Tar91

Nairobi: The race to control Africa’s bridge to Asia

• Nigeria The cereal entrepreneurs •R wanda An opposition stands up •S outh Africa Is the DA delivering in PE?

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Clockwise from left: Ibukun Awosika, Rita Zniber, Tabitha Karanja, Maria Ramos

Star

dealmakers 50 women shaking up business

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • DOM 8 € • Ethiopia 90 Birr • France €5.90 Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 • Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 Switzerland 9.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT • Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 48 ZMW Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

Nairobi: The race to control Africa’s bridge to Asia

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• Nigeria The cereal entrepreneurs • Rwanda An opposition stands up • South Africa Is the DA doing good in PE?

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N ° 91 • J U N E 2 0 17

Clockwise from left: Ibukun Awosika, Rita Zniber, Tabitha Karanja, Maria Ramos

THE AFRICA REPORT # 91 - JUNE 2017 Star

dealmakers 50 women shaking up business

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • DOM 8 € • Ethiopia 90 Birr • France €5.90 Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 • Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 Switzerland 9.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT • Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 48 ZMW Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

04 EDITORIAL Trio for troubled times 06 LETTERS 07 THE QUESTION

BUSINESS

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56 BUSINESSWOMEN Star dealmakers The Africa Report’s exclusive list shines a light on the women leaders shaking up business in Africa

BRIEFING

64 LEADERS Rob Davies, minister of trade and industry, South Africa

10 SIGNPOSTS 12 PEOPLE 14 INTERNATIONAL

66 ZIMBABWE Indigenisation intrigues

15 CALENDAR 16 OPINION William Gumede, South African academic and author

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FRONTLINE 18 NAIROBI The eastern gateway Between new investors and old money, the burgeoning city will have to tackle mounting pressure on infrastructure and a lack of housing

75 INTERVIEW Ade Adefeko, vice-president, corporate and government relations, Olam

COVER CREDITS: LETTIE FERREIRA; NOOR KHAMIS/REUTERS;MOHAMED REDA; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

76 TEA Purple shoots of progress 80 ETHIOPIA Seeking an end to the starvation cycle

30 SOMALIA A tipping-point talk in London

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32 INTERVIEW Mo Ibrahim, founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation 34 DRC Canny Kabila 38 ANANSI Two men and two wars

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ART & LIFE 82 INTERVIEW Stonebwoy The award-winning Ghanaian dancehall artist shares his inspiration, influences and the importance of spirituality 86 BOOKS Decolonising the literary landscape 88 LIFESTYLE Malian singer Inna Modja

COUNTRY FOCUS

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71 HANNIBAL

72 Paddies of promise The rice industry in Nigeria is showing signs of future success, but it has a long way to go

26 SOUTH AFRICA Battleground: Nelson Mandela Bay After its triumph in the Eastern Cape, the DA is now dealing with a fractious coalition

THE AFRICA REPORT

70 FINANCE SAPO’s banking ambitions

AGRIBUSINESS DOSSIER

POLITICS

39 RWANDA Campaign season Despite the government’s low tolerance for dissent, opposition parties are slowly gaining ground in the East African nation

68 HEALTH Pharmaceutical futures

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89 TRAVEL The white walls of Algiers 90 DAY IN THE LIFE Ntsiki Biyela, the first black female winemaker in South Africa

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THE AFRICA REPORT A Jeune Afrique Media Group publication

BY PATRICK SMITH

57‑BIS, RUE D’AUTEUIL – 75016 PARIS – FRANCE TEL: (33) 1 44 30 19 60 – FAX: (33) 1 44 30 19 30 www.theafricareport.com

A trio for troubled times

CHA I R M A N A ND F O UND E R BÉCHIR BEN YAHMED P UB L I S HE R DANIELLE BEN YAHMED publisher@theafricareport.com

F

or some years now, African diplomats of a certain age have been grumbling over their espressos or whiskies in hotels in Addis Ababa and Abidjan about a power vacuum on the continent. In the African version of À la recherche du temps perdu, the glory days were when Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Abdoulaye Wade stitched together a new institutional system at the turn of the century.

After endless meetings and compromises, they came up with a revamped African Union (AU), a complex peer-review mechanism and an international investment pact to raise money for pan-African projects. The aim was a network of institutions that would get tougher on putschists and sit-tight kleptocrats but also have the authority and military muscle to intervene in conflicts. A year ago, Mbeki told The Africa Report that the spirit of pan-Africanism had lost out to a focus on national problems.

Help is on the way. A triumvirate of experts now run three of Africa’s most important institutions: Cameroon’s Vera Songwe has been appointed executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa; Chad’s Moussa Faki Mahamat was elected chairman of the AU Commission in January; and Nigeria’s former agriculture minister Akinwumi Adesina has been president of the Abidjanbased AfDB since 2015.

They have studied abroad and worked on different continents in a range of disciplines. From their public utterances, they are determinedly practical and realistic.

At The Africa Report Debate in Marrakech in April, Songwe said arguments about development

E X E CUT I VE P UB L I S HE R JÉRÔME MILLAN

would ring hollow to the more than two-thirds of Africans dependent on rain-fed agriculture – and that required urgent change. Her new institution has done pioneering work, led by Mbeki, on stopping $50bn of capital being siphoned out of Africa each year through trade mispricing and tax avoidance. Those initiatives for governance reform need strong political backing in these troubled times.

Mahamat, a tough negotiator who has worked on security pacts in Central and West Africa, flew to two of Africa’s toughest conflict zones – South Sudan and Somalia – shortly after his election. In London in May, Mahamat said that ending the wave of The spirit conflicts and instability across Africa would of panbe top priority on his Africanism watch. He wants to had lost out boost African member states’ financing for to a growing the AU to give it more focus on political authority.

In Abidjan, Adesina’s national media-savvy ‘hi-five’ problems campaign to popularise development issues has unsettled some who find the ambitions overblown. But on corralling massive investment into agriculture and food processing, Adesina has the experience to drive a green revolution.

They are not miracle workers – and all three will be critically dependent on the politics and the mechanics of the organisations they now head – but together they represent a clean sweep for the continental system and share a common belief that they can bring positive change. Doing that will help fill the power vacuum.

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M A R K E T I NG & D E VE L O P M E NT ALISON KINGSLEY‑HALL E D I T O R I N CHI E F PATRICK SMITH M A NA G I NG E D I T O R NICHOLAS NORBROOK editorial@theafricareport.com A S S O CI AT E E D I T O R MARSHALL VAN VALEN B US I NE S S E D I T O R MARK ANDERSON E D I T O R I A L A S S I S TA NT OHENEBA AMA NTI OSEI R E G I O NA L E D I T O R S CRYSTAL ORDERSON (SOUTHERN AFRICA) BILLIE ADWOA MCTERNAN (GHANA) S UB - E D I T O R S ALISON CULLIFORD ERIN CONROY P R O O F R E A D I NG KATHLEEN GRAY A RT DI R E CT O R MARC TRENSON DESIGN VALÉRIE OLIVIER (LEAD DESIGNER) SYDONIE GHAYEB CHRISTOPHE CHAUVIN (INFOGRAPHICS) CAMILLE CHAUVIN R E S E A R CH SYLVIE FOURNIER P HO T O G R A P HY PIERANGÉLIQUE SCHOULER SALES SANDRA DROUET Tel: (33) 1 44 30 18 07 – Fax: (33) 1 45 20 09 67 sales@theafricareport.com CONTACT FOR SUBSCRIPTION: Webscribe Ltd Unit 4 College Road Business Park College Road North Aston Clinton HP22 5EZ United Kingdom Tel: + 44 (0) 1442 820580 Fax: + 44 (0) 1442 827912 Email: subs@webscribe.co.uk ExpressMag 8275 Avenue Marco Polo Montréal, QC H1E 7K1, Canada T : +1 514 355 3333 1 year subscription (10 issues): All destinations: €39 ‑ $60 ‑ £35 TO ORDER ONLINE: www.theafricareportstore.com A D VE RT I S I NG D I F CO M INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING AND COMMUNICATION AGENCY 57‑BIS, RUE D’AUTEUIL 75016 PARIS ‑ FRANCE Tel: (33) 1 44 30 19‑60 – Fax: (33) 1 44 30 18 34 advertising@theafricareport.com PRINTER: SIEP 77 ‑ FRANCE N° DE COMMISSION PARITAIRE : 0720 I 86885 Dépôt légal à parution / ISSN 1950‑4810 THE AFRICA REPORT is published by GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

Transforming agriculture from grass roots to ingredients

From rice farming in Nigeria to cocoa and cashews in Côte d’Ivoire, Olam has been committed to Africa for nearly 30 years. We have invested S$1.89 billion and built a network of 2.5 million smallholders across 25 countries who supply us with products like cotton, sesame and coffee.

Our 31 processing sites are spread across the continent and allow us to transform our crops into key ingredients used in both local and international products. We provide commercial bakers with flour and have our own well-known food brands such as Tasty Tom, Royal Aroma rice, King Crackers, Mama Gold, BUA pasta and Dona palm oil.

21,000 direct employees and 26,000 seasonal contract workers help us to deliver our goals. They are the catalyst for our success and keep us believing in Africa’s potential.

Olam – born in Africa, believing in Africa. @Olam @olam_international olamgroup.com

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REALITY TV IS NOT BAD FOR AFRICAN YOUTH

I

Ethiopia: Power to the region, as mega-dams generate exports

• Nigeria Sunni-Shia proxy war • South Africa Zuma and post-truth politics • Congo The Majestic River

A SUP PL

EM E NT

TO T H E AFR IC

A R EP O

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Debate

do not think reality shows in themselves are Is Africa’s development bad for the African youth [‘The Question’, TAR90 an illusion?

May 2017]. They manage to do what many traditional documentaries could not do within our context. However, there are risks, and the biggest being distracting audiences from engaging in serious, important public conversations. I believe there is space for both formatted and unformatted shows, and we cannot negate the type of audiences we have, and the economic and technological considerations that affect our industry. There is a need to strike a balance between filmmaking as a craft and making it accessible.

Reality shows speak to the latter, and they present opportunities.

Sibongile Mtshontshi, Commissioning Editor, South African Broadcasting Corporation Not to be sold separately

The years of plenty were an opportunity for African countries to build strong economies and broaden the political space.

Progress is undeniable, but for whom?

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

averaging 58% of value added in 2015.

It may be several years before the UK turns to negotiating EPAs with African countries, but an announcement that, upon triggering Article 50, the UK will honour permanent ‘Everything but Arms’ access to African countries would be a swift assurance that the UK supports African development.

Sarah Logan, Hub Economist in the IGC London Hub

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • DOM 8 € • Ethiopia 90 Birr • France €5.90 Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 • Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 Switzerland 9.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT • Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 48 ZMW Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

LET BIG BROTHER BE

POTENTIAL BREXIT BENEFITS

The world is not such a terrible place to live in [as suggested by Bishop Mambo in reply to ‘The Question’, TAR90 May 2017]. The need for diverse content has never been greater. The question should be whether a particular reality show does portray life for what it is and whether pressing issues do get sufficient coverage. Big Brother as a show fails to direct content that debates current affairs, but that’s not its mandate.

It would be unfair to expect such from the show anyway, and the last time we all checked, football was a reality show as well. Why can’t we speak the same of it?

Post-Brexit, the UK’s bargaining position may be weaker, making it possible that African countries could achieve fairer trade terms [‘Africa/UK: Beyond Brexit’, TAR87 Feb 2017].

Two key trade terms that would greatly benefit African countries are, first, relaxed rules of origin (as mentioned

by Frank Matsaert in the article) to, say, 10% of value added or allowing cumulation from any African countries. This will both boost light manufacturing and promote regional value chains. Second, ensuring that Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) also cover trade in services, as services constitute an increasing share Lawrence Seretse II via Facebook of GDP for many African countries,

STP’S FIRST STEPS While East and Southern Africa countries have continued to develop tourism, the same cannot be said of West African countries [‘Welcoming the neighbours’, TAR89 April 2017].

In fact, countries like Nigeria have stringent visa policies that scare tourists away. This is why the report about the strides being made by the people and Government of São Tomé e Príncipe (STP) in the tourism sector is heartwarming. I, however, have reservations about the call for foreign direct investment in the sector when many loose ends are yet unattended to.

Investors will go where the environment is attractive without being invited.

This approach of waiting on some “angel investors” has left many potential revenue sources and initiatives in the doldrums. STP should therefore take the onerous first step by itself. Be that as it may, STP should be praised for making a significant leap towards showcasing its tourism potential.

Michael-Alvin Usifo, Travel writer

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After nearly two months away on medical leave, President Muhammadu Buhari went back to the UK for ‘follow-up consultations’ in May. Some Nigerians are now questioning his ability to lead West Africa’s largest economy.

Should President Buhari resign?

Yes MARK AMAZA Writer and public affairs analyst

Running a country is a tough job, especially a country with the problems and challenges Nigeria has and the unwieldy size of its bureaucracy with over 600 government ministries, departments and agencies.

The hours are long, with endless meetings, briefings and documents to read while navigating the complex, sometimes arcane politics of the country. It is also a job that requires those who carry it out to be fit and healthy. Sadly, this cannot currently be said of President Buhari. While ill-health is a misfortune that can befall anyone, its consequences are more than just personal when it happens to a country’s leader. It affects the way government works, the economy and the politics of that country, especially in Nigeria where the president wields a lot of power and where, often, the government is built around him. Despite the numerous attempts by government spokespeople and high-level officials to downplay the severity of Buhari’s illness, they have not only often contradicted themselves but they have also been contradicted by the President, who admitted he has never been this sick since he was a young man and even received blood transfusions. It is apparent that his illness is as bad as feared rather than as his aides say it is.

His passion for Nigeria is admirable, but it is virtually impossible for him to lead the country while tending to such severe ill-health.

No STANLEY ACHONU Operations lead, BudgIT Nigeria

I have two reasons why Buhari should not resign yet.

It is erroneous to compare this situation to [former president] Umaru Yar’Adua’s situation, which was shrouded in secrecy and the National Assembly was kept in the dark. Buhari has followed the letter of the law, which requires him to formally hand over to vice-president Yemi Osinbajo by way of written communication. There is no doubt who now leads the country in the absence of the President. As much as it is a human right not to disclose personal ailments in detail, Buhari has shown a semblance of knowledge of the fact that Nigerians must be put in the loop, and though there is opinion on one hand that the presidency must divulge more details, one can also see some departure from the notorious secrecy that was the norm in governments past. The second reason why President Buhari should not resign is the All Progressives Congress (APC). If the ruling party is just that, then it is due to the very existence of a Buhari presidency.

If the ruling party did anything for Nigeria’s democracy, it was to prove succinctly that a sitting president can be unseated, and that opposition parties do not have to be perfect to be ruthless. For all his physical frailty, Buhari remains a strong totem for the APC; an emblem of the only thing holding the APC together. If Buhari resigns today, the APC will plunge the country into a major crisis.

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You need not ask the question. […]

He demanded for late Yar’Adua’s resignation, so maybe Yar’Adua’s spirit should demand same from Buhari. All I know is that we don’t have an incapable president but a President who is incapacitated.

Iliyasu Ali No, I think they must just follow what their constitution says. If it happens that he can no longer perform his functions well, he himself must choose what’s best: his interests or that of the nation of Nigeria.

Jojo Tiyani Chivasa If he knows he is not fit enough, let him be sincere enough to resign.

Maikel Ibia President Buhari should resign because a walking corpse cannot continue to rule a nation of 180 million people.

Ogara Chidi Absolutely YES. He’s done well, […] but he must allow Nigeria to move on. He’s got good hands to hand over to. @HamidAdiamoh If only we knew the nature of his illness.

But if it’s serious, he should. @BabG80 Yes! @MBuhari should resign not because he is sick but because his nepotic ideology is fueling corruption & terrorism! @RVincci

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CÔTE D’IVOIRE A mutiny in the central city

of Bouaké that spread to other parts of the country threatened Côte d’Ivoire’s post-conflict stability in May.

EGYPT/SUDAN CONFLICT OVER THE HALA’IB TRIANGLE

found a new Homo naledi skull in the Rising Star Cave network.

MALI Children help with the restoration of the Great

Mosque of Djenné by gathering mud from a nearby river bed. The mosque is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

NIGERIA

All to play for

Bouyed up by an improvement in international support, Sudan’s government demanded in April that Egypt hand over the disputed territory of the Hala’ib Triangle, an area it has claimed since independence.

The two governments have exchanged recriminations, ratcheting up tensions.

W

ith its halfway mark on 29 May, Muhammadu Buhari’s first term as elected president raises two big questions.

Firstly, will Buhari, beset by ill-health, complete his first term? Secondly, who will run in the 2019 election campaign?

Speculation about Buhari’s health has prompted political manoeuvres.

Some officials of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) want to bring forward the primary elections for 2019. That, its authors hope, would give a clearer sense of Buhari’s intentions and smoke out other contenders. It might also

EGYPT Red Sea

Hala'ib Triangle

SOUTH AFRICA Scientists

SUDAN

slow the elevation of vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, who is strong on technical knowledge and political instincts, should Buhari quit early.

Frontrunners for 2019 include Senate president Bukola Saraki, Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, ex-governor of Lagos State Bola Tinubu, and former vice-president Atiku Abubakar. First prize would be the APC ticket. Thwarted candidates might run for the shellshocked People’s Democratic Party instead. Tinubu and Abubakar are already quietly talking about starting breakaway parties.

Unit sales Cash sales revenue

1.9m $113.9m World

$53.3m Sub-Saharan Africa

Off-grid solar power solutions are taking off in Africa, with the continent representing 50% of the global market in the second half of 2016. But global growth in sales slowed somewhat, dropping 12% in volume terms since the first half of 2016.

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BAYO OMOBORIOWO/PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS

3.8m

SOURCE: LIGHTING GLOBAL AND GLOBAL OFF-GRID LIGHTING ASSOCIATION

SOLAR POWER SHINING ON AFRICA

BRIEFING 11

LIBYA The Libyan National Army marches for the third anniversary of its military campaign to chase Islamist militants out of Benghazi.

FRANCE Tunisian actress

Mariam Al Ferjani, star of La Belle et la Meute, at the Cannes film festival.

KENYA Women from the northern region of Turkana,

hard hit by drought and the site of recent oil discoveries, lament the loss of their livestock and livelihoods.

ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP; XINHUA/XINHUA-REA; HAMDIA TRAORE/ANADOLU AGENCY/AFP; ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI/REUTERS; STEPHANE CARDINALE/CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; TONY KARUMBA/AFP

Africa is set to benefit from China’s massive investment in trade routes and railway lines (see small map) through the One Belt, One Road programme. China-Africa trade is on the rise again, too, and it hit $38.8bn in the first quarter of 2017, up 16.8% over the same period in 2016.

CHINA-AFRICA BELTS AND ROADS Moscow

Rotterdam

ITALY

KAZAKHSTAN

Venice Istanbul GREECE

UZBEKISTAN

TURKEY

Djibouti

KENYA

RWANDA Kigali BUR. Bujumbura

Ürümqi

Bishkek KYRGYZSTAN

Dushanbe CHINA

PAKISTAN INDIA

Fuzhou Kolkata

Indian Ocean

Mombasa Dar es Salaam

TANZANIA

VIETNAM

SRI LANKA

Lamu

Colombo

Kuala Lumpur

KENYA INDONESIA

Nairobi

Jakarta

“I want Africa, already a place brimming with opportunity, to win its own place in the world’s workshops and marketplaces – to become come a ggllobal lob ball industrial powerhouse ”

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KENYA KENYATTA’S BOFFINS The Star newspaper reported in May that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s party has hired Cambridge Analytica, the controversial data analysis firm involved in the Brexit and US election campaigns, to ensure a repeat victory in elections planned for August.

VINCENT FOURNIER/JA

Ahead of the Bank’s annual meeting, this time held in India in May, AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina called on African leaders to take charge of their destiny.

•

Hanoi

SOMALIA

Nairobi

THE AFRICA REPORT

Xian

TAJIKISTAN

IRAN

Addis Ababa

UGANDA Kampala

Samarkand

Tehran

ETHIOPIA SOUTH SUDAN

RUSSIA

21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Silk Road Economic Belt

NETHERLANDS

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MR MAGU 1990 Joined the police force, becoming an assistant superintendent 2008 Head of the Joint Special Presidential Task Force on Good Governance, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)

SAHARA REPORTERS

2011 Appointed deputy director of EFCC internal affairs 11 November 2015 Named acting chair of the EFCC by President Buhari

Ibrahim Magu

The acting chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission since November 2015, Magu has probed into powerful members of the Senate, who continue to block his appointment

A ‘POLICEMAN’S POLICEMAN’, acting Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chair Ibrahim Magu said, upon taking up his appointment, that his task was to “ginger up the anti-corruption campaign”. He has not disappointed.

He is at war with the Senate but has the support of civic activists and some friends in the presidency.

A softly-spoken accountancy graduate before joining the police in 1990, Magu served in the United Nations peacekeeping mission

in Bosnia in the 1990s and regularly visits Europe and the US. But there’s no doubt that this Maiduguri-born detective is much more at home on the beat in Nigeria.

Magu was one of the first to join the EFCC after it was established in 2004. He came with a reputation for relentless persistence. According to a senior police officer: “Absolutely, he is the first person that you would want on any investigation, but managing the sharks around the circles of power requires

“The ANC must ensure South Africa does not become a mafia state because once you reach that state, all the wheels have come off ” Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa calls for an emergency pit stop for South Africa.

an altogether different skill set.

He has fallen out with some powerful players and fallen in with others.

It’s a question of risk management.”

Magu has spearheaded investigations against some hugely powerful politicians, such as the governors of Delta and Kwara states, James Ibori and Bukola Saraki, respectively. Ibori returned to Nigeria last December after five years in jail in the UK after his conviction on fraud charges; Saraki is president of the Senate, which has twice refused to ratify Magu’s nomination

by President Muhammadu Buhari.

In that trial of strength, Magu will remain the acting chairman of the EFCC until one side backs down.

The storm currently swirling around the EFCC chairman shows the complexity of the country’s political and corporate corruption networks. On 12 April, the EFCC

“Everything I do, everything I touch, is successful ” Liberian presidential candidate George Weah humbly makes his case to voters ahead of elections planned for October.

