluded business travel. It was hot, humid and I was soaked from the rain. The only thing between me and paradise was him.
“Mam, would you please step inside the office.”
I knew exactly what was happening; I had seen this before in a Quentin Tarantino movie. I was being detained.
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It was only a few hours before that I had boarded a boat from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. For four hours I sat on the rocking boat, watched City Lights &#8211; the silent black and white movie with Charlie Chaplin &#8211; spoke to the German businessman next to me and brushed up on my Swahili.
Now I was here, sitting across the table from three officers, wondering if I’ll fly back to South Africa in handcuffs.
I don’t remember how it happened but instead of paying a $300 fine, I got off with a friendly warning and great travel advice.
As soon as I reached Kisiwa House, a bed and breakfast in Stone Town, I dropped my bags and called a tour guide. We weaved through the narrow cobble-stone streets, dodging the children playing and people riding scooters and bicycles. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the doors.
The closer I got to them, the finely chiseled flowers, scales, ropes and chains became clearer. The Arabic style doors, often found with transcriptions, are square at the top while the Indian doors have round tops.
Stone Town, named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000, is rich in history. The Persian Baths, Tippu Tip’s House and House of Wonders are popular tourist attractions. There’s a stone sculpture next to Christ Church, which used to be the center of the slave market. The tour guide said the altar inside the church used to be a whipping post to test the slaves’ strength.
After a long day of sightseeing, the tour ended at the waterfront. I picked a spot close to the sea and watched children flip, roll, tumble and dive into the water. In the distance, the fishermen sailed to shore to set up for the evening Forodhani market.
The rain didn’t keep anyone from coming to indulge in the local cuisine which included piles of lobster, fish, octopus and calamari. The food is cooked over a fire and eaten with coconut bread.
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I had an interesting conversation with a fisherman about life at sea. He was part of a team of 10 who worked day and night shifts, so they always had fish. Although he enjoyed his easy life, he longed to experience life outside Zanzibar.
The next morning I was woken by roosters crowing, motorbikes riding and the call to prayer from the Mosques. After breakfast, I set out to Prison Island, a smaller islet off the coast of Zanzibar, by boat. As the waves pounded against the small wooden boat, the two-man crew struggled to steady it. When I looked around and saw only blue I began to understand just how vast and powerful the ocean is. It was thrilling, yet scary.
Then out in the distance I saw the white sandy beach of Prison islet. Although it never housed the incarcerated, its low walls would have made for an easy escape. The island has two main attractions: clear waters for snorkeling and giant tortoise. There were tortoises that were over 150 years old and some weighed up to 200 kilograms.
A few hours later, I was back on the mainland wandering through the stores along Kenyatta Road. While staring at a painting of the Masai, done in the Tanzanian Tingatinga style, I was distracted by a lady yelling at her child.
“Iwe, Musabata!” I smiled. It was a phrase I was all too familiar with, growing up in a Shona-speaking household. It means, “You, don’t touch that.”
I walked over to her, as she scolded her child and struck up a conversation. She left Zimbabwe six years ago hoping to provide a better life for her children. She was a teacher at one of the local schools and hoped to one day return to Zimbabwe.
On my last night on the island, I met some tourists for sundowners at Africa House, a restaurant on the beach with an amazing view of the ocean. Everyone gazed at the sun, in its red, yellow and orange glory, as it dipped beyond the horizon. It was as if they were seeing it for the first time. I sank in my seat and watched a solitary boat sail the vast sea. Perhaps this is what JRR Tolkien saw when he said, “Not all who wander are lost”. Just then Paradise by Coldplay began to play. I smiled, how fitting.