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STELLA NYANZI

GIFT NGOEPE On 26 April, Ngoepe, from South Africa, became the first Africanborn player in US Major League Baseball. After nine years in lower leagues, he played his first game for the Pittsburgh Pirates and is now seen on the starting squad.

At the Beijing forum for China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta reminds Chinese officials that traffic must flow in both directions.

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In late April, an appeals court in the Netherlands confirmed Kouwenhoven’s war crimes conviction for trading arms in exchange for natural resources during Liberia’s civil war. He is due to serve 19 years in prison.

The Ugandan academic and campaigner was freed from prison after a month in May. She had been jailed for calling President Yoweri Museveni “a pair of buttocks” on Facebook and still faces charges.

“Just as Africa opens up to China, China must also open up to Africa” THE AFRICA REPORT

GUUS KOUWENHOVEN

PAUL MALONG South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir sacked the controversial general in May. The government now fears that Malong will use the forces loyal to him to get involved in the country’s long-running civil war.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; JASON PATINKIN/AP/SIPA; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CHINENOUVELLE/SIPA

Honoré Banda

SIBETH NDIAYE The Senegal-born press secretary played a key role in shaping the message of Emmanuel Macron, who was elected president of France in May. She is expected to remain influential now that he is in power.

KAMIL ZIHNIOGLU/AP/SIPA; ZUMA PRESS/ZUMA/REA; CHRISTOPHER HORNER/AP/SIPA

raided a flat in Ikoyi, an upmarket suburb of Lagos, and found – even

by Nigerian standards – a breathtaking haul of cash: shrink-wrapped bills totalling $43m, N23m ($72,700) and £27,000 ($35,000).

Magu had acted on a tip-off after a surveillance operation. It has emerged that the cash pile was held by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Nigeria’s foreign spy service, for undercover projects. And it is said that top officials including national security adviser General (retired) Babagana Monguno and President Buhari had been briefed on these projects. But NIA director Ayo Oke, has been suspended, pending an investigation by vice-president Yemi Osinbajo. The EFCC is also targeting international corporations, with a view to reversing some of the illicit outflows of capital from Nigeria.

It may be a mark of his success that Magu appears to be loathed by almost the entire corporate and political elite in the country.

Magu faces, like his more urbane predecessor Nuhu Ribadu a decade ago, accusations that his agenda is driven by political interests.

Yet Magu’s critics are at the centre of the administration in which he serves. The Senate blocked his nomination citing a security report by the Department of State Security that claimed he had failed the integrity test.

EFCC sources say Magu may already have material to bury Saraki – certainly to derail a campaign for the national presidency in 2019.

But Magu has watched three previous EFCC chairs fall from grace, badly damaging the anti-corruption campaign. Having taken on some of Nigeria’s political and business titans, the price of failure will be high.

YONATAN TESFAYE In May, Ethiopian courts found the oppositionist guilty of encouraging terrorism for his Facebook comments criticising the government’s brutal response to public protests in the country last year.

14

1

MEXICO

1,938

The number of people murdered in Mexico in January alone, according to government figures.

The country is on track to have its highest homicide rate in a decade due to the state’s inability to tackle drug traffickers and organised crime.

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UNITED STATES

Trump in trouble

2

FRANCE

CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/POOL/REA

Presidents Macron and Keïta visit French troops in Mali

After a trying week for President Donald Trump in May, the word ‘impeachment’ was no longer merely being whispered in Washington. First, questions arose over Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey and his suggestion that it was connected with a probe into Russian links.

Then the Department of Justice appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to examine the Russian influence on the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump was also said to have disclosed classified intelligence about Islamic State rebels in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

Mighty Macron

French voters elected centrist Emmanuel Macron as the country’s new president on 7 May. The second-round vote, which did not include either of the country’s two main parties for the first time since they were founded, featured Macron with his new La République en Marche movement and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Front National. Le Pen is a proponent of taking France out of the European Union, which would have been a devastating blow to the bloc as it deals with the British withdrawal. European governments were heartened when Macron won with more than 66% of the vote.

The former investment banker, who is the country’s youngest head of state since Napoleon Bonaparte, has pledged to reform France’s ailing economy, which is suffering from 10% unemployment. Macron wants to spend €15bn ($16bn) on training programmes for young people and another €15bn on efforts to curb climate change. Macron has appointed conservative politician Édouard Philippe as his new prime minister. Showing his international priorities, he first travelled to Germany to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and then went to Mali to visit with French troops stationed in Gao and President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.

SOUTH KOREA

Over the moon

South Korea got a new president on 10 May when Moon Jae-in was appointed the successor to Park Geun-hye, who had been impeached by the constitutional court on corruption charges. Moon’s casual approach to office is already winning him popularity among the electorate. His approval rating hit 75% in his first week in office, a far cry from Park’s 4% approval rating registered in March. Moon is seeking to diffuse the conflict with North Korea, mend relations with China and rein in corruption.

SIMONE KUHLMEY/PACIFIC PRES SS/ZUM

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GERMANY

“It is

possible to change treaties if it makes sense in order to strengthen the eurozone ” Germany’s Chancellor Ange ela Merkel said that tthe European Union mustt be open to reform in the e light of the prob blems of Brexit and tthe calls for change from French president Emm manuel Macron.

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BRIEFING 15

LESOTHO GENERAL ELECTIONS 3 June

JUNE

GUBA AWARDS 3-4 June LONDON | UK The high-profile diaspora event celebrates Ghana’s 60 years of independence and the 6th edition of the award for UK-based Ghanaian achievers. gubaawards.co.uk

CAPE TOWN | SOUTH AFRICA Dealmakers from all corners of the energy landscape converge on Cape Town. africaoilandpower.com

AFRICA ENERGY FORUM 7-9 June COPENHAGEN | DENMARK africa-energy-forum.com

Lesothans go back to the polls after only two years

AVIATION FESTIVAL AFRICA 13-14 June

NOC ASSEMBLY 12 June

JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA terrapinn.com

PARIS | FRANCE Global meeting place for national oil companies and their partners. oilandgascouncil.com

CCA US AFRICA BUSINESS SUMMIT 13-16 June

OIL & GAS COUNCIL AFRICA ASSEMBLY 13-14 June

WASHINGTON | US The Corporate Council on Africa’s biennial summit. ccausafricasummit.com

PARIS | FRANCE Corporate development, strategy, finance and investment gathering. oilandgascouncil.com

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE AFRICAN CHILD 16 June

AFRICA RAIL 13-14 June JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA $508bn in African railway projects are up for discussion. terrapinn.com THE AFRICA REPORT

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GLOBAL In honour of the Soweto schoolchildren killed in the 1976 uprising. acerwc.org •

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GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP

AFRICA OIL & POWER 5-7 June

Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili lost a no-confidence vote in parliament in March, forcing Lesotho’s monarch, King Letsie III, to dissolve parliament and call a general election. The vote of no confidence, which ended Mosisili’s two-year reign as premier, has deepened political uncertainty in the Southern African kingdom, with massive defections from the ruling seven-party coalition. The 3 June elections will select all 120 representatives in the National Assembly, parliament’s lower house. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho is one of the world’s poorest countries and is heavily dependent on its neighbour and the Southern African Development Community for its trade and economic activity.

ZIMEC 2017 22-23 June LUSAKA | ZAMBIA The Zambia International Mining and Energy Conference looks at ways Zambia can diversify for sustainable growth. ametrade.org/zimeczambia

GHANA OIL & GAS SUMMIT 22-23 June ACCRA | GHANA President Nana Akufo-Addo will introduce the oil, gas, LNG and power summit. cwcghana.com

AFRICA’S BIG SEVEN & SAITEX 25-27 June JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA Africa’s largest food and beverage industry trade expo and the retail products expo, all in one location. exhibitionsafrica.com

NATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL 29 June – 9 July GRAHAMSTOWN | SOUTH AFRICA From comedy to jazz to world-class theatre, Grahamstown has it all. nationalartsfestival.co.za

AFRICAN BUSINESS LAWYERS’ CLUB CONFERENCE 30 June PARIS | FRANCE Organised by the MEDEF, on the theme of African Cities. medefinternational.fr JULY

WEST AFRICA COM 11-12 July DAKAR | SENEGAL Developing partnerships to bridge the digital divide. tmt.knect365.com/west-africacom/

16

William Gumede

Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times

Feed the machine, and you shall be fed

T

he corrupting impact of patronage is not a new problem for the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. To maintain personnel in offices, barracks and underground structures across the world, the ANC in exile under apartheid needed large amounts of funding. And it got it in cash: from sympathetic governments in Africa, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia. Donors would often give money clandestinely in suitcases or bags without asking for receipts.

President Jacob Zuma was the head of ANC intelligence operations in exile. He disciplined members and sniffed out would-be infiltrators.

He also had access to funding, resources and appointments, with which he rewarded supporters and sidelined perceived opponents.

Fast-forward into the post-apartheid era, with its high unemployment rates. Many black South Africans find it hard to get jobs in the mostly white-dominated private sector, partially as a result of the legacy of apartheid, which prevented them from acquiring relevant technical skills.

That is why, for many striving black South Africans, it’s all about the government: getting elected as either an ANC parliamentarian or councillor; securing a job in the public sector; or winning a government contract, whether to clean the streets or supply food.

Frank Chikane, a former director general in the presidency, recently warned about the phenomenon whereby some ANC leaders pay branch members to vote for them. “You start buying each other at a branch level and corrupt the system from there,” said Chikane.

Most ordinary ANC activists, whether in South Africa or in exile during the struggle against apartheid, did not have full-time jobs with pensions, mortgages or savings. This makes them vulnerable to a boss who demands loyalty over probity.

President Zuma, when he contested the ANC presidency against former president Thabo Mbeki in 2008, did so in desperation to escape prosecution for corruption and to alleviate his and his family’s

precarious financial circumstances. Zuma may have turned around his financial fortunes, but he failed to derail more than 783 corruption charges.

To maintain the ANC’s vast party machinery, it needs a firm grip on patronage. Former president Mbeki centralised power in the office of the ANC and country’s presidencies, which Zuma has used to his advantage.

The private sector hugged the ANC close, too. At the ANC’s101stanniversarygaladinnerinDurbanin2013, Zuma said: “You can support and be a supporter, but if you go beyond that and become a member [and] if you’re a businessman, your business will multiply.”

Former Gold Fields chair Mamphela Ramphele said that the company was forced to accept ANC-

“If you’re a member and a businessman, your business will multiply” – Zuma nominated Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) partners for its South Deep mine. Gold Fields sold a 9% share in the mine to Invictus Gold, a BEE company with 73 shareholders. They included several Zuma allies: ANC chair Baleka Mbete; the late health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang; and Jerome Brauns, who represented Zuma in his rape trial.

Furthermore, state-owned development finance institutions have also funded politically connected companies. In 2010, Oakbay – a company owned by the Gupta family – and Duduzane Zuma, the president’s son, bought mining assets from Uranium One in a transaction that was 90% funded by the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation.

In terms of political organisation, the ANC under Mbeki was close to becoming a party state – where leaders, members and supporters see the state as belonging to the party. This phenomenon has deepened under the Zuma presidency. Zuma is also presiding over an ANC that has become close to a ‘partyarchy’, which translates into the party becoming dominated by entrenched factions and their networks.

Zuma allows the different factions, networks and regions of the ANC base to run their fiefdoms THE AFRICA REPORT

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almost independently – as long as they remain loyal to him personally. For example, the so-called ‘Premier League’ of provincial premiers is deeply loyal to Zuma; in return, they are allowed to run their provinces as they see fit.

There are a number of ways in which the ANC distributes patronage. The first is to get loyalists elected to parliament, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. The ANC president has a strong say in who becomes a candidate for a parliamentary seat, as he approves the final list.

The ANC president appoints ANC provincial premiers and metropolitan mayors, who in turn appoint loyalists to their provincial legislatures and city councils. The ANC also has a national committee, which is chaired by the president, that ‘deploys’ loyal cadres as executives and board members of parastatals and heads of oversight institutions.

At the heart of the ANC patronage machine is the government’s procurement budget of about R600bn ($45bn) per year. Of this, the government has set a 75% target for local procurement.

The procurement system is fragmented, with government entities organising their own contracts.

Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan tried to centralise the procurement system through the national treasury and setting up the office of the chief procurement officer.

This was fiercely resisted within the ANC and is one of the reasons why Zuma fired Gordhan earlier this year. Chief procurement officer Kenneth Brown THE AFRICA REPORT

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was under so much pressure from ANC cadres that he resigned in December 2016 without being able to centralise the contracting system. Brown has warned that about 40% of contracts for government procurement of goods and services – of which there are an estimated 4,000 per day – are inflated.

Noseweek, a local investigative magazine, recently showed that in the city of Tshwane (Pretoria), an ANC patronage network of more than 40,000 suppliers regularly supplied goods and services to the city at inflatedprices.TheNoseweekinvestigationhighlighted that prices for goods and services could be inflated by as much as 400%. It gave examples of lightbulbs that cost R79 in stores being sold to the city at R300 each.

In the city of Tshwane the mark-up by suppliers can be as much as 400% If you criticise the ANC leadership from within, you are out of the patronage system. This brutal truth may affect the pending motion of no confidence that opposition parties have tabled in parliament against Zuma. For the motion to be successful, at least 60 ANC parliamentarians will have to vote with the opposition.

Zuma and his allies have threatened retribution against any troublesome legislators who vote against Zuma. It is very unlikely they will vote with the opposition – unless the opposition offers to compensate them, or Zuma’s main rival, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, tries to do so. In which case, the cycle will begin again.

18

NAIROBI

The east

Nairobi is coming of age as a crossroads between new investors and old money.

But mounting pressure on infrastructure and a lack of housing must be addressed

JOE PENNEY/REUTERS

By Mark Anderson, Edith Honan and Morris Kiruga in Nairobi

A

t a Labour Day celebration in Nairobi’s central Uhuru Park in early May tensions were running high between the two men preparing to face off in the August elections to lead Nairobi. Just a few months before, the challenger from the ruling Jubilee Party, senator Mike Sonko, nearly started a brawl on the Senate floor with governor Evans Kidero, accusing him of an illegal land grab.

In Uhuru Park, the two sat an arm’s length apart, separated by interior secretary Joseph Nkaissery. The image, with the sternfaced Nkaissary seemingly playing referee, went viral.

ern gateway

Schoolkids look out at the Central Business District, currently plagued by redundancies

20 FRONTLINE | NAIROBI: THE EASTERN GATEWAY

The Kidero-Sonko match has Nairobi’s elite reeling. It was always clear that Kidero, the former head of Kenya’s troubled sugar giant Mumias, would have a strong challenge in his first re-election fight. Few expected Sonko, a flamboyant personality who travels in a gold-plated limo and insists that his personal fortune comes “from God”, to emerge as the challenger.

CITY OF HUSTLE AND HOPE

The next governor will be presiding over the city at a time of transformation and growth. Vast challenges await the next leader, chief among them the highest youth unemployment rate in the region and a dysfunctional transportation system. But Nairobi is also a city of hope and ambition. Cantankerous writers and poets vie for the public space with tech-savvy entrepreneurs, and nearly everyone has a ‘side hustle’ to bring in extra cash. City planners are trying some side hustles of their own, with new housing developments and satellite communities mushrooming up alongside newly built motorways.

President Uhuru Kenyatta sees Nairobi as a bridge between Asia and Africa. At China’s New Silk Road summit on 15 May, he spoke with excitement about since 2012. And just 12% of the city’s Beijing’s mammoth infrastructure proland is covered with roads, while a city ject, which will cost an estimated $3trn, to build land and sea links with Europe, of Nairobi’s size should dedicate 30% the Middle East and Africa. “[It] gives of land to roads, according to a United our continent the opportunity to make Nations-commissioned study. a paradigm shift. Post-colonial Africa Sonko, who is perhaps best known for supplying free ambulance and other has been stuck in a rut,” Kenyatta said. services in Nairobi’s underserved slums For many in Nairobi, the real rut is through his Sonko Rescue Team, has the wildly inflated housing market that been largely on the defensive in the keeps half the population in slums that campaign. “I think my opponents are lack basic sanitation. Kidero’s message has been that he must continue the untrying to play a character assassination finished business of his first term, and game,” he said in a recent TV interview, that Sonko is not a serious alternative. in which he acknowledged he had spent “When I got in, Nairobi was in a hole,” Kidero told local Sonko is best known for supplying media. “Nairobi is much free ambulances to slums better than when I came through his Sonko Rescue Team in. We are treating more [ill] people, we are collecting time in prison. He said he was neither more garbage, services are a lot more a drug dealer nor a hooligan: “I want expedited.” Kidero’ssuccess intheAugust elections will hinge on how voters view to tell Kenyans that my past shall not his track record on promoting developjudge my present or my future.” ment and improving service delivery.

Since Kenya underwent devolution Kidero estimates the city loses more – the 2013 elections marked the official than $500,000 a day in productivity due launch – the Nairobi governor has beto traffic and other transportation troucomeoneofthemostpowerfuljobsinthe country, controlling a massive budget. bles. Part of the problem is the number of Kidero comes from the opposition vehicles, which have more than doubled

Orange Democratic Movement, and the governing Jubilee Party wants to take control of the powerful Nairobi seat.

As Nairobi has grown wealthier, the demands of its people have also sharpened.

And it might just be that Kenya’s main political parties, long seen as self-serving, might have to make some adjustments.

ROAD TO NOWHERE

“When we talk about devolution, we used to talk about tall buildings and big highways, and there’s a growing sense that that’s just not enough,” Patrick Gathara, a cartoonist and political blogger, tells The Africa Report.

And big highways are not for everyone.

Sliding down a hill flanked by vendors selling vegetables and Chinese smartphones,agapingroadcomestoanabrupt stop. Once completed, this road will link the Southern Bypass, Nairobi’s newest highway, to Ngong Road, an important thoroughfare that leads to dozens of glittering skyscrapers in the distant Central Business District. But for now, the road is blocked by a neighbourhood in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa.

Here, in Makina Ward, a district of corrugated iron shacks that are home to THE AFRICA REPORT

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SIMON MAINA/AFP PHOTO

NAIROBI: THE EASTERN GATEWAY | FRONTLINE 21

The city of Nairobi and some of its neighbourhoods ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

10

Above: Architect’s digital model of Konza Tech City. The airplaneshaped cluster is designed to help the information technology economy take off in the same way as Silicon Valley in the US Above right: Kenyan labourers on a Chinese-run construction site

about 3,500 people, Nairobi’s wealth gap is laid bare. The government’s attitude to its poorest citizens is simple, says Alex Nyambiga, 24, a long-time resident of Makina Ward who works as a clerk in a supermarket in a smart part of town.

“They want us to leave so the road can pass,” he says. “They don’t care where we go.” Poor workers like Nyambiga pass wealthy bankers on their way to jobs in downtown offices and shops. Slums such as Kibera share a border with Ngong Road, the epicentre of the tech boom.

Nairobi’s economy has been riding a wave of growth and Chinese loans. This has created a new middle class with new tastes. The search for well-paying jobs has led Kenyans to pour into Nairobi at a staggering rate. The city’s population has skyrocketed from around 500,000 at independence in 1963 to about four million. As a result, the neighbourhoods THE AFRICA REPORT

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7 3

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8 9 5

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Nairobi National Park

KAREN LANGATA KIBERA UPPEER HILL KILIMANI CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT 7 KILELESHWA DS 8 WESTLAND 9 PARKLANDS 10 MUTHAIGA 11 EASTLEIGH 12 EASTLANDS 1 2 3 4 5 6

4 km

KENYA Nairobi

that make up Nairobi have sprouted since it was founded by British colonisers in 1899. The city was first created as a stop-over along a railway linking the port of Mombasa with Uganda.

Eastleigh, an area designated by the British for Africans, grew into a bustling Somali trading hub after independence.

Across town, in Parklands, the British built apartment blocks to house colonial administrators. After they left, Asian investors moved in.

BUILDING A TECH BOOM

Among the lush green of the northern district of Muthaiga, the United Nations has its headquarters for Africa. As the city grew, the southern district of Kilimani became home to shiny multipurpose buildings where sleep-deprived programmers create new tech startups.

Nairobi is East Africa’s commercial hub,

making it an attractive destination for big businesses and organisations. More than 100 multinational corporations have their headquarters for Africa here.

In a vast field on the outskirts of Nairobi, a ring fence and dozens of signs surround a 5,000ha piece of land. This is where Konza Tech City, which is to become ground zero of Kenya’s tech boom, is slowly being built. After a series of false starts, construction of the first phase, which the government says will house “early investors and innovators” finally began late last year.

Bitange Ndemo, the former cabinet secretary for information technology, is the visionary behind the city. “Look at Facebook: from Harvard it had to go to Silicon Valley because the place is conducive,” Ndemo tells The Africa Report. “Ngong Road had become too expensive, not every startup

22 FRONTLINE | NAIROBI: THE EASTERN GATEWAY

SIMON MAINA/AFP

Senator for Nairobi and governorship candidate Mike Sonko says he has p the experience and ideas to run Kenya’ss capital city.

would move there,” he says, referring to the former location of iHub, Nairobi’s tech incubator.

Among the frowning faces huddled in front of laptops at the new iHub office space in Kilimani, scepticism about Konza is common. Josiah Mugambi, an iHub director, says: “You’ll want people out of their own volition to come there and say: ‘I’m working from here because I want to be here.’” Plans to build a highspeed railway to central Nairobi would sweeten the deal for many tech workers, Mugambi says, but the questions of housing and schooling remain.

CONSTRUCTION MANIA

It used to be said of upwardly mobile Nairobians that they started off living in the far-flung, congested estates of Eastlands, then moved on to workingclass Langata before landing in Kileleshwa – the leafy, residential area that sits just beyond the Central Business District. As recently as a decade ago, parts of Kileleshwa were still thick with forests and dotted with bungalows inhabited by politicians and the newly wealthy. It was an aspirational neighbourhood for a city that was coming into its own. These days, the once-quaint district is packed with high-rise towers. Kileleshwa might as

says Mehnaz Safavian, lead financial well be shorthand for the city’s housing construction mania – and the failure of sector specialist at the World Bank’s public infrastructure to keep pace. regional office in Nairobi.