Wander lost  In Zanzibar

The morning sky was clearing as the first glimmer of the sun emerged when Charles Kimei, sipping hot black coffee as he read the daily papers, heard the frantic tapping of shoes against the concrete floor outside his office. It was too early for someone to be running, he thought.
What happened next was like a scene out of a movie. One of his managers stormed his office, panting and distraught. Kimei, the managing director of Tanzania’s CRDB Bank, instinctively glanced out of his fourth floor window. Everything looked calm outside.
“Then this guy came running in. I was scared; I thought he was coming to kill me. He shouted ‘Robbers!’”
Kimei recalls that day with the preciseness that comes with banking experience. There was no time to ask questions, and so began the worst day in his management career, on October 14, 2002.
Armed robbers disguised in staff uniform had quietly entered the bank in the morning and emptied the safes. In the process, they shot one of the customers, while a bank employee hurt himself as he tried to hide.
By the time Kimei reached the ground floor, where the bank operates its main branch, the robbers had sneaked into the safety of Dar es Salaam’s morning bustle. The robbery took between five and eight minutes, he says, and was so smooth that people outside and on other floors barely noticed anything. Only one gunshot was fired to scare staff and security guards.
“The first thing I did was to ensure that there were no serious casualties, I then called the police. And because we needed to know how much money was stolen, I called the auditor,” he says.
Initially, he thought it was a small amount. But the audit revealed that around $2 million had been taken. The bank had just imported a large amount of dollars to sell to forex bureaus and retail customers and had a stash of euros ready to be shipped out. The timing of the raid pointed to an inside job.
“We had just launched a smartcard, TemboCard, with purse capability, the first of its kind in Tanzania. Then I kind of provoked the robbers. At the launch ceremony I warned them that it would no longer be attractive for them to attack buses plying upcountry routes because passengers will not be carrying cash but smartcards,” says Kimei.
The following Monday, they hit.
“The problem is that our staff are probably shy of looking at each other’s face, otherwise they could have noticed the strangers. The robbers blended in and no one suspected. They ordered everyone to lie down and knew the whereabouts of everything in the branch, including the names of the safe custodians,” says Kimei, the father of three who turns 61 in August.
Back then, the bank was quite small, making a profit of $2.1 million. The pain of knowing that the robbers walked away with the equivalent of the bank’s earnings was excruciating.
CRDB, a product of financial reorganization and financial sector reforms in Tanzania in the early nineties, is now a well-established bank with assets worth $2.2 billion, more than 105 branches, 445 partner microfinance institutions, 350 ATMs and 500 agents across the country. Kimei joined the bank in 1998 and has been pursuing a recovery path, culminating in the listing on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) in 2009 and a rebrand to CRDB Bank Plc. From 100,000 customers in 1998, the bank now boasts 1.5 million and counting, riding on ICT and modern, customer-friendly branches.
A bank robbery tests the limits of management and business continuity. Decisions have to be made at the speed of a cash-counting machine. The urgency to resume business and the need to arrest suspects and recover the stolen money were competing for Kimei’s saturated attention.
The bank re-opened half an hour late, but early enough to avoid suspicion from its customers and the public.
“I did not want customers to know what had happened. If they panicked, they would think the bank had run out of money. The task was to ensure there was confidence outside the bank. We told staff to be calm and take business as usual. Later, I realized we underestimated the panic and trauma among staff, although they managed to render services,” says Kimei.
Around that period, there was a wave of bank robberies in Tanzania. So, the bank beefed up its security by bringing in additional police and boosting private security guards. On the fateful day, police officers were not on guard.
The biggest issue for Kimei was how to recover the money.
“There was a possibility of recovering the money. At some point, I felt if I was given a police uniform I would do a better job. I was getting phone calls on leads on where the money was but the police were slow. Few people were jailed, but the only money recovered was from the insurers.”
Kimei held a press conference to assure the public that everything was under control and the bank was safe.
“It was well received and most customers who had visited the branch did not even notice there was a robbery. The fact that I gave them the news myself gave them confidence,” he says.
The bank installed CCTV cameras, enhanced its diligence on staff and reviewed their profiles. After the vetting, some suspects were identified among the staff. The morning after, panic was still palpable and morale had not improved, but it was business as usual. Kimei visited the branch every morning to assure staff. This was not made easy by investigators who regularly questioned staff.
“The way we handled the matter was very professional. There is very little someone can do better, even with the benefit of hindsight. Robberies are unexpected and you cannot prepare for them. For example, the police officers were always on site before. We should have noticed the absence of police that morning,” he says.
The bank now has a business continuity plan. But Kimei says disruptive events are not always similar so a business manager must always be ready to use their own intuition alongside what is documented. Staff must know how to react to disasters. This is the mentality powering the bank’s operations, which has seen 30% growth each year.
But he notes that some things happen spontaneously, giving little time for the grab list.
“If something were to happen now, I will run to the drawer and grab my wallet. I won’t even remember there is a grab list,” he says jokingly.
Kimei has always been in decision making positions, both in school and the corporate world. Perhaps this has played a role in preparing him for critical moments.
“I was head prefect at Shinyanga High School which was the most cantankerous experience. People see me as very humble. But I have handled very complicated situations.”
This is why he enjoys games that exercise his mind.
“If you play chess you learn a lot of strategy and concentration. You can’t watch football alone; you must be in a crowd to enjoy it. Some of these games are good for relaxation, not building your mind. Chess, and even normal cards, gets you thinking, because you try to guess your rival’s strategy and you are always betting your fortunes.”
That’s the strategy he is using to grow the bank into an industry leader in Tanzania.

‘I Thought He Was Coming To Kill Me’

How do you make millions from the sun in Africa? You can replace kerosene lamps in Tanzania or build a solar farm, the size of a small island, in Ghana. Everyone is talking about it and many want to invest. It involves importing millions of solar panels, installing them in barren deserts, then cashing in. Sounds easy, but it isn’t. Watch out for sand dunes, fast-growing vegetation and hungry animals.
You would think that a company that can build a solar panel designed to withstand hail stones shot from a cannon would be able to weather anything nature can throw at it. Think again.
Problems come in thick, fast and furry, according to Matthew Merfet, Africa and the Middle East’s project director at First Solar, a company that operates more than 20 utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants producing 1.7 gigawatts of energy worldwide.
“On one farm, we noticed a number of panels kept shutting off. We thought it was a cable problem, and we didn’t know why. It took us months to figure out that racoons had moved in and were chewing the cables,” says Merfet.
Fending off rodents on a 4,000 hectare plot is just one of the many unexpected headaches for solar energy farmers. Merfet says First Solar discovered dandelions and trees that grew so high they blocked the sunlight. In deserts, sand dunes piled up.
Finding these problems is harder than you think. Merfet’s company has to fly a toy plane with an infrared camera across fields of panels to check for dark spots.
“It’s easy to get lost out there, finding your way in acres of land is impossible, so we have GPSs,” he says.
Even when everything is working, solar energy can present problems. Merfet says solar energy is unique in that it has a predictable timeframe; you have roughly 10 hours to maximize a sunny day. The key is to heat your panels quickly, and keep them in the sunlight for as long as possible.
As the sunlight is converted to money, companies like First Solar have come up with black panelled solar units designed to follow the sun like a field of sunflowers.
It also means that if one panel breaks, only that panel will miss out on the light. Compare this to a conventional solar farm that moves panels in rows; if a motor malfunctions, the entire row will fail to soak up the rays. Even with hungry creatures and growing trees, First Solar believes this sunflower system can increase output by 25% a day.
In September, South Africa bedded down its first private PV plant in Kimberly, three months ahead of schedule. The 75-megawatt (MW) solar farm houses 312,000-panels. The country’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme has allocated $2.8 billion for renewable energy, of which 8,400MW are for solar PV. Currently, South Africa needs 41,346MW of new power over the next 17 years. The country also needs to upgrade its grid infrastructure, which is so out of date it might not be able to support all the required renewable energy.
Ghana has also stepped forward. Once their giant 450 acre, 155MW solar plant near Aiwaiso is completed in 2015, it will be the biggest solar plant in Africa, boosting electricity capacity by 6%. Costing $400 million, the project will have the capability to generate sufficient energy for 100,000 homes.
This dwarfs Africa’s former largest grid-linked solar plant, Kigali Solaire, in Rwanda. The small 250-kilowatt plant helped the county during a two-year drought, which strained its hydroelectricity plant.
Investing in Africa has only been possible after prices of PV modules dropped by 80% since 2008, according to CleanTechnica. As prices reduce, more technology arrives in Africa.
Then there are days when the sun doesn’t shine, according to South African analyst Chris Yelland of EE Publishers.
“Solar energy can produce more power than wind during the day &#8230; we generally have a sunny climate in South Africa. One of the biggest disadvantages of solar power is that the price is not coming down. There is also no storage in solar PV, which restricts power during the night. So you need batteries to store energy and they are expensive, which makes it uninteresting for investors,” says Yelland.
But, soon night won’t be a problem. Abengoa Solar, responsible for building the world’s largest solar plant, is now planning to build the largest parabolic trough solar plant in the world, in Arizona, in the United States. Solana will be the first solar plant in the United States with thermal energy storage. This plant, which will cost $2 billion, will be capable of producing energy night and day.
One of the investors taking the plunge is Adam Camenzuli. For Camenzuli solar energy is a common topic around the dinner table, but his best idea came in the stalls of a McDonald’s in Toronto, Canada.
“We were just hanging out and talking. We saw that the North American and European economies were not going to be the drivers of tomorrow’s growth. With our ties to Africa, we always talked about the next thing for the continent’s growth,” he says.
“We realized that bringing in solar lamps was not a viable business in the long-term—we had to do something different. We had to be innovative and combine the effectiveness of pay-as-you-go, which revolutionized mobile telecommunications, with the benefits of solar technology.
The current market penetration for solar energy is around 15 million people, but there are 600 million people who use kerosene. A family in Tanzania can spend 10 to 25% of their income on kerosene alone. There is a large quantity of low quality solar lanterns coming into the market [Tanzania] … But the upfront cost of a solar lantern is $20 dollars. The average person can’t afford that. Kerosene lanterns are the best alternative,” says Camenzuli.
Clad in a neat black suit and blue shirt, the Canadian-born Camenzuli is in the heart of Sandton, South Africa,.He has traveled from China to Brazil, on the hunt for investors that will back his idea.
In 2011, shortly after moving to Tanzania, his idea shone like a bulb in the dark.
“The ‘aha’ moment was when we realized we had to separate the components of the lamp and introduce a pay-as-you-go model through swapping the battery/light portion of the lamp,” he says.
Camenzuli was even able to throw in a cell phone charger, which has made the lantern even more popular. He sold it to small shops that sell cigarettes, soap and daily doses of kerosene in Tanzania. They call these shops Dukas, and for Camenzuli they are his first step to solar millions.
“By selling through Dukas, you can rent the battery, and swop out a used battery. The Dukas then charge the batteries on their roofs. People pay $20 over the course of a month to rent it, around 66 cents a day. Its money they spend on kerosene, so there is no additional cost to the user. At the end of the 30 days they have paid for the lamp and get to keep the solar panel. In effect, it’s a fully working lantern at 66 cents a day. The individual Duka keeps all the spare batteries. They pay a small charge for the battery and solar panel batteries can last for two years. The beauty is that you can replace individual pieces if it breaks,” says Camenzuli.
It took only six months to turn his dream into reality. Big or small, Africa is the ideal landscape for solar energy. Early bird entrepreneurs are snapping up the worms, but they must watch out for hungry animals.  <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2290" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_6883-300x277.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="277" />