Take Kikambala Road, just off If there is limited housing for Kileleshwa’s main Ring Road. Around middle-income earners, the problem is dramatically worse for roughly half of 15 years ago, the street had about 15 the Nairobi population, who are living single-family homes. Today, 10 of in slums. The World Bank estimates those properties have been replaced that Kenya needs to build two million with apartment towers and three are now subdivisions with as many as nine single-family The World Bank estimates Kenya homes. No major infraneeds to build two million homes structure development has to stem the growth of slums accompanied that building boom. Residents say their homes to stem the growth of slums. taps run dry about every two weeks, For a low-income buyer, who might be and a nearby transformer explodes looking for something in the region of periodically from overuse. $20,000, “nothing exists”, says Safavian.

The biggest complaint is the traffic.

And yet, one needs only to drive The single-lane Ring Road is one of the through a neighbourhood like nicer stretches of pavement in central Kileleshwa to see that a building boom Nairobi. It is renowned among cyclists is underway. How is it being paid for? in the city for being one of the only roads For John Githongo, a veteran anti-corwith bike lanes. But on weekday evenings it becomes a parking lot, and residents ruption activist, the answer is simple: might sit in two to three hours of rushgraft. “The laundering of corruption hour traffic – or even more if it rains.

– and, it is believed, drug trafficking proceeds – has flushed right through our Affordability is a major problem for banking systems and is now heavily into Nairobi’s residents. Over the past decreal estate,” he tells The Africa Report. ade, they have seen a 10-fold increase in housing prices. According to the World PERFECT MARRIAGE Bank, there arejust25,000mortgages outstanding in Kenya – in part because the When Sonko unveiled that Polycarp Igathe is his running mate on 17 May, informal nature of the economy shuts out many qualified borrowers. Meanwhile, it appeared to be a perfect marriage in thereislittlehousingavailable,forcingthe the highest circles of the political and less privileged to either rent sub-standard business elite. Igathe is the managing homes or find housing outside the city. director of Vivo Energy, which is the “There is a dearth of housing below licensee of Shell’s business in 16 African the luxury market, and even the middle countries. Putting Igathe’s name on the class cannot find affordable options,” ballot brings significant credibility to Sonko’s promise to “restore Nairobi” by creating jobs and boosting the economy.

Like in most cities, in Nairobi the merger of business and political interests climaxes during election years. Chris Kirubi, the head of private equity giant Centum Investments, is one of the ruling Jubilee Party’s most ardent supporters.

Although Kenya’s electoral laws do not require parties to disclose campaign donations, Kirubi is widely said to be among Jubilee’s most important beneEvans Kiderro, governor of Nairobi factors. As the chairman of Capital FM, County, takess aim at governorship the city’s most popular radio station, his candidate Mikke Sonko, saying he is not influence on the media is also significant. up to the task.

Among the key supporters of Kenya’s opposition coalition, the National Super Alliance (Nasa), is S.K. Macharia, who is the owner of Royal Media Services.

Macharia claimed that Raila Odinga, Nasa’s presidential candidate,

“We cannot accept Nairobi to be controlled by a comedian ”

THOMAS MUKOYA/REUTERS

“I have been like the de facto governor because all the complaints by the county residents have been brought to me ”

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Can technology transform 100 million lives through agriculture by 2030?

Agrikore

Agrikore

inspired by

24 FRONTLINE | NAIROBI: THE EASTERN GATEWAY

UNFULFILLED PROMISES

In February, the region’s biggest bank by total assets, KCB Group, announced it would fire hundreds of its workers in a bid to reduce its spending by $20m in the next year. That has become Nairobi’s immediate reality, with factories to media houses reducing their staff.

In early April, the Kenyatta government launched an online portal detailing its successes in the past four years. While

Models strut designs by Atsenga Creations during Nairobi Fashion Week: Kenyan designers are riding the wave of Nairobi’s newfound passion for vibrant and original clothes

XINHUA/ZUMA/REA

was the real winner of the 2007 presidential elections. He owns a host of radio and television stations, including the popular Citizen TV. For some businessmen, however, the political arena is the least of their concerns. In the Central Business District, where matatus jostle for space with red-plated SUVs, the sight of crestfallen bank executives has become familiar.

Even before a commercial interest cap came into effect last September, something was fundamentally off-kilter about Kenya’s economy.

Partially driven by rising debt obligations to fund infrastructure projects, the country’s economic projections looked fantastic, sometimes even fanciful, for a few years. This is most visible in its vibrant banking sector. Bankers almost always start with talk of better days before speaking in hushed tones about the rising proportion of bad loans – 9.1% by some measures – and falling revenue.

The lending cap has triggered credit rationing, especially because it came after three banks went into administration.

A common refrain in Nairobi now, whenever a company announces losses or job cuts, is a sarcastic “the economy is growing”. It is quoting the regime’s constant assurance, whose effects seem to have dissipated in the private sector.

The UAP Old Mutual Tower, Kenya’s highest building, is 65% empty nine months after its opening. Construction started long before the mini-banking crisis, and investors were already wary about extending in an economy headed for a bruising national election this year.

The Nairobi economy is not creating enough new employment opportunities.

“I’ve been looking for a job for three years now – anything, even an unpaid internship,” says Susan Awuor, who has a degree from the University of Nairobi.

“I think I’ve walked into every office on this side of town to no avail,” she says, referring to Upper Hill, Kilimani and Westlands – Nairobi’s business hubs.

employment opportunities were some the West – known as mitumba – and of the most ambitious promises during cheap imports from China. its election in 2013, they occupy a minor The shop in The Hub is the brainrole in its achievements, especially comchild of Katungulu Mwendwa, a Nairobi pared with infrastructure. With rising designer who has shown her work in New York and London. The shop has food prices and an economy that tends to slow down in election cycles, the next been a success, and others have folfew years may not be easy. lowed Mwendwa’s lead: now just about every upscale Nairobi mall has at least On the mezzanine floor of The Hub, one shop dedicated to local designers, the sparkling new mall in the affluent area of Karen, there is a new shop called The Urban There is a new interest among African Lifestyle Company. the city’s well-heeled in It carries an array of debuying locally made products signs, including cotton tube dresses, leather handincluding the architectural skirts and bags and fish-leather accessories from blouses of Kepha Maina and Deepa the Lake Victoria region. At first glance, the store might seem unremarkable.

Dosaja’s stretch silk palazzo pants and But it represents something of a revojumpsuits. Meanwhile, the Nairobi social lution for Kenyan retail: a new interest calendar is crowded with events aimed among the city’s well-heeled in buying at quenching this new thirst for Kenyan fashion: upscale craft markets, fashion locally made products, and the gradual revival of Kenya’s textile industry, which shows and an annual Fashion High Tea. for decades was drowned out by the As Sunny Dolat, a Nairobi stylist, flood of second-hand clothing from explains, Kenyans have been known THE AFRICA REPORT

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to favour nondescript Western designs, setting them apart from many other African countries where wax fabrics are popular. But as more Nairobians have entered the middle class, there has been a renewed interest in exploring the local aesthetic and supporting local creativity.

“I think Kenya, like many other places in the world, had this period where we were really interested in products from the West because they were already validated,” says Dolat. “We’ve had this period where the middle class really grew and so there was a lot more disposable income in the city. So, there is a shift that’s happened in the last couple of years where there is a lot more interest in local product and local content.”

FASHION BRINGS JOBS

Mwendwa’s most recent line of chic, modern dresses and sweaters were cut mainly from Ugandan cotton that was processed by the Kenyan company Tosheka Textiles. The Kenyan Association of Manufacturers estimates the fashion and apparel industry is worth about $330m a year, and the government has put the sector at the heart of its industrialisation programme. According to one estimate, the sector could help generate up to 300,000 jobs, especially among women and young people.

The middle classes that are driving this consumerism have historically led calls for accountability and social change. In Kenya, according to a 2016 survey by ratings agency Moody’s, they represent around 400,000 households, a third of which live in Nairobi. Compared to a total Nairobi population of nearly 6.5 million, they remain a slight but growing slice of the citizenry. It will be some time before they can weigh on the politics and economics of the city.

And back in Kibera, the middle is noticeably missing. A heaving illegal power connection buzzes above a community centre where young people are getting training in information and communications technology. Nyambiga, the shop assistant, glances at piles of gravel that are closing in on Makina Ward – a sign that a road will soon cut through his neighbourhood and force everyone out.

He sighs, and says his options are limited because he cannot afford the high cost of living in other parts of the city. “We will stay in Kibera. This is where we can sustain the living cost,” Nyambiga says.

“We’ve written letters to the government but they just say the road is coming.”

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SOUTH AFRICA

Battleground: Nelson Mandela Bay A coalition took control of the major metropolitan area in 2016’s historic local elections, leading to fist fights, court cases and mudslinging. The Africa Report finds out how the former opposition groups are adapting to life in power THE AFRICA REPORT

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The South African flag waves over City Hall, Port Elizabeth, but can the coalition hold?

By Crystal Orderson in Port Elizabeth

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elson Mandela Bay, home to the city of Port Elizabeth, is a testing ground for the opposition’s ambitions to challenge the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in national elections in 2019. In an historic shift, the ANC lost several large cities in 2016 elections. South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), now controls budgets worth billions of dollars and runs four of the most powerful cities in South Africa: Cape Town, Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) metro. It is now learning that delivering services and unwinding intricate patronage networks cannot be done overnight. Those are THE AFRICA REPORT

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two issues likely to top the agenda on the campaign trail ahead of 2019.

The DA and several opposition parties formed an alliance in August 2016 to run NMB and other cities, but that coalition is already falling apart in the Eastern Cape. Some fear it will not survive until the next local elections in 2021.

TherelationshipbetweenNMBmetro’s mayor Athol Trollip – a member of the DA – and deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) is the “key risk that threatens the stability” of the coalition, says Ongama Mtimka, a lecturer in the politics department at Nelson Mandela MetropolitanUniversityinPortElizabeth.

Bobani laid criminal charges against two

senior NMB officials and accused the mayor of corruption in late April.

Bobani said the cases relate to millions of rand that have been spent on “allegedly dubious contracts entered into by the city manager, acting executive director of corporate services director and with the mayor allegedly implicated”. To which Trollip replies: “The deputy mayor has accused me of corruption, and I will defend my reputation. I won’t have a gun put against my head.” Trollip removed Bobani from the mayoral committee for public health and has engaged proceedings to remove him from office.

Tensions have been high in the city council since the ANC lost power in August 2016. A fight broke out at a council meeting in October and an ANC member hit Rano Kayser, a city councillor

JON ARNOLD/HEMIS.FR

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representing the DA, over the head with a jug, sending him to hospital drenched in blood. The ANC has been frustrated by its defeat after having run the city for more than 20 years. “They have not adjusted to being in the opposition,” Trollip tells The Africa Report.

Looking out from his office window on the first floor of the iconic downtown City Hall building, Trollip sees traders plying their trade, with workers and taxi drivers vying for space in the heart of what locals call the iBhayi. So what do Port Elizabeth residents think about Trollip’s coalition?

The Africa Report spoke to a cross-section of people from across the city’s rich and poor areas, who travel long distances to reach their workplaces in the inner city.

ANGER RISES

Residents from areas like New Brighton, Kwazakhele and the notorious Northern Areasreplyinnearunanimitywhenasked theiropinionsaboutthecoalitioncouncil.

One resident says: “It’s too early to tell. that the administration set up by the But they need to start showing results.”

ANC was based on cadre deployment.

I have identified a number of contracts, With the unstable coalition snarling and [they] link to each other. We want the works of the administration, what to recover the money, and we will be chance of progress is there for the people living in the bay area? Service-delivery pursuing criminal charges.” protests are bringing the Northern Areas The ANC is now watching the NMB to a halt. Residents have been burning government from the sidelines. ANC tyres and pelting cars with stones. A councillor Litho Suka says the party has had to “reposition itself”. He argues local resident tells The Africa Report: that the coalition and Trollip have only “People are angry. There is no jobs.” brought “misery” to the metro: “[Trollip] Trollip admits that governing a city has not made great strides. The services with historical apartheid legacies like he promised, he hasn’t done anything.” mass unemployment, infrastructure To do something, Trollip will need to deficits and high crime is a huge task: pass a budget. The crucial R9bn ($670m) “The city is not 100%. One half is bro2017/2018 budget is giving bureaucrats ken; the other half works really well.”

The new administration is focusing on fighting The ANC is banking on Trollip corruption. Trollip’s adpromising more than he ministration has already can deliver to return in 2019 frozen suspicious contracts, launched forensic and politicians sleepless nights. There is investigations into others and opened general agreement that it is a pro-poor mayoral and committee meetings to the public and the media. “The writing budget, but Trollip is unsure he will get off of municipal debts willy nilly, and the votes he needs to pass it. then halving the infrastructure budgets It has to be passed by the end of May. […] I have no doubt that it was abused, If this does not happen, the council and that has frustrated me because no must meet every seven days to approve any plans. If that programme runs into one can abuse public funds. I have to problems, the city could be placed under fix things,” says Trollip. administration and another election The coalition is struggling with the management of city personnel. Trollip could take place. says he has inherited problems from the Trollip is philosophical and says that former ANC government and is now there is an art to passing a budget. “In a coalition government, it is ideal to get attempting to remove workers accused of fraud. “The biggest challenge here is them to vote for it, but I cannot say with

certainty that I will have 61 councillors voting in favour of the budget. We would then go to all opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters, and negotiate.” He rubbishes any idea of the ANC taking power and is determined to pass his first budget.

Trollip says despite the budget hurdle, there have been some notable successes since taking office. He points to a 2% reduction in unemployment, the recruitment of 100 new officers to fight crime and drugs, that 30km of gravel roads have been tarred and that R100m has been budgeted for more road improvements.

A brand new anti-corruption hotline has already led to 38 investigations.

There is a major backlog in the cons­ truction of housing in the areas. An estimated 80,000 units need to be built to fill the deficit. In the previous financial year, the municipality planned to build 1,293 and exceeded the target, building 1,306. Trollip said that by the end of the year, the municipality would get rid of all bucket household sanitation systems, of which there are 30,000.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED

But a Kwazakhele resident who gives her name as Nontobeko is unimpressed by Trollip and the coalition government: “Nothing has changed in our township.

It’s very disappointing. They made all these promises during the election campaign. Nothing has been done.”

ANC member Gift Ngqondi says the DA and Trollip are failing every day.

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Athol Trollip Mayor, Nelson Mandela Bay

WERNER HILLS/FOTO24/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

This ship is not going to turn overnight

Happy days: Mayor Trollip and deputy Bobani indulge in a spot of street cleaning before their spat

“They were not ready to govern. They are failing the party, failing the people.

Trollip is too bullish and has a big ego.”

Certainly, the ANC is banking on Trollip promising more than he can deliver. ANC party members argue that they will regain votes and return to power in 2019. The low voter turnout for the ANC in 2016 was a big factor in the party losing the city. “We are aware that some of the unhappiness of voters here has to do with national issues like Jacob Zuma, but people we are engaging with say they will return us to power,” says Ngqondi.

Trollip says he is not paying too much attention to what the ANC is saying: “I learnt something critical during the 2016 election: people have decided to exercise their democratic right by either abstaining or voting for the opposition.

The ANC took the electorate for granted.”

Trollip says this reminds him that he has to work tirelessly to keep the metro in the DA’s hands. The general elections in 2019 are on the party’s mind, and he knows that it’s critical the DA makes a success of the metros they won.

If the DA has any hope of capitalising on its control of NMB and running Eastern Cape Province, it must increase its share of votes from the 16.2% it scored in 2014. For the UDM, it is equally important to make a success of co-governing the metro. “This is the model for 2019, and this model is working. If you see THE AFRICA REPORT

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How is the relationship with the African National Congress (ANC) party?

The relationship with the ANC is not good.

There is hostility in the council and in certain communities, but I suppose it was to be expected. The fist fight earlier this year left a bitter taste in the chamber. The ANC has lost the plot.

What are your priorities for the next two years?

We must stop corruption and grow the economy. There is going to be a big focus on reducing unemployment, with a focus on the youth unemployment of almost 50%. We are forging partnerships with people to create jobs. And we want a safer city. We now have a Metro Police Service, and we plan to

employ 100 more officers and focus on fixing ageing infrastructure.

What does the future hold for South Africa’s big cities?

I think what has happened in big metros shows there is life after the ANC. People realise they can vote for change.

People are maturing in South Africa. We have seen populism has had a good run, but people are quickly turning against it.

The French election is an indicator of the change.

It’s not going to be easy to place the Nelson Mandela Bay metro under administration. It’s not that easy a thing to do. We did not campaign to hand over to the ANC. We have worked hard.

The metro won’t be taken back by the ANC. We are not going to roll over, and we will see our five-year term through.

around the world, coalitions are governing and it’s the communities who are benefiting,” says deputy mayor Bopani.

Asshownbythelowturnoutinthe2016 local elections, popular frustrations are a potentforce.Criticshavelongmaintained that the Democratic Alliance is not ready to govern South Africa and only looks after its core constituency – rich white or middle-class people. Cape Town has been under DA control since 2006 and the party has been able to cement its power. The city is attracting record levels of foreign direct investment and is viewed by many as the best run city in South Africa. However, the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich is among voices saying

What about the 2019 national election and 2021 local government election?

I believe the success in Cape Town and the Western Cape has led to success for the rest of the country. Voters can compare and make a choice. Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane, Cape Town and Johannesburg are going to be critical to convince voters in 2019 that the DA can be at the centre of a coalition government without the ANC. My response is that with mayors Herman Mashaba, Patricia de Lille and Solly Msimanga we have to work hard and improve and be the catalyst for change.

South Africans are honest and patient people, and they know this ship is not going to turn overnight.

Interview by Crystal Orderson in Port Elizabeth

the city forgets its poorer citizens – a claim mayor Patricia de Lille denies.

Beinginpowerinsteadofshoutingfrom the margins is hard work. In Tshwane, DA mayor Solly Msimanga has had to deal with fist fights; in Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba has been confronted with violent protests over poor service delivery inherited from the ANC council.

Back in Kwazakhele, Nontobeko says she is wary of all political promises and the opposition’s plans for electoral coalitions. She says she will not be voting in 2019: “All the parties are promising us things. First it was the ANC, then the DA. What will they do? They are already showing us they don’t want to do anything. So why should I vote for them?”

30 POLITICS

SOMALIA

A tipping-point talk in London

The government of President Mohamed got a dose of support at an international conference in May, but diplomats worry about its ability to defeat Al-Shabaab

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hetalkwasofatippingpointwhen some kingpins of African diplomacy descended on Lancaster House in central London to deliberate on Somalia on 11 May. The unanswered question after a day of discussion was: tipping into what?

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May opened proceedings with some upbeat claimsonSomalia:“Lookhowfarwehave come in the last five years.” Piracy had been dealt with, and the Islamist rebels of Al-Shabaab had been “driven out of many of the areas they once controlled” and no longer “pose an existential threat.”

United Nations secretary generalAntónio Guterres was listening in the front row of attendees, as were AU Commission chair Mahamat Moussa Faki, the presidents of Kenya and Uganda Uhuru Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni, and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

It is true that Al-Shabaab has lost full control of many towns. Crucially, it was pushed out of Kismayo, Merca and Brava ports, which had been used to finance much of its operations.

President Mohamed ‘Farmajo’ Abdullahi Mohamed was elected by a

smallgroupofofficialslastyearand made heftypromisesattheconference,notleast the defeat of Al-Shabaab within two years (see interview). Because of the logistical and other challenges in organising a nationalelection,fewSomaliswereinvolved in the selection of the new president. But after a relatively successful stint as prime minister, he is a popular figure.

BETTER ALTERNATIVES

securityplantoreformthesecurity forces.

The government knows that to stop people joining Al-Shabaab it has to offer better alternatives.

It plans to boost the army to 18,000 soldiers, properly paid and trained. And it wants to reform relations between the centre and the new federal states. That plan is risky. Some of the new states trust

Those who stayed put resent

But Mohamed’s promises Somalis who swagger in from have been made before. abroad and grab top positions After a decade of fighting, Al-Shabaab has proved neither the government in Mogadishu resilient and adaptable. It still controls nor the federal troops. They have their vast swathes of Somalia and can attack Mogadishu and many big towns at will. It own security forces and want to maintain remains a threat to neighbouring states, commandandcontrol.Resource-sharing especially Kenya. A splinter group linked between the centre and the regions is yet to the Middle East-based Islamic State to be agreed, and Somalia has still not rebels operates in Somalia’s northfinalised its constitution. eastern Puntland state.

The conference agreed a new securiSomalia’s new foreign minister, Yusuf ty pact that aims to coordinate foreign Garaad Omar, a former head of the BBC military assistance far better. A fully coorSomali Service, says the government has dinated system may not be possible. The a realistic plan to defeat Al-Shabaab. It UAE, for example, has recently agreed a deal with the self-declared Republic of includes beefed-up military tactics, offers of amnesty to defectors and a national Somaliland in the north-west to build a

Mohamed ‘Farmajo’ Abdullahi Mohamed

I’m not saying it will be easy. But with the help of the international community and a strong leadership in the military, Al-Shabaab can be defeated in two years.

President, Somalia

Al-Shabaab can be defeated in two years The army is not properly paid or trained. How will it secure the country?

Al-Shabaab used to control 70% of Mogadishu and half of the country. What we have done is to provide proper training for our soldiers, food, medicines. And for

those who die in battle, taking care of their families.

training, equipment and boost the morale of the soldiers.

Are the soldiers being paid now?

I have been in office for three months, and we’ve paid [the government troops] for four months.

We will provide salaries,

Can you defeat Al-Shabaab?

For sure. If we do all these three or four things, we can defeat Al-Shabaab. They are only strong if the government is weak.

We are trying to reorganise our army and provide the proper commanders.

When will that happen?

Definitely, the Somali national army as well as AMISOM are ready to challenge Al-Shabaab very soon.

What are the expectations of your government?

The expectations are too high.

Sometimes, that can be negative. Definitely, we will engage and mobilise our people to deal with AlShabaab. We have

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ILYAS AHMED/AMISOM PHOTO

Withdrawals of AMISOM troops resulted in Al-Shabaab fighters returning within hours

military base in the port city of Berbera.

Turkey is constructing a vast military facility on the coast south of Mogadishu.

Now, there is talk of the day when 10-year-old AMISOM, the AU peacekeeping force, will be replaced by Somali troops. But recent withdrawals

by Ethiopian troops from Somali towns show the fragility of the situation.

Al-Shabaab fighters have sauntered back in within hours, slaughtering civilians they accuse of spying for the ‘infidels’.

Land disputes are a growing problem, partly fuelled by returning members of

three core messages: to fight terrorism, corruption and poverty.

People believe that this is a good government, led by a technocratic prime minister.

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Less controversially, Somalia’s huge diaspora is helping to save lives and rebuild the country through remittances averaging some $2bn a year. They are particularly critical as Somalia’s heavy

can be accused of corruption until proven guilty. I believe that he’s assembled a good government, and we will do everything in our power to change the bad image when it comes to corruption.

But prime minister Hassan Ali Khayre was a director of Soma Oil, which has been investigated for corruption.

For sure, he’s a good man. He’s a very clean man. Last time I checked, that oil company has been vindicated. Anyone THE AFRICA REPORT

thediaspora.Thosewhostayedputresent Somalis who swagger in from abroad and grab top positions, often ignoring the complexities of clan politics. The new president, prime minister, speaker of the house and much of the cabinet are from the diaspora.

With so many different foreign troops and companies setting up, do you fear for Somalia’s independence?

Our sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. We have •

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one government that’s recognised by the international community. All the countries you mentioned [Turkey and the United Arab Emirates] have been helpful in fighting terrorism and providing financial support.

You also have AMISOM, which is receiving funding from the European Union, United Kingdom and United States. Definitely, we’ll work with all these countries.

Interview by M.H.

foreign debt arrears have cut it off from most sources of international finance.

The London conference was useful in so far as it refocused international attention on the crisis and developed a more coordinated roadmap with more input from Somali nationals.

But some Somalis were disappointed.

At conference side events, many questions asked were about justice. Why have people been allowed to get away with killings, sexual violence, targeted assassinations and violent land seizures for years? When will they be made to answer for their crimes and how?

Small steps are being taken. In March, the government and the United Nations agreed on the Joint Rule of Law Programme. Even with a modest budget of $8m, it is a start. Mobile courts are already operating in two regional states, Jubaland and South-West.

More widely the test for the new government is whether it will make a difference on those core issues of justice, the economy, peace and security. That is what positive change it can make for the bulk of Somalis who have lived lives of immense difficulty over the past 30 years, many of whom have no idea what peace looks, sounds or smells like.

Mary Harper

Mary Harper is Africa Editor for BBC World Service News and author of Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State (Zed Books). She is now writing a book about Al-Shabaab.

32 POLITICS

Mo Ibrahim Founder, Mo Ibrahim Foundation

“There’s no renewal process for capitalism” The billionaire philanthropist talks to The Africa Report about inequality across the globe and the challenges leaders face when tackling the impacts of globalisation

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t is a piercing warning bell for the apostles of corporate power and free-market economics whenamanwhorevolutionised the telecoms industry – earning billions in the process – concludes thatWesterncapitalism haspassed its sell-by date. “I think the heydays of capitalism are behind us,” says Mo Ibrahim, who follows international economic shifts as keenly as his foundation monitors standards of governance in Africa. Talking to The Africa Report at his London headquarters, Ibrahim argues that the choppier waters in global politics would prove even more demanding for African economies.

“Strangely enough, the great time for capitalism was during the confrontation between the Eastern bloc and Western bloc,” says Ibrahim. “After 1990 when the Berlin wall fell, people thought we won […] it’s the end of history.

They became complacent. There’s no renewal process for capitalism.”

Surveying economic and political ills around the globe, Ibrahim dates the current malaise to some critical errors two decades ago.

“Things started to go downhill from 1990 onwards when the ugly face of capitalism started to assert itself […] [There were] abuses […]

The rise of the hedge funds, the rise of the ‘masters of the universe’.

That’s the problem, and that’s why inequality started to increase.”

Unlike many critics, Ibrahim has done time inside the belly of the beast. A radical in his twenties, he joined the Sudanese Communist Party. After that, he rose meteor­ ically, getting an engineering doctorate in the 1970s then leading a team of engineers pioneering Britain’s first cellphone network.

And then he went on to corporate superstardom, building up Celtel in more than 15 African countries, then cashing out in 2002.

RICH GET RICHER

For Ibrahim, the Achilles heel of capitalism is a kind of tone-deaf arrogance that has allowed galloping inequality. “The average chief

“There is some stage where we will have to provide a universal wage” executiveinAmericanowprobably earns 500 times the average wage of his employee. […] Some years ago it was 70 or 80 times.”

It’s a decade since Ibrahim used his corporate winnings to set up a foundation for better governance in Africa. It has become a leading provider and collator of data. A key part of Africa’s data THE AFRICA REPORT

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revolution, it gives ammunition to critics and champions alike.

Ibrahim criticises the growing corporate influence on political life, not least in the US where a real estate magnate, who has never held elective office, won last year’s presidential elections. That’s not a trend with which Ibrahim has much sympathy: “Running a company is a very complex thing.

But whether a businessman – just because he’s a businessman – can be fit to run a country, that’s totally another question.”

On a self-effacing note, Ibrahim adds: “I have been a businessperson. I’m involved now in advocacy for better governance but definitely, I’m not fit to run a country. I will never try to do that.” Having made that clear, Ibrahim argues that many political movements lack effective responses to globalisation and technological change.

“Globalisation and trade will always produce winners and losers in different sectors. But in the past all the losers were concentrated in the developing countries or the colonies […] those guys had no voice, so it didn’t matter.” On the face of it, all that has changed with China emerging as the cheerleader for globalisation. But such global shifts could prove less transformative for Africa unless it diversifies its economies away from commodities.

MARCH OF THE ROBOTS

GLOBAL GADFLY 1946 Born in Sudan 1989 Established MSI, a telecoms consultancy

2006 Set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to work on African governance 2007 Founded Satya Capital, a private equity firm THE AFRICA REPORT

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BRUNO AMSELLEM/DIVERGENCE

1998 Created mobile telecoms company Celtel International

Ibrahim also doubts whether China’s model of low wages and export-led companies can be repeated in Africa given developments such as robotics and artificial intelligence. “Technology is going to eat up jobs. Artificial intelligence is unstoppable,” according to Ibrahim. That, together with the balkanisation of Africa’s markets, will preclude a straightforward transfer of China’s industrial strategy. “The question is whether one day robots are going to take over. It’s an existential threattothehumanrace.[…]There is some stage where we have to provide a universal wage because not everybody can have a job.”

Accordingly, he says, Africa will have to be more innovative

and adaptive. The continent has not begun to tap the strength of its land and farmers, he argues.

“Computers cannot feed people.

The internet is of no use. Food needs to grow out of soil. We have a huge amount of land which is arable. Land cultivated in Africa is producing at maybe 20% of the efficiency of Australia or the US.” CITY LIGHTS

More-productive farms and food-processing operations could boost jobs and spending power.

Ibrahim’s foundation does extensiveresearchontherapidgrowthof cities, as well as Africa’s spiralling youth population. “Migration is not determined by philosophical arguments, it’s determined by need. If you live in a rural area and have no schooling for your kidsornohospitaltodealwithyour ailing mother; if farming there’s so dismal that you cannot make a living […] you up sticks and go to the nearest town. Young people are attracted by the lights of the city, the music, the fun. These material resources act like a magnet. We’re not prepared for it. We have some of the largest slums in the world.”

One reason for neglect of the countryside in the past was political. Historically, governments courted the cities where people could organise opposition. That’s changing.Nowincountriessuchas Russia and Turkey, authoritarian leaders are winning support from conservative rural voters and ignoring–sometimescrackingdown hard on – dissidents in the cities.

“I’m really struggling to try to understand this new fascination with strong men.” For the first time intheconversation,Ibrahimseems genuinely perplexed. “How come we never learn? We had this fascination in the 1930s […] Hitler, Mussolini.Youseewhereweended up with that. A new herd mentality is being developed […]. How we could move in that direction when wethoughtpeoplenowarebecoming more enlightened?” It sounds like the tidal wave of autocracy and nationalism might just provide a subject for the next Mo Ibrahim Foundation research project.

Interview by Patrick Smith

34 POLITICS

DRC

Canny Kabila

The DRC’s president, who is still in power after his last term in office ended in 2016, continues to play the opposition, this time by co-opting former opponents and forming a new transitional government

PROSPECT OF A REFERENDUM

With tensions ramping up across the country,a10-month-olduprisinginKasaï and fears of more fighting in Kivu Nord, it is unlikely that there will be credible national elections this year. Assembling the funds and arranging the logistics for elections is complex and tortuous.

Many suspect Kabila will try to hold a referendum to change the constitution and extend his stay in power. That raises big questions about what difference the new prime minister can make. Certainly, Tshibala’s fortunes have improved since 9 October, when he was arrested and accused of organising anti-Kabila protests last September. Security forces had responded with lethal force and killed at least 56 people over two days, according to non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch.

After seven weeks in prison, Tshibala was released in late November. And

aboutfourmonthslater,on7April,Kabila picked him to head his government.

The new premier was a senior opposition politician, so his decision to serve Kabila is hugely contentious. “I did 36 years of combat with Etienne Tshisekedi,” Tshibala told The Africa Report shortly before accepting Kabila’s nomination.

TSHIBALA’S PATH TO POWER

Tshisekedi, an iconic figure who died in February, founded the country’s oldest and largest opposition party, the Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS), in 1982. Tshibala was there from the beginning and rose to become UDPS deputy secretary general.

Last June, Tshisekedi became the founding president of Rassemblement, a large opposition coalition that selected Tshibala as its spokesman. The Rassemblement was created to force Kabila to respect the constitution by relinquishing office on 19 December 2016. It failed on that count, but on New Year’s Eve it struck a deal with Kabila’s Majorité Présidentielle (MP), which appeared momentarily to give the Rassemblement the upper hand.

The signatories undertook to not alter the constitution and to form a new transitional government tasked with organising delayed elections at the end of 2017. The agreement dictated that the new prime minister would be chosen by the Rassemblement.

Deprived of Tshisekedi’s unifying influence, the Rassemblement has fractured. The bulk of the movement agreed to share Tshisekedi’s presidency between his son, Félix, and Pierre Lumbi, the head of the G7 alliance. The G7 was part of the MP until September 2015 and supports the presidential aspirations of Moïse Katumbi, the ex-governor of the copper-rich Katanga Province and a former ally of Kabila.

But as soon as Katumbi announced his candidacy in 2016, the government charged him with a raft of criminal

“We are not going to get guns to fight. We are goiing ingg to fig iggh ht ht with our brains ” KALPESH LATHIGRA FOR JA

O

ppositionbarrackingandblaring vuvuzelas punctuated the grand ceremonyinparliamenttoinstall Bruno Tshibala, the new prime minister chosen by President Joseph Kabila, on 16 May. So loud were the opposition’s protests against Tshibala’s installation – which they regard as a clear violation of a political accord – that state television suspended its broadcast of the ceremony and the new prime minister delayed his inaugural address. Police finally cleared the protesters out of parliament.

When Tshibala was finally able to speak, he vowed to “do his best to maintain a perfect collaboration” between his government and President Kabila.

That will be a tall order. Aside from the fact that Tshibala’s appointment as head of a ‘national unity’ government was rejected by the largest opposition faction, his declared “determination to offer the Congolese people the best elections in their history in the agreed time frame” looks like extremely wishful thinking, if not wilful self-deception.

Moïse Katumbi, the former governor of Katanga a and declared presidential candidate, contrasts his opposition style with Kabila’s alleged role in the lethal quelling of protests in 2015 and 2016 6.

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POLITICS 35

the Congo Research Group (CRG) at New York University, “Kabila has succeeded in peeling off some more members of the fractious opposition and dividing the remaining members further.”

Albert Moleka, Tshisekedi’s former chief-of-staff, says: “Kabila has learnt that the Congolese politician doesn’t perform according to ideology or doctrine or conviction but money and position.” According to Moleka, Kabila’s rehabilitation of officials once loyal to Mobutu Sese Seko, the country’s dicta­ torial president from 1965 to 1997, has given him a keen understanding that “alliances in Congolese politics last just as long as someone finds their financial interests or prospects served by it.”

JOHN BOMPENGO

OPPORTUNISM KNOCKS

offences. Katumbi says the charges are baseless. They are currently be­ ing investigated by the Commission Episocopale Nationale du Congo, which has persuaded the government to drop charges against other opposition figures.

Katumbi is seen as a threat to Kabila, but the former governor sees a tough struggle ahead: “The opposition re­ mains very strong and united, and we are going to fight. The election is due in December, but Kabila is going to come with some excuse to postpone it. He doesn’t want the election.”

OUTSIDE FORCES

Arguing that Kabila has lost all legit­ imacy, Katumbi says he should be held to account for the killing of demonstra­ tors in 2015 and 2016. “The army is not with Kabila. […] Our army will not fire on Congolese people. Kabila is using outside forces,” Katumbi argues.

He says he is confident the opposition has got the coherence and support to prevail: “We are not going to get guns to fight. We are going to fight with our brains […] a peaceful fight.”

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Bruno Tshibala (centre) at his investiture as prime minister, which was marred by protests

But a rump – led by Tshibala and Joseph Olengankoy – reject the alliance running the Rassemblement. “Félix is linked with Katumbi […] It’s an unnat­ ural alliance,” Tshibala told The Africa Report in March.

Tshibala and Olengankoy subse­ quently established a dissident wing of the Rassemblement, with which Kabila swiftly engaged. Tshibala’s nomination outraged the larger Rassemblement bloc but also upset the European Union and the United States, both of which backed the New Year’s Eve accord. They view its implementation as the DRC’s smoothest route out of its constitutional morass.

“This fringe represents absolutely nothing,” claims Martin Fayulu, a prominent supporter of Lumbi and Félix Tshisekedi. “It’s the politics of poaching and these people have been seduced”.

Nevertheless, Tshibala’s cabinet in­ cludes prominent opposition figures such as Joseph Kapika and Lisanga Bonganga. For Jason Stearns, director of

Polling by CRG has found that Kabila is deeply unpopular and most Congolese believe he should have stepped down at the end of his second term. But if the president cannot win his compatriots’ love, he can still tarnish his opponents.

“Kabila has muddied the waters of popular sentiment”, says Stearns. “It’s beginning to seem that all these endless negotiations are about is access to power and wealth, thereby tarring everyone with the brush of opportunism.”

The president has allocated ministries to former adversaries but he has not ceded any meaningful power to the opposition. The key portfolios – interior, defence, mining, finance, oil, justice and foreign affairs – remain in the hands of regime loyalists.

It seems that the future is yet to play for. In mid-May the MP’s spokesman said that a “referendum is an inalienable constitutional right” and noted that “the people” did not sign the accord. “Look at the referendums which happen sys­ tematically in Europe”, observes Tryphon Kin-Kiey Mulumba, a member of the MP’s political bureau. “We should go to the people and ask them the precise question: what do they want?”, he says.

Throwing his weight behind a dau­ phin is the alternative but as yet, as one Western diplomat puts it, “no one can think of the obvious person.”

Co-opted or marginalised, the opposi­ tion has hardly landed a punch on Kabila duringthesixmonthssincethesupposed conclusion of his presidency. But the hinterland is increasingly unstable and much less biddable than the incestuous domain of Kinshasa politics.

William Clowes in Kinshasa

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38

Two men and two wars

O

n a bright May morning in London, two men embroiled in a couple of Africa’s most intractable conflicts were holding court on the prospects for fixing them. In both wars – in Somalia and the DRC – the limits of foreign intervention were starkly evident.

First stop, the Georgian grandeur of Lancaster House, where a clutch of presidents and assorted diplomats was listening to Somalia’s President Mohamed ‘Farmajo’ Abdullahi Mohamed spell out his plan to defeat Al-Shabaab.

Promising to boost the police and army, Farmajo called for heavy artillery, armoured cars and attack helicopters: “We are working with our partners in the international community to make a road map for the full lifting of the arms embargo.”

Cut to puzzled diplomats. Then British foreign minister Boris Johnson stepped in hastily: “I fully agree with President Farmajo that now is not the time for the lifting of the arms embargo.” Fresh puzzle­ ment. The British government’s Somalia conference raised support for the government but Mogadishu’s international partners were closely controlling what weapons it would get. A Somali army veteran took Anansi aside: some officers and peacekeepers had been doing a brisk trade selling weapons to Al-Shabaab.

Paying the army and police decent wages promptly, as Farmajo has promised, would help. But Somalia’s formal economy is in debt peonage, dating back to foreign arrears run up by the Siad Barre regime in the 1980s. No one is offering debt forgiveness.

Many Somalis say that this is at the heart of the matter. Donors such as Britain, the EU and the US tip their cash into the presidency in exchange for control. It gives the presidency money but little real power. Countries such as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, along with some Westerners, channel cash directly to provincial leaders for their own ends.

At Lancaster House, African delegates quietly questioned whether the well-trodden path of a reconciliation programme, a new constitution and an

infusion of aid alongside several battalions of UN peacekeepers would end well, or indeed end at all. African peacekeepers are due to leave next year.

The strategy of Mohamed Sahnoun, a former head of UN operations in Mogadishu, still offers an alternative. Sahnoun worked with community organisations and the business class to build accountable political structures. Painstaking and time consuming, it was junked by a UN Security Council that wanted a rapid end to the crisis. That was 25 years ago!

Sahnoun-style thinking could also help the DRC two decades Delegates after the collapse of Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime. Ten minutes quietly from the big Somalia conference, questioned Congolese oppositionist Moïse the wellKatumbi offered Anansi a coffee in a hotel overlooking Hyde Park. trodden path: Without concerted pressure from reconciliation Africa, the UN and the West, President Joseph Kabila’s deprogramme, termination to stay in power at new all costs, Mobutu-style, could constitution tip the country into the abyss again, warned Katumbi, a former and several governor of copper-rich Katanga. battalions Kabila has breached an agreement with the opposition about of UN the holding of free elections by peacekeepers the end of 2017. The temperature was rising, said Katumbi, who has been in exile since the government ordered his arrest last May just after he said he would run for the presidency.

Like Mobutu, Kabila is hoping to hold on to power by exploiting multiple crises: the rebellion spreading across Kasaï, militia rumblings in the Kivus and mounting discontent in Katumbi’s home base. So bad were conditions there, Katumbi said, that he was sending a 100,000tn consignment of maize flour.

But this time, insists Katumbi, the opposition will remain united and organised at a local level. Its resilience will be sorely tested as President Kabila continues to co-opt members of the opposition into his government. The next six months could prove decisive.

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Rwanda

PAUL KAGAME FLICKR

President Paul Kagame thanks the people for allowing him to carry on

Campaign season Despite the government’s low tolerance for dissent, Rwanda’s political opposition parties are slowly gaining momentum, emboldened by the country’s need to keep foreign aid flowing. The ruling party is trying to address the country’s economic problems with infrastructure to boost export industries Honoré Banda and Mark Anderson in Kigali

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W

hen Diane Shima Rwigara announced in May that she will be challenging Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in the upcoming presidential election, a stronger opposition appeared to be emerging. Rwigara is the 35-year-old daughter of Assinapol Rwigara, a businessman who died in mysterious circumstances in 2015 after falling out with senior officials in the ruling party, according to his daughter.

“Under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), many Rwandans are still

40 COUNTRY FOCUS | RWANDA

$2.28bn

SOURCE: NATIONAL BANK OF RWANDA

struggling to have the basic needs in beginning to find their voices, holdlife or even have a meal,” Rwigara tells ing rallies and openly challenging The Africa Report. “They talk of develthe government. Frank Habineza, the opment, but only a small section of leader of the Democratic Green Party of people benefits from this development,” Rwanda, is the most serious opposition she says. “The media is suppressed, contender. “It is not easy because the political space is closed and while on RPF has been in power for more than 20 years and they have Crystal Ventures, paper Rwanda is said to be developing fast, there is a lot more the business conglomerto be desired. And I will ate,” he tells The Africa Report. “By law, we are address all these issues once I am elected.” not allowed to mobilise But just one day after resources externally or even from local non-govRwigara launched her campaign, naked pictures ernmental organisations. said to be of her were It is a challenge.” anonymously posted Rwigara is determined to run for office in spite of on the internet with the the personal attacks. “The message: “Look at the Rwanda’s total government says Rwanda shameful pictures of imports in 2016, is democratic, she says. someone who wants to be a 2.1% decrease from “It says there is freedom president.” Immediately, the $2.33bn fingers were pointed at registered in 2015 of speech and expression. the government, which “I therefore believe that I can continue to exercise those rights is notorious for cracking down on dissidents. A local website with ties like any other Rwandan.” Rwanda’s to the ruling party said intelligence government says that it has not misagencies were investigating the origin treated any of its political opponents. of the photos. At the time of writing, In the coming election, foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo (see page the government had not yet issued a 50) is confident of victory for the RPF. response to the photo incident.

“What is clear [is that] the parties in JAIL THREAT this country are unequal in terms of Rwigara, who says her father was aspolitical following and political weight.