Don’t Let The Dandelions Or Nibblers Dim The Sun

Tanzania, the most expensive buffalo in Africa, is getting ready for a wedding night that is going to cost $31,000; the issue of this union will be worth even more.
People still cannot believe how much was paid for this cow—in a land where the average buffalo costs between $44,000 to $70,000. Jaco Troskie bought the huge and powerful cow for a staggering $2.5 million.
Troskie, the son of South African filmmaking mogul Boet Troskie, who made the film The Gods Must Be Crazy, outbid one of Africa’s richest men, Cyril Ramaphosa, for the East African buffalo. The buy broke records. In 2010, Piet du Toit and Cyril Ramaphosa bought a bull, Bayeto, for $1.2 million. In 2011, Peter Bellingham bought a bull, Senatla, for $2.2 million. Troskie, who made his money trading in game parks, beat the lot.
Tanzania is the biggest buffalo cow held in captivity in Africa, and possibly the world, and her horns span 43 inches long.
Troskie admits he did not think he would end up paying as much as he did. People said he was crazy and joked that he must have been drunk during the auction.
“I don’t even drink a drop of alcohol,” he says.
“I didn’t want to lose her… There are only a handful of buffalos with 50 inch horns or wider. You do not find one around every corner.”
Troskie spent $8.1 million that day and walked away with 10 buffalos.
“My investment is long-term. My idea was to keep her, take very good care of her and nurse her. If I don’t make my money back in eight years, then there is something wrong… Returns on investments [are] about 36%. There’s no investment in this country that gives you that kind of return on a year-to-year basis. It’s a sound business to get involved in and will be for some time.”
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Many in the business believe these sky-high prices cannot last. Piet du Toit disagrees.
Du Toit bought Tanzania for $324,000 last year from insurance billionaire Douw Steyn, and cleared $2.2 million from the recent auction. The 41-year-old began breeding game in 2001, and started focusing on rare game in 2006.
“There is [a lot of] money [to be made] in top genetics because there is nothing like it elsewhere. The breed is top class and investing in them will triple your money,” he says.
The former science and physical training teacher is now one of the country’s, if not the continent’s, top rare game breeders. The auction, held on his farm in the North West province of South Africa, where Tanzania, among other rare game, was sold, made almost $19 million on the day through the sale of 250 animals. The list of registered buyers reads like a board meeting. Among them, South African businessmen Ramaphosa and Steyn, and the Head of SAB Ltd in SA, Nicholas Adami, among others.
With an average return on investment of more than 70% over four years, du Toit is not planning on to quit anytime soon, but is also attempting to preserve the species.
“We are trying to get them as close to where they were in the early 1800s, when the settlers found [the buffalo] here [in Africa],” says du Toit.
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According to the New World Encyclopedia, the population of
African buffalo was once tens of millions, but has dwindled to around 900,000. Most of them are in East Africa. They’ve been hunted and their habitat has been squeezed by farming, drought and disease.
Top-class animals like Tanzania are more expensive because of their size, strength, health and horn length. Another rare and prized buffalo bull in captivity is Bayeto, co-owned by du Toit and Ramaphosa. They bought Bayeto, who is currently staying on Ramaphosa’s farm, in 2010 for $1.2 million and sold his first calf this year for nearly $900,000. But Tanzania will be mated with her equal, Matetsi, an equally rare and thoroughbred East African bull worth $400,000. He will be united with Tanzania to produce an heir to their throne—expected to fetch even more money.
Is there even more money to be made in the game game? Forget about the tip of the iceberg, the people in the game business prefer their own analogy. The prices paid so far merely reach the ears of the hippo as it raises its head from the water.

The Two Million Dollar Buffalo  Is The Queen Of The Game

Tanzania’s political landscape is dominated by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which was re-elected into power in 2010. CCM may remain in power despite whispers of infighting and corruption and a rising challenge from the opposition.
President Jakaya Kikwete fired the ministers of finance, energy and minerals over allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Since November, President Kikwete has faced increasing political and public pressure over corruption allegations on members of his cabinet. Over the last two years Tanzania has plunged 32 places in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. In the 2010 survey, Tanzania ranks 116 out of 178 countries.
Nevertheless, Tanzania’s economic prospects look bright, especially in contrast to subdued growth in the Eurozone. Over the past decade, economic growth has averaged above 6%. Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank expect growth to reach 7% in 2012, higher than the 6% for the continent overall. The Economist magazine has identified Tanzania as one of seven economies that it predicts could grow 7.2% on average annually.
Prudent macroeconomic policies, anchored by the country’s engagement with the IMF, will support growth. Macroeconomic policy will be focused primarily on poverty reduction to uplift the lives of millions of marginalized people. Growth will likely be driven by reforms in the agricultural sector to encourage commercial investment which will likely buoy the country’s biggest employer.
Infrastructure development aimed to address bottlenecks, particularly in the energy sector, will boost the construction sector. The services sector—transport, telecommunications and finance—is also expected to be a key growth contributor, as investors continue to show a keen interest in these sectors.
Mining, one of the economy’s mainstays, will also favorably contribute to growth. Tanzania is the continent’s fourth largest gold producer and foreign investment in the sector is high. Oil and gas discoveries will further buoy the extractive sector as investors flock in. Tanzania’s gas reserves are estimated at over 10 trillion cubic feet. The World Bank expects gas revenues to boost domestic growth over the next decade.
There are several risks to the country’s positive outlook. The main risk to growth lies within the country’s energy sector. Tanzania faces a chronic energy crisis following a drought in 2011 which led to the authorities instituting the emergency power plan (EPP) to help alleviate the crisis. Tanzania has one of the cheapest power tariffs in the region yet only 13.5% of the population have access to electricity. In January the authorities increased tariffs by 40% to cater for the higher cost of energy production. Energy tariff increases will in turn drive inflation higher to the detriment of the economy at large.
Inflation has been another bugbear for the economy. Inflation increased in 2011 on the back of higher food and energy prices as well as weaker shilling. In 2012 prices have remained stubbornly high—year-on-year inflation was recorded at 19.0% in March, down from 19.4% in February. In the face of elevated inflation coupled with uncertainty surrounding the stability of the shilling, the Bank of Tanzania (BOT) is likely to be reluctant to loosen monetary policy. The IMF expects inflation to decline to single digits by year-end. However this view is heavily dependent on this year’s harvest.
Lastly, uncertainty surrounding global growth also poses a risk to Tanzania’s growth outlook. The European sovereign debt crisis is probably the country’s biggest risk factor. With the European Union a key export destination, a deeper and prolonged contraction in growth, is likely to dent demand for Tanzanian exports.
At a regional level, the authorities are likely to be focused on the further integration of the East African Community (EAC). The BOT governor, Benno Ndulu, in February this year pledged that the government will improve the investment climate in order to attract regional and global investment. With the Europeans’ woes the world will be closely watching when the monetary union of the EAC will come into effect. Given the lessons from the European Union this may well be put on the back burner for some time to come.