There is no question that the RPF is sassinated, could have foreseen the a very powerful party. There is no smear campaign. Many people who have dared to take on President Kagame question that President Kagame has have ended up in trouble with the law, been a unique leader in the history of or worse. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, this country,” she says. “Right now in who returned to Rwanda in 2010 to Rwanda we don’t have an opponent to President Kagame who’s as powerful run in the presidential election, was and has the same credentials. […] But arrested on charges of threatening state security, inciting the masses against the nobody is kept from going out.” government and genocide denial. In One reason Rwanda’s opposition 2012, she was sentenced to eight years parties are feeling more emboldened in prison before the Supreme Court is that the government is dependent on later increased her jail term to 15 years. foreign aid, and Western donors support Kagame won the 2010 presidential democratisation. Fresh in the minds of election with 93.1% of the vote, and opposition officials is the decision by the US and the UK to suspend aid to 98.3% of voters supported the December 2015 constitutional referendum that Rwanda in 2013 following evidence that will allow him to run again this year. the government was supporting the Mouvement du 23 Mars militia group Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo, who served as health minister and president in the Democratic Republic of Congo of the Senate, got the second-highest (DRC). In the government’s current amount of votes in the 2010 presidential budget, donors account for 17% of poll, taking just 5.2%. funds, finance minister Claver Gatete But this time around, the country’s told reporters on 28 April. The country’s political scene appears to be opening largest donors are the World Bank, the UK and the US, according to data up. While the August election is certain to see Kagame cruise to reelection, from the Organisation for Economic many in the country’s opposition are Cooperation and Development.

Economic concerns are high on the agenda in political debates. Rwanda continues to grapple with an unfavourable balance of trade. The country is a long way from boosting its export base to match the huge volumes of imports, despite efforts to diversify economically. Last year, Rwanda’s total exports were valued at $720m compared with $659m in 2015, according to the central bank. Total imports were valued at $2.28bn in 2016, compared to $2.33bn in 2015, registering a 2.1% decrease.

INDUSTRIAL ZONE

Kigali is trying to lure investors into sectors, like agro-processing and manufacturing, that can boost exports or support import substitution programmes. The Kigali Special Economic Zone (KSEZ), a 276ha industrial park slightly outside the capital, bustles with industrial activity. The government has serviced the KSEZ with roads, electricity, water, and fire-fighting systems, storage facilities, a sewage system and fibre-optic cables to make it easy for investors to set up.

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RWANDA | COUNTRY FOCUS 41

main focus today is on the promotion of projects along the Kivu belt, with anchor projects mainly to cover resorts and hotels,” says Akamanzi.

However, a May decision to increase gorilla permit fees from $750 for foreigners and $35 for locals to $1,500 for all categories was negatively received by tour operators and hotel owners, who accused the RDB of not consulting on the matter. The decision is likely to favour the tourism sectors of Uganda and the DRC. The Rwandan government said the move is aimed at promoting conservation.

VINCENT FOURNIER/JA

MONETARY UNION

Brand new cereal silos belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture in the Kigali Special Economic Zone

Board (RDB), the government also set up a one-stop centre for licences and permits. However, challenges of insufficient electricity and water supply have been reported.

“The plan for the creation of the zone was to boost production and manufacturing, hence diversifying exports and increasing foreign exchange earnings,” says Naphtal Kazoora, the RDB official in charge of the KSEZ. The zone has mainly attracted investors from East Africa and Asia.

2010 Rwandan presidential election results Alvera Mukabaramba (PPC)

0.4%

Prosper Higiro (PL)

Jean D. Ntawukuriryayo (PSD)

1.37%

5.15%

SO

U RC E:

AN RW DA

R GOVE

NMENT

Paul Kagame (RPF)

93.08%

THE AFRICA REPORT

Companies such as Tanzania’s grain-milling giant Bakhresa, Strawtec Building Solutions and Dutch company Africa Improved Foods are now operating in the zone. Currently there are more than 35 operational firms in the KSEZ, which was launched in 2011.

The country’s tourism industry is a growing sector. “If we want to earn foreign currency in tourism, we need to upgrade and we need to go to high end.

This whole region is a tourism region, so we need to be different from – offer different products from – our neighbours,” foreign minister Mushikiwabo says. Last year Rwanda, which is located between Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya – all of which have bigger game parks – saw its tourism earnings reach $400m, up from $318m in 2015.

According to Clare Akamanzi, the chief executive officer of the RDB, the hilly country famed for mountain gorillas still has a number of unexploited tourism opportunities. “Our

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Kagame’s government is putting much of its hope for long-term economic growth in plans for regional integration through the East African Community (EAC). “It’s always good to present yourself as a big economy rather than just a small economy,” says John Rwangombwa, the country’s central bank governor. “We are promoting the East African bloc as one economy, as one investment area […] not just looking at the Rwandan market of 12 million people.” Rwangombwa says he expects the service, tourism and financial sectors to benefit from regional integration.

The EAC has trumpeted ambitious plans to launch a monetary union for all six member states, but deadlines have come and gone with little progress. Officials in Kigali say a regional currency would help the country to attract more investors.

Long-standing fears that Kenya – as the largest economy in East Africa – would derive far greater benefit from a monetary union are not lost on Rwangombwa. “To be sincere, I think they might benefit more than us, but I think we’d benefit more than we would have if we remained [apart],” he says.

Rwangombwa is optimistic that the regional currency will one day be realised. “Unfortunately, we’ve had challenges since we committed to this [monetary union], like the protocol signed in 2014. In 2015, we were hit with instability because of the US hardening the dollar and the start of the crash of commodity prices,” he says. “This year we are having challenges with drought and inflation.

But if anything, I think these are good [factors] for what we will face when we start acting as one economy.”

Bank of Kigali pledges more funding to SMEs as it celebrates 50th anniversary

T

he remarkable story of Rwanda’s economic renaissance after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi is incomplete without the role played by the country’s newly reorganized banking sector, specifically Bank of Kigali which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Albeit public sector investment still being the dominant engine behind Rwanda’s averaged 8 percent annual growth over the last decade or so, the government’s Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS) aims at fixing that imbalance and unleash Rwandan entrepreneurship.

The PSDS is at the heart of Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS-2) whose objective is achieving goals for growth, jobs, exports and investment; here, commercial banks have a role to play in fueling private sector investment through financing.

As an industry leader with nearly 35 percent of the total market share, Bank of Kigali is at the forefront of lending to private sector, a responsibility that requires availability of inexpensive funding to ensure local entrepreneurs can access money at affordable interest rates.

In the absence of a robust domestic savings culture, there is a mismatch in demand and supply of credit which has resulted in what borrowers say are high interest rates, a factor that complicates the capacity of many SMEs to access to credit.

Recently Bank of Kigali launched an initiative dubbed ‘Urumuri’ which means ‘light’ under which the bank, through a specialized business development agency, is mentoring fifty local ICT based youth led start-ups where the most outstanding of them shall get an ‘interest free’ loan to actualize their projects.

“To fund such initiatives and many more that support our local enterprises, we are constantly looking for low-priced credit lines wherever they are to enable us finance more domestic investment,” said Bank of Kigali CEO Dr. Diane Karusisi.

LOAN CONCENTRATION - BREAKDOWN BY SECTOR

(E.G. TELECOM, AGRICULTURE, OIL/GAS, ETC.) FY2016

18,1% CONSTRUCTION 22,0% HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS 25,0% COMMERCE WAREHOUSING 13,7% TRANSPORT, AND COMMUNICATION

6,7% MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES 6,1% ENERGY AND WATER

BANK OF KIGALI CALL CENTER Local: 4455 Marketing & PR Manager : +250788143475 International: +250-788143000 Email bk@bk.rw, Send us a message

www.bk.rw

0,7% AGRICULTURE 1,0% EDUCATION 6,7% OTHERS

SPONSORED SECTION

“

As we embark on a journey to a century, we commit to focus the bank’s efforts on creating partnerships that will result into opportunities for our Micro, small and medium enterprises which we know will be the key driver for job creation and growth in coming years BANK OF KIGALI CEO DR. DIANE KARUSISI.

Beyond seeking inexpensive credit lines, Dr. Karusisi also revealed that Bank of Kigali has embarked on efforts to improve operational efficiency to gradually reduce on the cost of doing business.

“We acknowledge that operational inefficiency also contributes to the cost of lending which affects the borrower; so, we are focusing on how to deliver our services to customers through innovative digital channels, an approach we believe shall make us more cost-effective,” she said.

Luckily, for Bank of Kigali, its effort to access discounted international credit lines is made easier on account of the lender’s appealing reputation in the eyes of global investors.

In 2010, the bank became Rwanda’s first firm to be rated by an international credit rating agency when it received an A+/A1/ rating by South Africa’s Global Credit Rating Company.

BANK OF KIGALI GROWTH VS. COMMERCIAL BANKS’ GROWTH, CAGR YE 2010–Q12017

22,3%

23,3%

21,4% 18,3%

20,0% 15,0%

NATIONAL OUTLOOK

27,0%

25,0% 13,8%

13,0%

13,1%

10,0% 5,0% 0,0%

TOTAL ASSETS

NET LOANS

COMMERCIAL BANKS

CLIENT DEPOSITS BANK OF KIGALI

The next year year, 2011 2011, the bank’s bank s A+/A1/ rating was maintained, a development that boosted investor confidence resulting in the signing of a US$20 million credit line and a €6 million sub-risk participation fund with the French Development Agency.

In the same year of 2011, the Bank continued riding the wave of success when it launched its IPO, raising US$62.5 million from the 45 percent shares offered, this, on account of high investor confidence In 2016, the Bank obtained US$30.7million credit-line from the European Investment Bank to finance SMEs under the East and Central African Private Finance Facility.

Speaking as guest of honour to celebrate the bank’s 50th anniversary last month, President Paul Kagame remarked that as an industry leader, Bank of Kigali should devise ways of helping local entrepreneurs to access credit at lower interest rates.

SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY

The Vision 2020 sets an ambitious range of targets for the economy, for the private sector and for exports over the next few years. This includes several key targets: • Achieving $1,240 GDP per capita by the year 2020.

• Achieving 11.5 per cent average annual growth to reach GDP target.

•Achievinggrowthratesof13.5percentin services, 8.5 per cent in agriculture, and over 14 per cent in industry.

• Annual export growth of 28 per cent – reaching $3.6 billion of formal exports by 2020.

• External trade as proportion of GDP to rise from 41.5 per cent to 60 per cent.

• An additional 200,000 off-farm jobs per year up to 2020.

DIFCOM/DF - PHOTOS:DR.

30,0%

”

Diane Karusisi

44 COUNTRY FOCUS | RWANDA

Paul Kagame President, Rwanda

Elections are the least of our worries Ahead of elections planned for August, President Kagame talks about his political longevity, relations with France and plans for reform at the African Union The Africa Report: On 4 August, Rwandanswillgotothepolls.You are a candidate, and there’s no doubtthatyouwillgetre-elected.

How do you explain this complete absence of suspense?

PAUL KAGAME: Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. Rwanda’s singular history and recent past have forged a democratic pro­ cess and electoral behaviour that are specific to the country.

So to judge them against other countries who have not experi­ enced the absolute tragedy of a genocide does not make sense.

And as a result, you might never understand what happens here.

There will be other candidates.

Are you worried about them?

We have faced more serious and challenging situations than this.

Why would you want an electoral contest to be a problem for us? It’s the least of our worries.

What are you promising Rwan­ dans in order to win their votes?

You know me. I’m not the type of person to delude Rwandans or make them empty promises. I’m a realist, not a populist. We know where we’re coming from, what we’ve achieved, what we should and can still do, and also our limits.

I would not make any promise I

can’t honour, and don’t expect me to do anything other than remind the people of Rwanda that they have to work together for a better future. Another important point is the fact that this election is of concern to us and us alone. The outsideworldhasnothingtotellus.

Will this seven-year term be your last, even if the constitution allows you another term?

I believe so, and I’m likely to clear up this topic soon when I begin my election campaign.

There is a kind of contract be­ tween myself on one side, the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the Rwandan people on the other side. During the December 2015 constitutional referendum, the people expressed their desire for me to continue as president, which I accepted. But the time has come for them to start thinking about someone other than me.

Is that your answer to those who say you will stay in power until you die?

Those who say this are doing it on purpose, with a political agen­ da. This claim doesn’t hold water.

But the country’s balance and its entire political system seems to rest on your shoulders.

PRESIDENT PAUL 23 October 1957 Born in Tambwe, Ruanda-Urundi 1994 Led a group of rebels based in Uganda to stop the genocide 2000 Parliament elects him president 2003 Won 95.1% of the vote in presidential elections 2010 Re-elected president 2015 Calls referendum on constitutional change that allows him a third term as president

That’s not the way things work.

Theimportantthingisthatwehave progressed in an irreversible and permanent way, with or without Kagame. The new generations of Rwandans have understood many things and learnt many lessons.

The fear you are expressing would be well founded if Rwandan soc­ iety was static or unchanging. But the situation is quite the opposite.

Whenyoulookatoureconomy,our institutions and skill sets, our soci­ ety is improving through a virtuous cycle. Even if the people of Rwanda decided that I should continue to betheirleaderforawhile,thiscycle will not stop with my departure.

You can be sure of that.

How do you explain that there is only one authorised opposition party, the Democratic Green Party?

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Are you well informed about the real situation in the country?

As you may well know, power isolates you.

Indeed, I’m aware. But I have a powerful antidote against it. I require that each person accounts for their activities, and I’m able to see the results. Figures don’t lie. […] For example, a health minister can tell me all he wants, but he will be judged based on the infant and maternal mortality rates. The same goes for food security, crime, water, electricity, schools, etc.

Do you regret some of your decisions in office?

No. Never.Whatusewoulditbe?

VINCENT FOURNIER/JA

But you are bound to make mistakes.

Of course. When this happens, I try to minimise the consequences without delay. I think it’s better to makeamistakethantodonothing.

Rwanda has the rule of law. My job is not to create opposition parties but rather to create a favourable environment where different viewpoints can be expressed. Everything else is governed by the law. You should not try make your own definition of opposition a general one.

There are too many people giving lectures and too many arrogant Westerners who are drunk on their values and who claim to define – instead of us – what our freedom is supposed to be.

You are often accused of a certain lack of transparency. The latest case being the unexpected sacking of the chief executive of RwandAir, even though its results seemed good.

[You are asking me to] explain what? And to whom?

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Explain your decision, to the public.

Was that really the case? That is where the problem lies. Let us be clear, the people of Rwanda gave me a mandate to manage the state in their best interests. If I consider that a chief executive

“There are too many arrogant Westerners who are drunk on their values” officer, appointed by the council of ministers, has not been able to deliver the expected results in the agreed time frame and that the return on public investment is not at an acceptable level, I have the right and the duty to replace him. We neither have the time nor the interest to launch a public debate on this subject.

J U N E 2 017

Your African counterparts have asked you to think about needed reforms at the African Union.

What are your main targets?

I see four areas. The first is how to fix our lack of effectiveness.

The second is where to find the resources that will allow the AU to end its dependence on foreign aid.

The third is which challenges to prioritise: security, development, youth, food security, health, gender, inequality, employment […].

The fourth is how to speak with one voice on serious subjects like the International Criminal Court, North-South relations, etc.

France has a new president. Do you have a message for him?

The attitude of France towards Rwanda will not change as long as the attitude of France towards the rest of Africa has not changed.

The two are linked. We expect something new from President Macron:tousherinanewdynamic and a real break from decades of confusion. Whatneeds tobeon the table is 23 years of negative policies targeting Rwanda and 60 years of stale African politics that have not benefited Africans in any way.

Interview by François Soudan for Jeune Afrique

46 COUNTRY FOCUS | RWANDA

AGRICULTURE

Terraces and tractors needed To increase production and improve farming practices, the government is rolling out programmes tailored to local conditions

SOURCE: IMF

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F

or all her adult life, Collette Nyiraneza, now in her early thirties, rose at dawn and worked her small plot of land until dusk. Despite the daily grind, she says that she worried about how she would feed her family. In the last six years or so, however, her life and farm in Kicukiro District on the outskirts of Kigali have been transformed.

“In the past, I couldn’t really say that I earned anything. I tilled the land but harvested next to nothing, and there was no question of any surplus for market.

In Ruhengeri, northern Rwanda, But, since we began terracing, the harwomen prepare terraces for cultivation vest has been good. We have managed to finish our house using money from potatoes we send to market, and we are looking forward to an improved life in He complains wearily about farmers’ country, where the greatest problem is a nice house.” conservatism and says the government soil erosion, terracing is the priority. To is trying to be flexible in encouraging Nyiraneza’s story has been replicated make agriculture less rainfall-dependent, in many parts of rural Rwanda. She the government is backing the rollout improvements: “We jointly establish and her neighbours were part of the of irrigation schemes in drought-prone demonstration farms. Once they see Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and areas, like the eastern part of the country. the yields, they actually demand the Hillside Irrigation project. Supported Its goal is to increase land under irrigation new methods.” by 7% each year for the next three years. by the World Bank and the US Agency The country’s businesses say they for International Development, among want to see more commercial farms others, the programme began in 2009 SUBSIDIES IN VIEW and mechanised operations in order and is one of many initiatives changThe National Extension Strategy aims to to increase production. Christine help farmers innovate. “It is important Murebwayire, president of the Chamber ing the face of agriculture in Rwanda. of Rwanda Farmers, has been helping thatfarmers can access services and stratNyiraneza is one of 15,000 farmers egies,” says Telesphore Ndabamenye, an the agriculture ministry to develop a new who have benefited from the project. agronomist who is now head of crop pronational plan for the sector that should be Rwanda could ill afford to neglect duction and food security launched in 2018. She told local media: its agricultural sector. at the Rwanda Agriculture “We need professional, market-targeted Agriculture accounts for farming in the next five-year strategy.

Board (RAB). “And they more than 30% of the We must also embrace mechanisation have to be affordable,” he country’s gross domestic continues. “This is why, for to boost efficiency and production.” The product and around 80% instance,fertilisersandnew RAB estimates that just 30,000ha of land of its exports; more than seeds are subsidised for the is under under mechanised cultivation.

70% of the population is small-scale farmer.” The Coffee and tea are the country’s involved. And as the popmain agricultural exports, and the subsidiesarenotlikelytobe ulation expands, so grow in place indeterminately.

International Monetary Fund predicts the pressures on land.

Ndabamenyesays:“Iwould that revenue from the export of those two The government is The IMF’s prediction crops will rise this year. After dropping like to see farmers begin to crafting solutions for each of revenue from to $117.4m in 2016, they are expected sourcetheirownseedsorto of the problems it has coffee and tea exports connect to markets without to hit $140.3m this year. identified. In highland for 2017, up 19.5% from last year state support.”

Vincent Gasana in Kigali areas like the north of the

Own a home in a premium neighborhood Vision City Kigali Rwanda

48 COUNTRY FOCUS | RWANDA

RwandAir now has a fleet of 26 aircraft, including an Airbus A330 and 10 Boeing 737s

straight from the factory. So our investment is heavy, and it takes time to recoup all that investment. If you ask me when will we start to be cash positive, [the answer is] very soon because that I need quickly. But profitable, it will take a bit of time.”

CODESHARE AGREEMENT

CYRIL NDEGEYA/RWANDAIR

RwandAir’s strategic partnership with Ethiopian Airlines, another state-owned carrier, is crucial to the airline’s strategy.

“Over the years we have forged a much closer relationship in that [Ethiopian Airlines] has come in to support us on the technical side of things. They support our 737s. They support our Q400 fleet. We have Ethiopian engineers, Ethiopian engineers sitting at our base here,” Mirenge says, gesturing outside his office.

RwandAir has a codeshare agreement with Ethiopian and special AVIATION pro-rate agreements, “so we are able to sell [their] network [and] they are able to give us special fares for us to sell,” Mirenge said. RwandAir also has codeshare agreements with RwandAir is in the midst of an ambitious expansion Brussels Airlines and is considering plan that would see it serve four continents, as the new European partners, including KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways. airline seeks a new chief executive to lead the way Mirenge was sacked as chief executive on 5 April during a cabinet ust seven years ago, Rwanda’s April. Before his dismissal, he told The meeting chaired by President Paul Africa Report: “We are in our seventh state-owned airline did not own Kagame, with no reason given for his year of growth; we intend to grow any planes. The carrier, which dismissal. Rwanda’s foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo, who was present was then known as RwandAir Express, bigger,” as the sound of jet engines jetted in handfuls of tourists from five at the cabinet meeting, tells The Africa roared outside his office overlooking regional destinations using a few old Report: “We need more aviation people Kigali International Airport. “We hope and airline people, as opposed to just by the end of this first half [of the fiscal leased turboprop planes. year] we should be carrying about good-mannered people.” Mirenge was Since then, the airline has become RwandAir’s chief executive officer for 700,000 passengers.” It transporta continental operator. It has a fleet of ed 600,000 over the same seven years and before that he served 26 aircraft, including an Airbus A330 as the chief executive of Crystal period the previous year. and 10 Boeing 737s, which now serve Ventures, the ruling party's investMirenge declined to 22 destinations. Most of its routes are ment fund. Mushikiwabo adds provide RwandAir’s fiin Africa, and in June the airline will that the government is “shopping establish a West African hub in Cotonou. nancial figures but said But RwandAir is beginning to set its around” for a new executive with he is confident that the a stronger aviation background. sights further afield. In April, the airline airline is taking the right RwandAir has hired experts launched a new service to Mumbai, and steps to be profitable: “For as long as you are at the phase in late May it inaugurated its first flight to from Singapore and South we are at, you can never be Europe through the Kigali-London route.

Korea to advise on its strategy, Mushikiwabo says. In the meanIn June, the airline is set to launch a new profitable because you are route to China, and next year it aims to time, Colonel Chance Ndagano still going through the heavy Number has been brought in as acting begin regular flights to the United States. investment phase. And we’re of RwandAir destinations chief executive until a replaceJohn Mirenge, the airline’s chief still taking on new aircraft, in May 2017 executive officer, was at the helm of and our model has been to ment is found.

Mark Anderson in Kigali this expansion until he was sacked in really gun for new aircraft SOURCE: RWANDAIR

From Rwanda to the world

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A GEM OF A H OT E L SPANNING ACROSS 32,000SQM KIGALI CONVENTION CENTRE CATERS TO ALL EVENTS IN AN ELEGANT SETTING. THE BEAUTIFULLY APPOINTED GUEST ROOMS, STYLISH RESTAURANTS AND BARS, AND THE AWARD WINING AMANI SPA MAKE THE RADISSON BLU HOTEL & CONVENTION CENTRE KIGALI AN OASIS OF MODERN LUXURY FOR BUSINESS TRAVELLERS, VIVACIOUS STAYCATIONERS AND SOPHISTICATED GLOBETROTTERS.