Choked By An  Energy Crunch

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Sometime in 1987 on the streets of the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, Joe Kusaga had his two feet planted firmly on the ground, but his head was as much in the clouds as Mount Kilimanjaro. The 21-year-old barely had two shillings to rub together, but dreamed of making a vast fortune by getting his fellow Tanzanians dancing to his beat.
More than 20 years later, Kusaga has the ear of East Africans; a multi-million dollar turnover; three radio stations; a magazine; two music ventures; and a promotion company which employs 170 people. His company, Clouds Media Group, turns over $3 million annually and plans to expand beyond East Africa. In a recent national survey, KPMG ranked the company 17th in the top 100 best-performing mid-sized companies in Tanzania.
“In a few years, this turnover should read double digits,” says Kusaga.
Kusaga made his fortune from the liberalization of the Tanzanian airwaves, in step with the freeing up of the economy after decades of socialism, in the 1990s. He decided Tanzanian radio was far too conservative and started to recruit young, funky broadcasters at his tiny
studio in Dar es Salaam in a bid to take the airwaves by storm.
“It was not easy at first. It’s a risky business, and sometimes we had to invest our little funds at the time to make things happen without any sponsorship,” he says.
In 1998, Kusaga took a deep breath and borrowed just over Tsh40 million ($24,660) to start his company with a business plan aimed at reaping the advertising dollars that came with the growing young and affluent middle-class. He founded Clouds FM in the same year and in 2002 added Choice FM, an easy-listening English radio station, and Coconut FM, Zanzibar’s first commercial radio station which is dedicated to Zanzibari music and culture, to his repertoire.
“We offered a platform for our young people to create employment for themselves. It was a take-off for many things musical in this country,” he says.
It was the bend in a long road that began in 1987. “I had just finished school and I began by managing some nightclubs, organizing theme nights,” says Kusaga.
He graduated to promoting shows as far as the Democratic Republic of Congo in a risky business that took timing, perseverance and passion—a perfect grounding for his foray into the tough radio business.
As the new century dawned, there came Clouds TV, which is projected to have coverage across the entire country by the end of this year.
Since then, Kusaga has founded the first digital music recording studio in the country, from where he manages the Smooth Vibes record label in Dar es Salaam and is responsible for authorizing music from Tanzanian artistes for iTunes.
You could say this media group has shaped how Tanzanian youths look and listen to the world. In the last few years, he has brought names like Eve, Fat Joe, P Square, Shaggy,  50 Cent, Kevin Lyttle, Koffi, Jay Z with MTV Base, Ja Rule, Hugh Masekela, Mya, Miriam Makeba and Youssou N’Dour to the East African country.
A little stardust from an entrepreneur with his head firmly in the clouds can go a long way.
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Tag: Tanzania

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