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50 COUNTRY FOCUS | RWANDA

Louise Mushikiwabo

Foreign minister, Rwanda

“Democracy is in crisis”

While global debates about democracy rage, Rwanda’s foreign minister is trying to calm tensions in the neighbourhood and get the best out of an economically prosperous East African Community

T

here is no ques­ tion that L ouise Mushikiwabo’s re­ mit as Rwanda’s foreign minister is tough. Crises are brewing in neighbouring countries, and international donors, who fund 17% of the current government budget, are muttering about the need for presidential term limits as President Paul Kagame could now stay in power until 2034.

But on a rainy evening in Mushikiwabo’s office on the top of one of Kigali’s biggest hills, she appears at ease. She pivots from one subject to another with impressive agility. “Democracy is in crisis all over the world,” she says, referring to Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. “So every­ body is looking for the best way to govern and to be governed. But somehow the same countries that are soul searching and confused, they are the ones coming to us telling us what to do.”

Mushikiwabo is talking about the international backlash to Rwanda’s 2015 referendum that changed the constitution to abol­ ish presidential term limits. This vote was met with scolding from

international partners, who had just reinstated budget support after suspending it when Kigali was found to be supporting the Mouvement du 23 Mars rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Choruses of critics said the referendum had been rigged in favour of President Kagame, who received a stag­ gering 99% of the vote.

STABILITY IS THE PRIORITY

“I wonder why [there] is the need to absolutely create opposition to President Kagame or even for President Kagame himself to create opposition to himself,” Mushikiwabo says. “How can President Kagamesay: ‘I’m picking

“Our choice is not to have politicians fight. Our choice is to keep going” so and so’?,” she continues. “That’s not the process. He can give his views. His party can express itself, but this whole democracy notion becomes confusing for us.”

Rwanda’s stability is a cru­ cial point for Mushikiwabo.

“Our choice is not to have pol­ iticians fight – our choice is to disagree but keep going with

rebuilding the country. That’s the choice,” she says.

Rwanda’s foreign policy is “about handling to the maximum the opportunities, taking care of the challenges, understanding our region,” says Mushikiwabo.

“We’re a country that’s very open to integration for many reasons.”

Rwanda has been busy ce­ menting friendships. In March, Kagame made a state visit to China to hold bilateral talks with China’s President Xi Jinping about economic cooperation. “The dis­ cussion was about upgrading: What are we going to do more?

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headaches for Kigali. The political crisis sparked by Burundi’s PresidentPierreNkurunziza,when he started a contested third term in power, drove tens of thousands of Burundians into Rwanda. While this crisis has mostly died down, it is in danger of resurfacing. Fault­ lines in Burundi’s military are in danger of starting a larger conflict.

CONSUMMATE COMMUNICATOR 22 May 1961 Born in Kigali 1988 Masters’ degree in languages from the University of Delaware

DRC VOLATILITY

2006 Appointed communications director for the African Development Bank 2008 Named information minister

VINCENT FOURNIER/JA

2009 Appointed foreign minister

of the huge amount of money agreed in Johannesburg under the China-Africa forum? Because it’s a big basket,” Mushikiwabo says. “We had already submitted a number of mostly infrastructure and health projects – like the building of hospitals, some feeder roads in the Kigali area.”

AN EYE ON ADDIS ABABA

Another country Kigali has been moving closer towards is Ethiopia.

At the end of April, Kagame and his wife Janet hosted Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Kigali. During the visit, the two governments signed 11 THE AFRICA REPORT

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bilateral agreements in areas such as extradition, legal assistance, tourism and health. Ethiopia’s plans to export more electricity to the region have also drawn interest from Rwanda. “Ethiopia can provide a lot to this region,” says Mushikiwabo. “So sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t find the right amounts of money and just build solid transmission lines from Ethiopia to Rwanda.”

While the monetary and political union of the East African Community provides great benefits to Rwanda including better trade links, instability in Burundi and the DRC could spell

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But it is the DRC that most concerns Mushikiwabo. “It’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen in the DRC,” she says. The current uncertainty about when and how President Joseph Kabila will step down is contributing to instability.

“We had the [feeling that the crisis was escalating] before the end of last year at the expiry of the president’s term,” she says.

“President Kabila has said he will step down at the end of 2017, which means we should walk back and look at what steps are needed. I’m sure there is a plan from President Kabila and his political family. Then there is the passing of Etienne Tshisekedi, which has brought another whole complicated political element to the discussion. And then you look at… I don’t need to say how big the country is, but different parts of the DRC probably want different things. So it’s really a very complicated situation.”

Looking ahead on the home front, Mushikiwabo – a government minister since 2008 – says she wants to “solidify institutions, to do everything not to lose any of the gains we have made and to start thinking of innovating. Especially economically we have to innovate.”

The April commemoration of Rwanda’s genocide more than 23 yearsagocausesmanyinthecountry to reflect on the progress that has been made since those dark days. From her office overlooking the flickering lights of Kigali in the distance, Mushikiwabo says: “It’s a country that has defied so many odds and so many challenges and you almost see the worst of human beings and the best of human beings.”

Mark Anderson in Kigali

Mining for a better future

T

he Rwanda Mining Association is an employer’s Professional Organization from the mining sector and is composed of big concessions, cooperatives as well as Medium, Small Scale and Artisanal companies involved in mining and trading of minerals.

The vision of the Association is to transform social – economic lives of Rwandese people through responsible mining and the mission is to maximize the economic potential of Rwanda’s mining sector.

The objectives are: Promotion of minerals exploitation and mining Business; Representing its members; Sharing market information among members; and Ensuring adherence to legal requirements.

The areas of intervention include: Advocacy for all members; Trainings Facilitation; and Promoting a good image of the mining sector in Rwanda.

The key achievements of the Association include 1. Establishment of the Association’s structures country wide 2. Advocacy for members 3. Participation in International Meetings and Exhibitions 4. Social Corporate Responsibility (SCR) related activities 5. Organizing international mining events on mining 6. Organizing the Annual International Mining Day 7. Obtained membership in Tantalum Niobium International Study Center (TIC) 8. Obtained membership in the Eastern Africa Chamber of Mines

CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT

Distinguished Readers, On behalf of the Rwanda Mining Association, I want to take this opportunity through this edition of “Africa Report” to thank H.E President Paul KAGAME and his government for the continued support provided to our mining sector. For the past seven years, the sector has grown in terms of increased investments and improved structural organization. The achievements registered by the mining sector in Rwanda have not only been enjoyed by those who have directly invested in the sector but rather the entire population and the economy in general.

It is now very evident and clear that mining already plays a significant role in the Rwandan economy, providing large-scale employment and is currently contributing significantly to export revenues. This is all thanks to the deliberate efforts by the government of Rwanda that have been focused to promoting the mining sector in Rwanda.

In this light, the Association (RMA) is thankful to the Government of Rwanda in general and particularly to H.E President Paul KAGAME for his visionary leadership.

I am also thankful to the members of the Rwanda Mining Association who work tirelessly to ensure that the sector continues to play a leading role in Rwanda’s economic development as well as our regular partners.

Jean Malic KALIMA

CONTACTS: Phone number: + 250 255 121 402 or Email: contact.rma2012@yahoo.com

SPONSORED SECTION

OUR PARTNERS BMS Minerals Buying - Selling - Exportation - Tantalite, Cassiterite, Wolframite BOSS MINING SOLUTION LTD is a mineral exporter from Rwanda, purchasing Tin, Coltan and Wolframite from artisanal Mines. BMS was able to increase its volume from 1 to 5 containers a month in about 2 years.

GENERATION MINING DEVELOPMENT COMPANY Ltd

God Difference

Work

GMDC

It is a private company limited by shares which has a period of 10 years and the Managing Director is Madam KAMUGWERA Vestine. Location: Kigali.

Type of minerals: Wolframite, Surface area of the company: 250 hactares, Type of license: Small scale mining, Average production: 8 tons per month.

P.O. Box 4267 - Kigali, Rwanda - Tel: (+250) 788 54 97 63 - Email: gmdc.ltd@gmail.com

GISANGE TRADING LTD

s a n

e

rading Company

MINERALS PROCESSING & TRADING Minerals Processing & Exportation : Tin, Tantalite, Gold, Wolframite, Black tourmaline and Green Tourmaline.

Kagunga I-Gikondo, Street KK569st - PLOT#10 - P.O Box 7140 - Kigali, Rwanda Tel: (+250) 784 21 47 17 - (+250) 788 38 88 46 - Email: gisandetradingsa@gmail.com

NBM NEW BUGARAMA MINING COMPANY LTD New Bugarama Mining Company (NBM) is owned by industrial trading house Specialty Metals Resources (www.smr.hk) and the Belgian Stinglhamber family. As one of the Rwandan industry examples, NBM focuses on ethically extracting tungsten minerals with a high focus on social responsibility and a reduced environmental impact.

Vincent RUGANINTWALI - Managing Director - Finance Solutions sarl B.P. 6231 - Boulevard de l’OUA - Kigali, Rwanda - Mob: (+250) 788 30 89 91

MSA - MINERALS SUPPLY AFRICA LTD PROFILE Minerals Supply Africa (MSA) is a Rwanda-based company owned by CRONIMET CENTRAL AFRICA AG (CCA). It deals in Procurement, Processing & Exporting of Coltan, Cassiterite and Wolfram minerals.

Rothe Tobias Alexander Michael Managing Director Of MSA Ltd

MSA Ltd Vision: To provide quality Minerals that exceed the expectation of our esteemed customers.

MSA Ltd Mission: To understand the need of our customers and match that need with the right production of the Rwandan mining Industry. To build a long term relationship with customers and suppliers based on mutual trust and respect.

P.O. Box 6509 - Kigali, Rwanda - Email: contact@msaltd.net - www.msaltd.net

SEAVMC

S EAV M C Ltd

Société de recherche - Extraction - Achat et Vente des Minerais et Carrières Ltd

TAWOTIN Ltd TAWOTIN Ltd is a minerals trading company registrated in Rwanda since 2011. Based in Kigali, TOWOTIN Ltd process and export Tin, Wolframite and Coltan from the mines certified by ICGLR; it also comply with the nation, regional and internationals regulations on the minerals trading.

Gikondo Industrial Park - P.O. Box 4352 - Kigali, Rwanda - Email: tawotin@gmail.com

TSL LTD - TRADING SERVICES LOGISTICS LIMITED

TSL Ltd

Affordable, Reliable, Faithful in Minerals Trading (Tin, Tungsten, Tantalite, Beryl) P.O. Box 2294 - Kigali, Rwanda - Tel: (+250) 788 30 06 99 Email: tradingserviceslogistics@yahoo.fr

TWC MINERALS LTD

Wolfram

mining and processing Ltd

WOLFRAM MINING AND PROCESSING LTD Kiyovu KN 33st - B.P. 1856 - Kigali, Rwanda Tel: (+250) 788 30 90 40 - www.wmprwanda.com

DIFCOM/DF/AG - PHOTO: DR.

House 81. KK 512st Bralirwa Road - P.O. Box 7036 - Kigali, Rwanda Tel: (+250) 788 43 80 00 - (+250) 788 30 59 98 Email: ndave2002@yahoo.fr - twcltdivo@gmail.com

54 COUNTRY FOCUS | RWANDA

RWANDA GOVERNMENT

Easy to pocket and worth a lot: a lump of cassiterite

MINING

How to get bigger, better and deeper

he sees this as a “very marginal” issue, even though it could well hinder the government’s efforts to attract the new A new state agency plans to professionalise the investors that Kigali needs.

Faced with a worsening trade deficit sector, but investors are wary about the lack – $1.6bn in 2016 – Rwanda is betting on of transparency and international policy uncertainty increasing exports of mineral ores to strengthen its trade balance. Already dirt road meanders through the these provide the country’s secondAt the roadside, a shadowy figure village of Rutongo, in the hills largest source of foreign exchange, escapes at top speed with a jute bag in above the Rwandan capital of hand, a potential sign that a theft was in producing revenue of $94m in the fiscal year 2015/2016. To achieve this, the progress. The high value and small size Kigali. The area is home to the largest of tin ore – cassiterite is worth between government is trying to professionalise mining site in Rwanda, operated by $15 and $20 per kilo – make and restructure the sector. Last mining firm Tinco and situated 20km the trade particularly vulFebruary, it appointed former north of the capital city. The company nerable to illegal activity.

Rwanda Development Board mines cassiterite – tin ore – there. Tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold are critical chief executive Francis Gatare THEFT INCREASING to the electronics industry and found to head a new state agency, abundantly in the Great Lakes region.

For Tinco, these thefts are the Rwanda Mines, Petroleum a major cause for conand Gas Board.

Down in the valley, miners are at cern. After police seized But this landlocked country, work with small wagons filled with black ore that will be concentrated in a where electricity production 600kg of minerals earlier is low and costs are high, may small semi-industrial unit before export. in March, the company’s Tinco produces about 50tn per month. executive director, Martin find it difficult to succeed withRwanda’s share out foreign investment and Tinco’s investors include the Ichikowitz Kahanowitz, wrote to the of global tantalum family of South Africa, who are owners English-language daily expertise. Emery Rubagenga, production, the The New Times – which of the defence and aerospace company chief executive of Rwandan world’s highest Paramount Group. The workers are company Roka Mining, knows has close ties to the govas of 2016 Rwandans, and the process involves this well. Ten years ago, the ernment – to say that young man acquired six cassiteritehigh levels of value-addition. In short, “theft of minerals is increasing on a this is what Rwanda wants to replace monthly basis, which has a dramatic producing mining concessions. But effect on legitimate mining investors.” the predominantly artisanal mining developing them proved more difficult Rwanda’s justice minister Johnston operations that are responsible for most than anticipated. And after hitting levels of the country’s production.

Busingye tells The Africa Report that of 100tn per month, production slowly SOURCE: US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

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37%

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existing concessions – would help to dispel any doubts about the source of the coltan. Despite requests, the Rwandan government and the certification body did not provide such data.

Since Donald Trump’s election, the US administration has questioned the need to maintain the legislation on traceability, but there is no guarantee that removing it would speed up investment.

The European Union is on the verge of enacting a similar legislation and the big electronics companies are not inclined to take too many risks.

RWANDA GOVERNMENT

CERTIFICATION MONOPOLY

Most of Tinco’s employees at Rutongo are contract miners, paid per kg of cassiterite recovered

declined due to a lack of investment and expertise. At the end of 2016, he was pleased to welcome South African mining firm Madini Minerals, which acquired 15% of Roka, valuing the company at $35m. “The sectoral experience that they have provided us since their arrival is absolutely priceless,” Rugabenga says.

The traceability system is not convincing everyone. In 2016, Rwanda was reported to be the leading global producer of tantalum, according to a report from the US Geological Survey (USGS), with 37% of the world’s production. But the source of the coltan that tantalum comes from remains uncertain. The largest Rwandan mines only produce it in small quantities, whereas the resource-rich DRC has it in abundance.

“In Rwanda, people have been discovering and selling mineral ores discreetly in small quantities for decades, often illegally,” says justice minister Busingye. Publishing detailed production figures for every mining site in Rwanda – and there are about 500

BAD APPLES

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Revenues from Rwanda’s mineral exports $226m $206m SOURCE: ASOKO INSIGHTS

But this type of investment has been an exception. In order to attract more investors, it seems essential to make the sector more transparent. For now, the reputational and legal risks seem too high in the eyes of a number of investors.

Rwanda is regularly accused of being a hub for the illegal trade of conflict minerals – through which armed groups from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) finance themselves.

Following extensive media coverage on the issue, the US enacted a law in 2014 that makes it mandatory for electronics companies to ensure that their minerals are conflict-free and not produced from mines controlled by armed groups. Like all the countries in the region, Rwanda now has traceability systems.

“It’s unfair because the country is making huge efforts to ensure good governance,” claims Rubagenga. “But when a few bad apples are discovered, that is enough to tarnish the entire country.”

$150m

2013

2014

2015

Since 2014, the US conflict minerals law has created a strong market for mining certification by making it mandatory for manufacturing companies to conduct a transparent due diligence process, tracking minerals through the supply chain to their sources. In the Great Lakes region, the International Tin Research Institute (ITRI), a UK-based non-governmental organisation, has a near monopoly on this certification.

ITRI’s turnover is unknown, but given the amount of tin production in the region – 7,000tn in 2016 according to data from the USGS – it could hit $1.8m for cassiterite alone. ITRI issues export permits for approximately $260 per tonne of cassiterite. It also issues tags that are meant to prove minerals are conflict-free. These tags are issued to mining concessions based on their production estimates. However, these projections are not always accurate.

“Tags allocated to certified mines, where sometimes production has stopped, are routinely used to export other materials,” says Benjamin Clair, of the due diligence company BetterSourcing Program (BSP).

“Some companies trade these tags, which compromises the system,” he adds.

The young French entrepreneur and former consultant in the sector co-founded BSP, a private and for-profit competitor to ITRI’s certification. BSP has received funding from the US Agency for International Development for its idea of certifying the sector rather than the minerals. To achieve this, BSP is using a new type of tag that is scanned and tracked at several points throughout the mining and transporting processes. “This will enable us to detect irregularities at any mine,” he says. This system is already in place at Tinco’s wolfram-producing Nyakabingo mine.

Pierre Boisselet in Kigali

56

At events like the Africa CEO Forum and business conventions all over the continent the ranks of suited men are making way for outstanding women.

The Africa Report presents its exclusive list of the high-flying executives changing the face of finance, tech, mining, oil, agribusiness and manufacturing

By Oheneba Ama Nti Osei

LETTIE FERREIRA; NOOR KHAMIS/REUTERS;MOHAMED REDA; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A

cross the African continent, women are increasingly taking up leadership roles in the gamut of business sectors, challenging traditional barriers that have long restricted their rise to the top levels of power. This has been achieved through resilience and hard work, but corporate policies have also helped change mentalities. Ecobank, Barclays, Citibank and Bank of Africa have promoted women to management positions, and telecom giants MTN, Orange and Millicom all have women in leadership roles.

The continent is making progress. According to the 2016 McKinsey Women Matter report, Africa’s private sector has more women in executive committee, CEO and board roles than the global average.

Although this is encouraging, there’s still a long road ahead.

Women are still under-represented in senior management roles, and the report reveals that women’s representation on corporate boards and executive committees stands at only 15%. In 210 listed African companies, women only accounted for 5% of management positions. For entrepreneurs, the challenges come in several forms, ranging from lack of funding and training to sociocultural and family barriers.

Armed with skill and ambition, the top 50 businesswomen featured on our list have not been deterred by these hurdles. Trendsetters and trailblazers, they are corporate tycoons, leading entrepreneurs and successful managers of family businesses. From chief executives such as Bank of Africa’s Lala Moulaye Ezzedine and IchorCoal’s Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita to self-made millionaires like Hajia Bola Shagaya of Nigeria and tech pioneers like Kenya’s Juliana Rotich, these high-achieving women prove one thing: it’s talent, not gender, that should matter.

Clockwise from left: Ibukun Awosika, Rita Zniber, Tabitha Karanja, Maria Ramos

50 women shaking up business

58 BUSINESS | COMPANIES & MARKETS

Power players

Finance

LETTIE FERREIRA

MZ’s stakes in oil services companies will come into their own as the new Zohr gas field comes onstream.

MARIA RAMOS South Africa CEO, Barclays Africa With early jobs running the treasury and turning around the parastatal Transnet, since 2009 Ramos was with Absa and is now CEO of Barclays Africa. Her latest move is an attempt to enter the Mozambique market, as the bank goes back on the offensive after the Barclays plc sell-off of its African subsidiary.

ISABEL DOS SANTOS Angola Chairperson, Sonangol Billionaire daughter of the billionaire president of Angola, Dos Santos now runs the state oil company Sonangol. She has been candid about the need to break the behemoth into business units that are more competitive. Whether or not she will be the one to do it depends on how the ruling party handles the presidential succession after upcoming elections.

MIRIEM BENSALAH CHAQROUN Morocco President, Confédération Générale des Entreprises du Maroc The widely respected businesswoman not only turned around an ailing water bottling business, but as the head of the Moroccan business confederation she has also been a battler in parliament, representing the interests of industry.

FRANNIE LEAUTIER Tanzania Senior VP, African Development Bank An MIT grad, a former vice-president of the World Bank and also with experience running investment funds, Leautier brings a wealth of expertise to the table for the AfDB WENDY APPELBAUM South Africa Owner, DeMorgenzon From the world of insurance to wine estates via the creation of Wiphold, South Africa’s first fund controlled entirely by women, Applebaum is also a quiet force in corporate South Africa through her directorships and her philanthropy.

SHAHIRA ZEID Egypt MZ Investments The chair of a holding company that stretches across the energy, logistics and tourism sectors, Zeid is one of Egypt’s keenest-eyed private-equity operatives.

BRIDGETTE RADEBE South Africa Chairperson, Mmakau Mining The sister of magnate Patrice Motsepe and husband of ANC insider Jeff Radebe, Bridgette has not shirked from critiquing the system that she works in, helping to shape South Africa’s mining charter and backing the opposition on calls for the nationalisation of mines.

ZYDA RYLANDS South Africa CEO, Woolworths South Africa Rylands has been picking up international awards for her tenure at Woolworths.

Growing up the daughter of a tailor in apartheid South Africa has created a relentless businesswoman, humble and tough, who has worked her way up the Woolworths system.

DELPHINE TRAORÉ MAIDOU Burkina Faso Former CEO, Allianz Africa In the market for new opportunities, Maidou stepped down from the helm of the African operations of the insurance behemoth in April. She worked for the firm from 2005 and was credited with expanding its business by targeting Kenya, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

NASIM DEVJI Kenya Group CEO, Diamond Trust Bank Devji has led Diamond Bank for more than 16 years. She oversees operations in Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and manages the bank’s regional expansion strategy. Diamond bought small Kenyan bank Habib Bank this year to grow its branch network.

CATHERINE UJU IFEJIKA Nigeria Britannia-U In the male-dominated oil business, you need toughness to break through. Ifejika has it in spades, creating her company from scratch in 2001, making her the only woman in Nigeria to run an upstream oil company.

NADIA FETTAH Morocco Managing director, Saham Insurance Earlier this year, Fettah was promoted after serving as the firm’s head of finance and operations for three years. She is managing Saham’s African expansion programme, which includes recent purchases of stakes in Angola’s AG Seguros, Mauritian Sun Insurance, Nigeria’s Unitrust Insurance and Rwanda’s Corar-AG.

LIZÉ LAMBRECHTS South Africa CEO, Sanlam A trusted hand, Lambrechts replaced Ian Kirk at the helm of South Africa’s largest insurer. She has worked at the parent Sanlam group for several decades and is now tasked with expanding the company onto the continent outside South Africa.

BINTA TOURÉ NDOYÉ Togo Director general, Oragroup Ndoye joined Oragroup in 2015afterspendingeightyears at Togo-based Ecobank. She oversees a balance sheet of €2.4bn and is pursuing a strategy to grow the Togo-based bank into a pan-African institution. In April, it launched a big fundraising effort on

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the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest-Africaine market.

Morocco’s BMCE Bank after it raised its stake in Bank of Africa to 72.7% last year.

SOLA DAVIDBORHA Nigeria Chief executive for Africa, Standard Bank Group Standard Bank recently chose David-Borha – the former chief executive of Nigeria’s Stanbic IBTC – as the head of operations outside of South Africa. She is tasked with finding new growth opportunities as the group hurts from South Africa’s economic downturn.

MAMPHELA RAMPHELE South Africa Chairwoman, Circle Capital Ramphele was among a handful of women in South Africa who earned a medical degree during apartheid.

She was also one of the first women to become managing director of the World Bank.

Now, she serves at a venture capital company that is designed to drive black economic empowerment.

LALA MOULAYE EZZEDINE Côte d’Ivoire Chair, Bank of Africa Ezzedine was appointed as chair of the Bank of Africa in 2014 after joining in 2000 as an operations manager.

She will be working hard with

PATIENCE AKYIANU Ghana Managing Director, Barclays Ghana After starting her career at Standard Chartered Bank,

IBUKUN AWOSIKA Nigeria Chair, First Bank Nigeria, and CEO, Chair Centre Group Many Nigerians know Awosika as the author of Business His Way, a Chr istian-inspired motivational book that encourages entrepreneurship. Awosika’s successful furniture empire gives her plenty of business credibility. Today, she is the chief executive of the Chair Centre Group, a conglomerate with interests in furniture, retail, manufacturing and security system services. She is also the first woman to be chair of First Bank Nigeria, taking up the post at a difficult time for the economy. “It has been a lot of strategic thinking, strategic planning and retooling how we do the business,” she told Nigerian newspaper This Day. THE AFRICA REPORT

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Akyianu joined Barclays in 2008 as finance director before climbing the ranks to become the bank’s first female managing director.

She is also a member of the advisory committee of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund and the Executive Women Network.

HANIA SADEK Egypt COO, HSBC Bank Egypt A nuts and bolts kind of woman, Sadek began her career in the IT department, helping to roll out the technology plan of HSBC, as well as spending time running the internal audit office.

After rising up the ranks over her three-and-a-half decades of service at HSBC Egypt, she attained her current position as chief operating officer in 2010.

JENNIFER RIRIA Kenya CEO, Kenya Women Holding In 1991, Riria launched Kenya Women Holding as a nongovernmental organisation that provided microfinance to women who wanted to start their own business. In 26 years she has grown the company into a medium-sized lender that has disbursed more than $1.3bn of loans to 900,000 women.

JOYCEANN WAINAINA Kenya CEO, Citibank East Africa As chief executive of East Africa, Wainaina oversees operations in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. She told reporters that business in Africa will be fierce in the coming years: “We’ve just simply jumped right to the Twitter age, the Uber age, the digital age.”

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NICKY F. NEWTONKING South Africa CEO, Johannesburg Stock Exchange Newton-King is the first woman to head the JSE since it was launched in 1887. She is responsible for rolling out its corporate strategy and negotiating the company’s biggest corporate transactions. The JSE is working on a new exchange for smallscale entrepreneurs.

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PHUTI MAHANYELE South Africa Chair, Sigma Capital The former CEO of Shanduka Group,thediversifiedholding company founded by deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, is now running a majority black-owned investment firm. With decades of corporate experience, she says she is keen to launch her own start-ups and help encourage more entrepreneurship.

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Extractives

NOMBULELO PINKY MOHOLI South Africa Board member, Anglo American Moholi brings her top-flight management skills as a former CEO of Telkom to South African mining giant Anglo American. She is also on the boards of retailer Woolworths and financial services company Old Mutual.

ADA EZE Nigeria Executive VP, Total, West Africa The Sierra Leone-born Nigerian is rising up the ladder at the French oil major. A veteran of the firm, having started there in 1996, she held positions of increasing responsibility at Total subsidiaries in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya before taking up her current post. Her advice to others in business: “Some opportunities come in disguise, so be willing to do the extra and take the risks,” she told a business forum in 2016.

ALBERTINAH KEKANA South Africa CEO, Royal Bafokeng Holdings The former chief operating officer of the Public Investment Corporation t o o k t h e h e l m at t h e

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NONKULULEKO NYEMBEZIHEITA South Africa CEO, IchorCoal Having got her start with IBM in the United States, this top executive is in her element on the board of the JSE. At IchorCoal, her priorities are boosting the production at the Vunene colliery, as South Africa seeks to use all of its energy resources to boost generation capacity.

community-based investment fund – which provides wealth for the development of the Royal Bafokeng nation – in 2012. As of late 2016, it had 15% of its funds invested in mining and had just signed with Liquid Telecom

to purchase fixed-line telecoms operator Neotel.

DAPHNE MASHILENKOSI South Africa CEO, Kalahari Resources The chairperson of Kalagadi

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Tech/telcos

YOLANDA CUBA South Africa CEO, Vodafone Ghana Cuba joined Vodafone in 2014 as the head of strategy and mergers and acquisitions. In 2016, she was appointed the chief executive officer of the country’s Ghana operations. She is also a key industry voice as the chair of Ghana’s chamber of telecommunications.

NADIA FASSIFEHRI Morocco Chair, Inwi As the chair of Morocco’s fastest-growing mobile tele­ coms company, Fassi-Fehri will be closely watching her competitors, who are busy rolling out new 4G services.

She will also be keeping an eye on West Africa as Inwi prepares to launch satellite communications services across the region.

FUNKE OPEKE Nigeria CEO, MainOne Cable After graduating from Columbia University with a master’s degree in electrical engineering, Opeke returned to Nigeria to work for MTN as the company’s chief technical officer. She left MTN in 2008 to found MainOne Cable, which set up a fibre-optic

cable system from Portugal to South Africa. MainOne is working on plans for a Nigerian data centre.

PHILISIWE SIBIYA South Africa CEO, MTN Cameroon Sibiya joined South African telecoms giant MTN in 2005.

She worked in Johannesburg for a decade – becoming CFO for MTN South Africa before moving to Cameroon. She recently signed a $5m sponsorship deal with Cameroon’s professional football league ahead of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

IRENE CHARNLEY South Africa CEO, Smile Telecoms During her decorated career in South Africa’s telecoms industry, Charnley is widely regarded as a key actor in

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Agri/manufacturing

FOLORUNSHO ALAKIJA Nigeria Vice chair, Famfa Oil Having become a billionaire through getting a rich oil licence from the Nigerian government, the former tailor is now said to be one of Africa’s richest businesswomen. She has diversified her investments into printing and other businesses.

AMY JADESIMI Nigeria Managing director, Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL)

MTN’s rise as a serious player in the sector. She founded Smile Telecoms in 2007, and is now the company’s chief executive officer. Smile provides 4G LTE mobile broadband services in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

JULIET ANAMMAH Nigeria CEO, Jumia Nigeria As the head the most important market for e-commerce giant Jumia, which operates across Africa, Anammah is tasked with driving customer growth.

Before taking this job, she was the managing director of Accenture’s Products Operating Group covering West Africa. Anammah is a passionate advocate of women’s’ empowerment and trade expansion.

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The former Goldman Sachs investment banker is now running one of Nigeria’s top indigenous oil services firms. Jadesimi told local media : “Financing has been the biggest challenge, and we challenge our banking sector to do a better job in supporting long-term projects.”

CHERYL CAROLUS South Africa Chair, Gold Fields Carolus, who succeeded Mamphela Ramphele at Gold Fields, also chairs the Peotona Group, which holds a stake in diamond company De Beers. In addition to her role in business, she is politically influential and served as deputy secretary general of the ruling African National Congress party. She is a staunch critic of President Jacob Zuma.

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Manganese and the CEO of Kalahari Resources is a leading light in the South African mining sector. She is championing a more socially and environmentally friendly business model for mining firms.

MAMA TAJMOUATI Morocco Chair, Ynna Holding The chair of the leading Moroccan conglomerate is standing up for women, ensuring that they make up at least 40% of company staff. Ynna operates more than 30 subsidiaries in sectors ranging from real estate and construction to agribusiness and renewable energy.

CLARISSE IRIBAGIZA Rwanda CEO, HeHe Labs One of the youngest executives on the list, Iribagiza is due to complete an MBA in 2018. This computer engineer heads HeHe Labs, which is a mobile technologies research and innovation hub in Kigali.

RITA MARIA ZNIBER Morocco CEO and chairman, Diana Holding Diana Holding is a major player in Morocco’s wine­ making industry, with a D2.7bn ($272m) turnover in 2015. Zniber, who owns about 32% of the group’s shares, is also vice-president of French multinational MarieBrizardWine&Spirits.

She sits on the board of the Conféderation Générale des Entreprises du Maroc and is president of the Association des Producteurs de Raisins du Maroc.

JULIANA ROTICH Kenya Executive director, Ushahidi One of the pioneers of Kenya’s tech boom, Rotich is the co-founder of Ushahidi, an open-source software developer. She also helped to start Nairobi’s collective tech space iHub, which has launched dozens of startups.

Rotich is a director at BRCK, a company working on offgrid connectivity solutions.

PHUMZILE LANGENI South Africa Chair, AstraPak The JSE-listed AstraPak is the leading South African manufacturer of plastic packaging products and components. A stockbroker by training, Langeni also serves as the executive chairman of Afropulse G ro u p, a w o m e n - l e d boutique investment and corporate advisory house.

She is also a director of the

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financial services group Transaction Capital.

ANTA BABACAR NGOM BATHILY Senegal Executive director, Sedima In 2016, Bathily was named director of Sedima Group, the leading poultry production group in Senegal, which was set up by her father in 1976. The company recorded annual turnover of $53m last year and recently announced an expansion into the Congolese market.

Other projects on the cards are the construction of an animal feed plant and a slaughterhouse.

TABITHA KARANJA Kenya CEO, Keroche Breweries Karanja started Keroche Breweries 20 years ago and it remains the only Kenyanowned large-scale brewery.

In2015,thecompanyopened a KSh5.5bn ($53m) plant, increasing production levels from 10m litres to 110m litres of beer a year. The firm is due

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to list on the Kenyan stock exchange by 2020.

MAIDIE ARKUTU Ghana VP francophone Africa, Unilever Arkutu was promoted in January, after almost four years as head of Unilever’s Ghanaian subsidiary. The chartered marketer spearheaded the growth of the company’s Ghana business in the fast-moving consumer goods sector during her time there. Her advice to up-and-comers in business: “You need to be happy analysing data […] if you are not

comfortable doing that then you won’t be prepared for the next level.”

HAJIA BOLA SHAGAYA Nigeria CEO, Bolmus Group International Shagaya runs a vast dollar business empire, with interests in oil, real estate, photography, communications and banking. Shagaya is also the managing director of Practoil, a company dealing in lubricants.

AFFIONG WILLIAMS Nigeria CEO, ReelFruit

Williams set up the award-winning fruit processing company in 2012 with initial capital of $100,000.

Last year, her company sold 500,000 packs of dried fruit and nut snacks, and is in the process of setting up an export-processing factory for dried fruit.

FREDA DUPLAN Ghana Managing director, Nestlé Ghana, Sierra Leone & Liberia The Nestlé veteran rose through the ranks of the company, starting as an IT Manager in 1992. Her

Geraldine J. Fraser-Moleketi Former special envoy on gender, African Development Bank

Progress for all

W

omen are no better or worse than men: they are simply the same, and need to be given the same opportunity. But the issue goes beyond morality, since women’s economicempowermentmeansgrowth.

A continent in which there are countries where a woman needs permission from her husband to travel, to work or to open a bank account; in which she cannot buy or inherit land; or in which she is the first and easiest victim of conflict, has a long way to go. For this to change, there is a need to reform the regulatory and legal system that holds women’s potential back.

Africa hurts only itself by keeping the lid on the bottle of female economic potential. Africa has grown at an average of 5% a year for a decade – enough to effect a transition but not a transformation. We estimate that the physical infrastructure gap on the continent costs it $40bn (or 2% of GDP growth) a

year; and the gender gap may cost it as much or more. We know for sure that political empowerment often brings economic empowerment. Rwanda, for instance, with well over half of its members of parliament women, has seen female-owned manufacturing businesses grow to almost 4,000.

We are right to strive for an Africa in which women own companies, sit on company boards, buy and sell on stock exchanges, and comment at will on the business world. So while we need to work from the top down with the managers, above all we need to work from the bottom up. In sub-Saharan Africa, especially, women are economic actors – but the problem lies in what they do. Too often, they operate in the informal sector, in small firms, and in traditional sectors like agriculture. So it is in the formal sector, in larger firms, and in new, high-value services and industries (not least in agribusiness)

appointment in April 2015 made her managing director of Nestlé’s operations in the coastal cluster – the first Ghanaian and the first woman to hold the position.

JULIAN ADYERI OMALLA Uganda Managing director, Delight Uganda Omalla founded the company engaged in the processing and distribution of fruit drinks under the brand name Cheers. It has the largest juice processing factory in Uganda, where Cheers products have a 45% market share.

that we must find them employed or as executives or serving on boards.

Agriculture itself encapsulates the challenge and the response, on a continent where women provide 70% of all agricultural labour and produce 90% of all food, while owning 1% of the land and receiving 1% of agricultural credit.

First, let us give women the credits, the seeds, the fertiliser, the technology and the market access to transcend subsistence and enter the world of agribusiness. But second, let us empower women to go beyond agriculture and agribusiness, into the more productive, lucrative and job-creating sectors, like services and manufacturing.

Wheregovernmentslead,societiesand financiers must follow. The first prerequisite is education for girls, and vocational and business training for young women.

The second is in women’s ability to own and control assets, above all equity and land. The third lies in improving access to andknowledgeaboutfinanceforwomen, who – every study tells us – will almost always pay it back with interest. As well as broadening their economic options, accesstofinancegiveswomenbargaining power and influence in their own homes andallowsthemtoinsureagainstriskand borrow against unexpected expenses.

The inalienable rights of half the population bring the realisation of tangible goods for all. Equality for women really is ‘progress for all’.

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Rob Davies Minister of trade and industry, South Africa

The trade and industry minister speaks to The Africa Report about developing regional value chains and the importance of the state’s role in getting positive social and economic outcomes from the private sector

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hile the mining sector is hurting due to low commodity prices and the low level of processing done inside the country, not all sectors of the South African economy are experiencing the same headwinds. Job creation and economic transformation are high on the government’s agenda as President Jacob Zuma tries to bolster his leftist credentials during his last year in office and amidst a string of problems that have sapped the administration’s focus. Rob Davies, the trade and industry minister, is working with his peers and business leaders to get the most out of the government’s interventions in the economy.

The Africa Report: Everyone is concernedaboutmacroeconomic discipline, and South Africa has recently been downgraded by a few credit agencies. But in the 1970s, the way South Korea developed, for example, they

ELMOND JIYANE/GCIS

Industrial policy is bearing fruit

were all over the place: inflation rates were pretty wild, their current account balances were also pretty high. And then you look at maybe Argentina or Brazil: theyhadsimilarmacroeconomic patterns, they were doing less constructivethingswiththemoney in their economies and had problems around transparency.

What isSouth Africa?Is it a South Korea or is it an Argentina?

ROB DAVIES: I think what we’ve been trying to do the last few years is to learn from some of [these countries] and particularly in the area of industrial policy. Even though we’re one of the most industrialised countries in Africa, we remain fundamentally and primarily a producer and exporter of primary products – mineral commodities – which is not the best place to be in the value chain.

Even basic manufacturing is still not the top, but it’s better than being just a primary-products producer. [...]

We’ve been trying to improve our prospects for industrialisation

TRADE TSAR 12 May 1948 Born in South Africa 1990 Named co-chair of the University of the Western Cape's Centre for Southern African Studies 1994 Joined the South African Communist Party 11 May 2009 Became trade and industry minister

with the work we’re doing in the region on regional integration.

[Our strategy] has been to try to address the issues that the others were trying to address and learning from them as much as we can, but under our own circumstances, to apply some of the tools of industrial policy and industrial development.

We’ve adopted the developmental approach to trade policy.

We deploy, without any apologies, tools like localisation. If a company is a foreign-owned company but is willing to come to our country and set up a manufacturing plant, they will qualify for the localisation requirements that we have for procurement by the public sector. We’re non-signatories and we will not sign the optional protocol in the World Trade Organisation on transparency and government procurement, which will end our ability to do this. And then on a case-by-case basis, we have incentive packages and support measures in place for industrial development. And THE AFRICA REPORT

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Are conditions the same today as they were when these other countries emerge d economically?

The fact is that we’re doing it in very difficult circumstances globally. But also, what places like South Korea and even China more recently had which we don’t have is the opportunity to produce and export quantities of manufactured goods and sell them in the developed world.

I think those opportunities are not there any longer. So other countries, like China, will turn to their domestic market, to domestic consumption. India has got a large domestic market. We don’t have that in our own country. We have a small market – 55 million people. [...]

So our quest is to develop regional markets – which have much larger populations, much larger purchasing power – and through that develop regional value chains and industrialise the continent with regional value chains involving enterprises in a number of different countries.

So that’s the journey which we’re on. We’ve made some progress on that, and I think our industrial policy is starting to bear fruit. In many cases, many investors will want to look at that rather than the rating agency numbers. […]

But many of the global trends that have been around, including the whammy that mineral commodity-producing countries suffered after 2012, we suffered from them too.

And can you point to a particular concrete fruit of your industrial policy?

We had a clothing and textile industry that was bleeding to death in the 1990s. And we had a programme there that was based on the wrong model, which rewarded people who exported in the form of duty credits. These duty credits were often sold to retailers who bought more finished products, which undermined the industry more and more.

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So we changed that. We developed a competitiveness programme. We identified that one opportunity was called ’fast fashion’, which was to respond more quickly to the needs of retailers. And we’ve assessed that programme quite recently. [...] They saved 82,000 jobs and created 9,000 more. Now, in fact, we’ve grown. We’re seeing that retailers who were more than happy to buy imports are now seen valuing, even showing off that they are now procuring more and more local products.

Some retailers invested in clothing making in South Africa.

We’ve seen good examples in footwear, exotic leathers and things like that.

You also have an incentive scheme in the auto sector. That seems to be working to get the big players in, but how do you get the small engineering shops into these value chains?

The current programme expires in 2020. What’s going to take over? That’s the big debate.

We want to deepen the level of localisation. That’s what it’s going to be because there are many more jobs and many more opportunities. […] Getting smaller companies, particularly blackowned companies, involved in

“We want to deepen the level of localisation, because there are many more opportunities” component manufacturing will require some particular tools.

One of them is that if we’re going to provide incentives to big companies, and we expect a quid pro quo in terms of black economic empowerment, some of that has to be implemented now in what’s called supplier development. Some of them are beginning to develop value chains with small-scale, black-owned manufacturers in components.

And similarly with railways, so we have small black companies that do all kinds of things, for example, in locomotives.

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Interview by Nicholas Norbrook

Olukorede Adenowo In April, Adenowo – a veteran who joined Standard Chartered Bank in 1999 – was promoted to chief executive for operations in Senegal and Gambia.

A chartered accountant, he previously served as Standard Chartered’s boss in Sierra Leone.

Adriana Marais The South African theoretical physicist and candidate for the Mars One trip to the red planet currently has more earthly duties to attend to. In April, she became software company SAP’s head of innovation for Africa Africa.

Thiagarajan Ramamurthy The former director of operations for Kenyan retailer Nakumatt is now running Bidco Africa, a Kenya-based agribusiness founded by millionaire Vimal Shah and his family.

It marks a big change for the firm, but the Shah family will maintain key roles.

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some of those are sector specific and some of those are generic.

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ZIMBABWE

Indigenisation intrigues

The government holds up the Blanket gold mine as a success story for its indigenisation programme, but is now offering foreign-owned mining companies a softer option

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ritics say that Zimbabwe’s indigenisation drive is leading to a drying up of investment, but companies who have complied, like Canada’s Caledonia Mining Corporation, continue to commit money and make profits. Caledonian, however, is a rarity: few international companies, let alone mining houses, have gone through the controversial programme, which gives 51% ownership to locals to boost entrepreneurship and wealth generation.

The indigenisation law and its implementation have gone throughmanyupsanddownssince the regulation was first introduced in 2007. Most companies have played for time, and many firms still have not followed through on the indigenisation plans submitted to the government. In the meantime, the government has been shifting the goalposts again and is nowallowingminingcompaniesto comply with indigenisation rules by spending money locally rather selling or giving away shares.

Opponents of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government said that the programme would just enrich

the politically connected elite.

Nelson Chamisa of the opposition MovementforDemocraticChange, told reporters in 2016, when the government said it was pressing ahead with the programme: “It is basically ZANU-PFisation.”

Those companies that have indigenised have braved the risks of investing in Zimbabwe, which is in a period of extended political and economic uncertainty under 93-year-old Mugabe.

A LUCKY GAMBLE

In 2012, Caledonia was the first mining company to indigenise, after the government initially vetoed its plans to sell shares to locals and threatened to cancel its operating licence for the Blanket gold mine near Gwanda in the south.Thecompanydonateda10% stake to the Gwanda Community Share Ownership Trust and sold the remaining shares to the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund (16%), a trust for the management and employees (10%) and a littleknown Zimbabwean company called Fremiro Investments (15%) for a total of $30m.

The local investors did not have the money to pay up front,

17.6%

A record increase in gold production by the Blanket Mine, from 42,804 ounces in 2015 to 50,351 ounces in 2016.

SOURCE: CALEDONIA MINING CORPORATION

so Caledonia loaned them the money at the London Interbank Rate plus 10%. Since Caledonia is just coming off a period of major investments and the gold price has been relatively low, those investors currently owe the miner more than the face value of their loans.

Caledonia has avoided offering its opinions in public about Zimbabwean government policy, but officials have said that worries about the investment climate have been overblown. At the European Gold Forum, Curtis said: “We’ve a very experienced management team in Zimbabwe, and high quality local partners and a supportive local community. This, combined with our very good workforce, helps us perform well.”

As production levels increase, Caledonia executives are predicting rosier futures. In March, they announced that gold production during the last quarter of 2016 had increased to 13,591oz, achieving a new quarterly production record that represented an 18% increase on the last quarter of 2015. The mine also hit a new annual record underCaledonia’smanagementin 2016 – producing 50,351 ounces, a 17.6% improvement over 2015.

Blanket’s strong performance in 2016 was due to a $38m investment to improve the mine’s infrastructure in 2015 and 2016.

Lower operating costs and a higher gold price also helped.

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The opposition remains unconvinced, saying that Caledonia is just one case among scores of others where companies have droppedtheirprojectsorputthem on hold. Jacob Mafume, spokesman for the People’s Democratic Party led by former Movement for Democratic Change secretary general Tendai Biti, says: “The issue about indigenisation has never been that locals can’t run companies but that it does not make sense to compel someone who owns 100% of a company to cede 51% of the company for free.

That does not work. It prevents investment into the country.”

Oppositionists point to the problems seen in the diamond mining sector, too. Opaque shareholding structures and the

Caledonia projects that its investments will help increase annual production to 80,000oz by 2021.

Caledonia chief executive officer Steve Curtis tells The Africa Report: “The main component of the investment plan is a new shaft, called the central shaft, which is on track to commence production as planned in late 2018. Progress on implementing the investment plan has been good and in 2016 we began to see the benefits […] in the record level of production.”

ONE CASE AMONG MANY

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1,800 1,600

Zimbabwe projected 1,400 gold receipts ($m) 1,200 1,000 SOURCE: ZIMBABWE CHAMBER OF MINES

Caledonia and its partners have withstood a tough operating environment. Zimbabwean gold miners are struggling with a liquidity crisis and high unit costs of production averaging $1,170/ oz. There are also frequent power shortages, and high power tariffs.

National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board spokesperson Grace Tsvakanyi tells The Africa Report that Blanket mine, as well as companies such as Pretoria Portland Cement and RHA Tungsten, are the success stories on indigenisation and empowerment. She adds: “This effectively dispels the notion that the programme has adversely affected foreign direct investment [FDI]. There could be other factors impinging on FDI because of the harsh economic environment in the global arena.”

After indigenising and investing $38m, Caledonia’s Blanket gold mine achieved record levels of production in 2016

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2015

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2018

2019

2020

military connections of some mining companies that operated in the lucrative diamond fields of Marange, in eastern Zimbabwe, are some of the clearest suggestions that the extractive sector, particularly the diamond sector, has benefited the country’s ruling elite. In 2015 former indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere was investigated by parliament due to questions about the use of funds donated by some diamond miners to the community.

Me t a l l o n G o l d , I m p a l a Platinum, Anglo American Platinum, Aquarius Platinum, the ASA Group, New Dawn Mining Corporation, Duration Gold and Falgold are part of the long list of mining companies that have submitted their indigenisation plans and are still working to ensure full compliance with the indigenisation law. Their plans are awaiting government approval.

New regulations issued in April 2016 allow existing mines to meet their indigenisation obligations by retaining 75% of their revenue as local content, which essentially means spending their revenue on local procurement of materials and services. Early this May, mining minister Walter Chidhakwa said that given the choice between 51% local ownership and 75% local spending, many companies were keen on the spending option.

Tonderayi Mukeredzi in Harare

68 BUSINESS | COMPANIES & MARKETS

HEALTH

Pharmaceutical futures

A

frica’s often frustrating pharmaceutical sector is moving towards a regulatory makeover, which if approved will provide the prospect of faster market access for industry, and cheaper prices to the consumer.

But because individual country regulators are at very variable stages of development, consensus on the setting up of a new African Medicines Agency remains uncertain.

Pharma sector value is expected to reach $45bn by 2020. It is growing at between 6% and 11% per annum, primed by the emerging middle classes and fuelled by imports from China and India.

MADE IN AFRICA

With companies seeing the growth potential of Africa’s markets, there has been a flurry of recent activity.

For example, India’s NRB Group is setting up a $12m pharmaceuticals production plant to manufacture drugs to fight HIV and tuberculosis that will first serve the local market and then the wider Southern African region. In October 2016, Morocco’s Cooper Pharma signed a deal to build a plant to make antibiotics in the Kigali Special Economic Zone in Rwanda. The plant should be up and running in 2019.

Governments like South Africa’s and Nigeria’s are using their procurement budgets to help local manufacturers. In May, Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s government approved a local content provision that ministries

PHILLIP SCHEDLER/AMO-REA

A new initiative could streamline regulation of drugs across the continent, but policymakers have a long way to go to make the African Medicines Agency a reality

and agencies must locally source 40% of their goods and services, a move celebrated by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group. Last year, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria’s president, Ahmed Yakasai, told reporters: “Only 30-35% of medicines sold in Nigeria are produced locally.

We have agreed with the federal government to boost local drug production to 70%.”

Across the continent, the pharmaceuticals sector remains fraught with problems. High official prices and complex and often inefficient regulation leave the sector wide open to illicit imports and production.Drugs that should only be administered by qualified pharmacists receiving prescriptions from trained doctors are being sold out of wheelbarrows on market corners. The knockon impact of improper usage on bacterial resistance is well documented. And on the continent with the highest incidence of tuberculosis, the implications are profound.

Many doctors will tell their patients to go and get an antibiotic that is labelled as having 400mg of an active ingredient when they

The AMA in theory would be a win-win: companies get their drugs out more quickly, and patients are protected

70%

Nigeria’s drug production target, from the current 30-35% produced locally SOURCE: PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY OF NIGERIA

know the patient needs maybe half of that. But they do not trust the quality of the drug, so ‘to be on the safe side’ they prescribe more in the hope that their patient will at least get the desired level.

Africa represents around 11% of the world’s population, and yet it is estimated to harbour about a quarter of the global disease burden.

Put in perspective, the pharma spend still only represents 2% of the global market, despite 92% of all HIV infections being in Africa and a rapidly growing appreciation that non-communicable diseases are at a higher incidence in Africa than in Europe.

SHIFT IN ATTITUDE

Problems related to quality, price and red tape leave consumers short-changed and local manufacturers struggling to compete with large-scale foreign producers, particularly from China and India. The stark reality is that for maybe 30% of Africa’s population, pharmaceutical preparations are just not affordable; and then another 40% buy within the informal sector.

Not surprisingly, ‘big pharma’ has changed tack completely

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Deaths by non-communicable disease, as a percentage of all-cause mortality in Africa

28 SOURCE: WHO

over the past couple of decades.

Companies like GSK, Novartis and Sanofi now emphasise helping to develop health systems rather than just trying to sell drugs. A properly regulated and efficient health system will bring them much greater reward in the long term than a haphazard system that rewards the illicit traders.

There is also a big move towards the development of social businesses. It was unthinkable a few years ago, but big pharma has become a significant driver of primary health care. Here they are, helping nurses to provide essential services with efficacious drugs whilst also selling – for a profit – nutritious and affordable foods, solar lanterns and the like.

And now there is hope of taming Africa’s regulatory system which, for a continent with so many countries, has long been a significant constraint on the sector’s development. The new initiative – called the African Medicines Regulator y Harmonisation (AMRH) programme – is being overseen by the African Union (AU) and managed by the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development out of South Africa.

The problem is simple: medicines are always needed and they are big business. But if you liberalise import laws, you will get swamped with counterfeits

Other non-communicable diseases

10

Cancer

5

Diabetes Cardiovascular disease

2

11 2008

and products of uncertain origin.

If you implement strict regulation, then you drive up the cost of the medicine and increase the margins for smugglers and illicit producers. The solution proposed by the AMRH is to develop an African Medicines Agency (AMA) that can perform quality assessments on new medicines – rather than each country doing it independently. Then food and drug agencies can quickly decide which drugs to allow.

DRUG REGISTRATION

Africa would be split into five pharma trading regions that can encourage local manufacturing within each zone. The AMA would then take on the huge role of receiving registrations from manufacturers on a single template, validating the data and the manufacturing source, and

42 15 8 3 16 2030 Estimate

holding the information securely on behalf of the countries’ drug regulatory authorities. It has the potential to vastly improve the speed of getting drugs to market, something that is especially important with anti-viral therapies and treatments for emerging infections such as Ebola.

Conceived as a four-year project, the AMRH began as a resolution taken at the first joint AU/World Health Organisation Ministerial Conference held in Luanda in 2014. The draft legal and institutional framework documents on the establishment of the AMA were presented at a special side meeting of the World Health Assembly in May, and will be discussed at the third biennial AMRH conference scheduled for Accra from 27-29 November.

The roadmap anticipates formal adoption during 2018.

It would be revolutionary if the AMA can be formed and given legal status by AU member states.

But it is still going to take some huge diplomacy to get a protocol approved because of the disparities that exist between countries in terms of their technical and legal frameworks. It will be a key test of the AU’s authority and relevance to see the initiative through this negotiation stage.

Bryan Pearson and Emmanuel Milimo

70 BUSINESS | FINANCE

FELIX DLANGAMANDLA/GALLO IMAGES/FOTO24/GETTY IMAGES

The Post Office has lost a share of the delivery market to private sector companies

FINANCE

Stamp of approval Around a tenth of South Africans use Postbank as a trusted savings bank. But will the state-run post office be able to make a go of running a fully fledged bank?

A

s the African National Congress government promises “radical economic transformation” and President Jacob Zuma threatens to end the dominance of the four big banks, the state-run South African Post Office (SAPO) is set to get a full banking licence

by January 2018. With former investment banker Mark Barnes as chief executive, SAPO says it will target low-income clients and the unbanked population.

Barnes tells The Africa Report: “There is a huge market for us.

[Those in the] informal market are financingeachother,arenotpartof the banking system and are paying over the odds for their money.”

In South Africa’s competitive market for financial services, attracting those clients is likely to be a tough task. SAPO is one of several state-owned entities that has been in a steady decline.As the necessity for postal services as a means of communication has waned, the private sector has nudged into its delivery space. SAPO’s last annual

report, covering the period until March 2016, shows that revenue dropped 9% to R4.7bn ($354.7m) and its losses totalled R1.1bn, reflecting a “lack of funding, unsettled labour agreements, little progress on the corporatisation and licensing of Postbank and, if anything, a further decline in government business”.

CAPITAL INJECTION

SAPO’s banking subsidiary, Postbank, which is the vehicle for the soon-to-be licensed bank, also recorded a decline in deposits and customer numbers. Since the year end, SAPO received a R650m capital injection from the national treasury and it raised further debt funding of R2.7bn to pay for past liabilities, fund its losses and invest more than R1.5bn in capital projects over the next three years.

Financially, things look a bit precarious, but it is all systems go for the banking side of its operations. The Reserve Bank approved its first-level application towards a fully fledged banking licence in

9%

Drop in SAPO revenue to $354.7m, covering the period until March 2016 SOURCE: SOUTH AFRICA’S POST OFFICE

June 2016, which will be followed by the final granting of a licence.

Barnes has been chief executive since January 2016 and has ambitious plans. These include using the Post Office’s more than 1,500 branches and more than 750 agencies, many of which reach remote communities, as a conduit for various government services: from paying government pensions to dispensing medication and issuing identity documents.

Barnes says Postbank has more than 5.5 million loyal clients out of South Africa’s population of about 55 million people. There are many South Africans who do not trust the big banks and new technologies, and keep their savings at the Post Office, with their balances recorded in a book.

Postbank is, Barnes says, “one of the top 10 banks” and has a long history of managing people’s savings. Lending, however, is far more complicated.“Postbankdoesoperate ‘under exception’ and can take deposits, but what we are looking for now is to become a fully fledged bank, and the licence will get us into a position to start extending credit and solving the problem of banking the unbanked.” By the end of July, SAPO must submit its final documentation, after which the Reserve Bank has “some time”, whichistypicallyaboutsixmonths, to grant final approval.

The Post Office and Postbank will operate at arms’ length. “The analogy I would use is Clicks and Dis-Chem,” Barnes says, referring to two of South Africa’s pharmacy chains. “You have a pharmacy which operates with strict rules and regulations in a controlled environment, but you also sell toothbrushes and plastic ducks.”

BANKING THE POOR

In its current form, Postbank has total deposits of R5bn from 5.7m clients, and assets of R7.8bn, Barnes says. It is well managed and profitable, and there is little risk.

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other banks. It intends to bank the poor and those who do not qualify for inclusion in the formal banking sector, such as “those who are not bankable because they don’t have a title deed”, says Barnes.

He becomes combative when askedifSAPOmayhavemissedthe boat, as development agencies, a mushrooming lending sector and bank accounts aimed at lower earners have tied up some of its potential clients. “Name them,” he says. “If the boat has sailed, you wouldn’t have 80% of the population not being banked.”

A 2015 Finscope survey says that 84% of South African adults have some form of bank account.

LOWER LENDING RATES

The state could fund the bank at a relatively low cost of capital, which in turn would enable it to lend at a cheaper rate. Many people may have access to unsecured lenders, but they pay exorbitant interest, Barnes says: “We will lend at much lower rates so that the cost of debt is appropriate.” He adds: “We say it is possible to look intelligently at the informal economy, and we have reach and infrastructure.”

The Post Office’s strategy is to become the ‘national paymaster’, paying everything from state pensions to student loans and even issuing insurance products, like funeral policies. “Mail is a dying business, but parcels, essentially sourced out of e-commerce, are a growing business,” Barnes says.

“We have a three-pronged approach – e-commerce, financial services and post.” He adds that he has talked to the administration about getting involved in the management of the payment of social grants.

Barnes suggests that the next steps for Postbank will be more about evolution than revolution: “We will start gradually. We will earn our way into this market.

We have to report every month, so I think there will be a gradual proof of of our capability. There was a trust deficit in the Post Office when I got there. It was borderline deceased, and that is changing, but slowly.”

Marcia Klein in Cape Town

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Can Asia provide Africa’s Marshall Plan?

After the Second World War, the US pushed billions of dollars into Asia and Europe through the Marshall Plan and other initiatives to help them build infrastructure and support growth. Might Asia do the same for Africa?

For the east of the continent, maybe. China’s One Belt, One Road conference on 14 May – held to hammer out details of Beijing’s $3trn programme to build a new Silk Road linking Asia to Africa and Europe – attracted two African heads of state, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopia’s Hailemariam Desalegn. China certainly delivers, with a recent $4bn railway for Ethiopia completed to much fanfare.

Africa goes to Ahmedabad It was India’s turn in the spotlight in late May. Hannibal flew to the fast-growing city of Ahmedabad for the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s yearly greet fest. The city is a strategic rather than practical choice, with delegates and staff grumbling about the 40km drive to the conference location.

Some solace may be found in Manek Chowk, Ahmedabad’s bustling nighttime food market, and a hearty dose of gwalior dosa, a pancake drenched in butter. But the power politics to the location’s choice are important, too: Gujarat is the home state of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.

India’s food for thought For the AfDB Ahmedabed also offers its clients – the continent’s finance ministries and central banks – an opportunity to get closer to India’s vibrant private sector.

There are big interests at play: in mining (Coal India); infrastructure (Essar Steel); pharmaceuticals (Ranbaxy); and telecoms (Airtel). But for AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina, it is in agriculture that India-Africa cooperation and business can best flourish. “There is no reason for Africa to be a net food importer, spending $35bn a year on food imports,” says Adesina. He hopes to tap into Indian skills in agriculture, farm mechanisation, tech and railways.

Great Wall of Cash There has been a flurry of these Asia-Africa set pieces recently. Last August, the Japanese took the TICAD conference to Nairobi, the first time it was held in Africa.

In December 2015, China’s FOCAC was in Johannesburg but with an East African flavour, as Beijing’s China-Africa Industrial Cooperation Strategy is focused on Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. And this year’s World Economic Forum on Africa in early May was in Durban, which has a large Indian population. Sadly Hannibal fears this does not herald a Great Wall of Asian cash into the continent.

Raw materials remain the major preoccupation of Asian companies, despite some exceptions. If African leaders can start to demand more from their Asian counterparts – co-investments with structured tech and know-how transfers, for example – then things may be different.

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Paddies of New financing mechanisms are helping to increase rice production in Nigeria. The country has a long way to go, however, before it has the milling capacity and irrigation systems needed to become self-sufficient, and can begin seeking export markets

By Eromo Egbejule in Jega

73

F

or Namadina Jega, testing the limits of the proverb “hard work never killed anyone” has been a daily venture for the last decade. For five or six days each week, the enterprising rice farmer travels on an old Jincheng motorcycle along the dusty path to his seven farms in his hometown of Jega, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria’s Kebbi State, to tend to them from dawn till the sun goes down.

Asanoutgrower,the43-year-old sells his production to a reseller, who treats and packages the rice before selling it to uptakers who buy in large quantities. Thanks to the e-wallet scheme initiated by Akinwumi Adesina, agriculture minister under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, Jega gets an alert once a month for subsidised fertiliser rations to nurture his crops without the interference of middlemen. And a new presidential initiative to supply farmers with subsidised fertilisers, imported in conjunction with the Moroccan government, now gives Jega and his mates various options to boost their cropping.

Waste from manual postcultivation processes means that only half of production eventually gets milled

BACK TO THE LAND

ZADELIA PHOTOGRAPHY

promise

It may seem like so many things are going well in Nigeria’s rice sector. President Muhammadu Buhari has called for people to “go back to the land” amidst a recession and has predicted that the country will be self-sufficient in rice production by 2018. Critics point out that Nigeria regularly imports millions of tonnes of rice each year and that despite rising levels of production since 2014, much needs to be done in terms of infrastructure and finance. Nonetheless, a presidential aide dubiously declared in April that Nigeria was the world’s second-largest producer of rice and that exports had begun. The Africa Report went on a fact-finding mission to determine whether those claims are true and to see how well the rice sector has been doing.

There are signs of progress in many parts of the country. There are several thousand rice farmers

74 DOSSIER | AGRIBUSINESS

like Jega scattered across the state who have benefited since November 2015 from the Bank of Agriculture and Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme. Kebbi State government added seed capital of N4bn ($12.7m) to the scheme, which provides loans with single-digit interest rates. Kebbi has 78,000 documented farmers and 3,800 beneficiaries of the Anchor scheme in the town of Jega alone.

Alhaji Bello Baidu, head of a farmers’ association in Jega

Nigeria’s rice production estimate (thousand tonnes) 2014

509.8

2016

CHAD

516.4

KADUNA

534.5

398.6

KOGI

BENIN

506.1

NASARAWA CAMEROON National

6,689.9

SMUGGLING ROUTES

Meanwhile, there are a number of challenges for Nigeria’s rice farmers. First is the Land Use Act first promulgated in 1978, under which farmers are restricted to cultivating small farms and all land ultimately belongs to the government. There is also a lack of infrastructure to help small-scale farmers. Baidu, the Kebbi Statebased rice reseller, says: “There are about seven states along the

NIGER

449.4 SOURCE: NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

tonnes of rice in 2016 – up from 6.7m in 2014, and an April 2016 report from the US Department of Agriculture projected that Nigeria’s rice imports would be 2.1m tonnes from May 2016 to April 2017. Waste from manual post-cultivation processes means that only about half of Nigeria’s production eventually gets milled.

If the vast majority of the 7.9m tonnes produced last year was milled, it could meet the country’s typical annual consumption of about 7m tonnes.

Local investment in rice growing and processing is on the rise. A few players – including the likes of Olam (see page 75), a Singaporean multinational, and smaller firms like Labana – have invested in the rice sector in recent years.

Concrete magnate Aliko Dangote hasalsomooteda$1bninvestment to increase production to allow the country to meet its rice needs.

SOURCE: US DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

To boost the local rice sector, in December Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, Kebbi State’s governor and chairman of the Presidential Committee on Rice and Wheat Production in Nigeria, announced the launch of the LAKE (LagosKebbi) Rice partnership, where rice is grown in Kebbi and milled in the economic capital.

State governments are working on other ideas to boost rice production. In nearby Zamfara State, farmers in Yakoforji get free water for their crops from irrigation channels that are at least 30km long all the way from the Bakolori Dam. Not so far away, 15 farms spanning several thousand hectares and belonging to Ahmed Yerima, a former governor of the state, have Chinese engineers manning heavy machinery.

However, both local players and officials in Abuja cast doubt on claims about rice exports and self-sufficiency. “Anyone who tells you we are exporting rice is a liar,” says Alhaji Bello Baidu emphatically. The 56-year-old head of a dry season farmers’ association in Jega is one of a few resellers who supervises the operations of a large number of outgrowers.

“We don’t produce enough rice for our sustenance here in Nigeria even, and so many people smuggle rice in from Benin Republic and Niger Republic. If you say we are exporting pepper and onions, I can agree. But not rice.”

Lending credence to this, Yemi Kale, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, tells The Africa Report: “There was no export of rice in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016.” Nigeria produced 7.9m

EROMO EGBEJULE

BOOSTING PRODUCTION

stretch of the River Niger, from Kebbi to Bayelsa alone, and we have a combined production of about 1.7m hectares with 4tn/ ha currently. What of the areas along the Rivers Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna etc., where there is rice-growing potential? With two croppings or cultivations per year, we can almost feed Nigeria.”

Nigeria’s strict policies discouraging rice imports mean that merchants on both sides of the borders with Niger and Benin have become experts at finding new smuggling routes. The costs involved in smuggling are also passed along the chain to the consumer, with a hike in prices over the past year by more than 100%. A 50kg bag of imported rice currently sells for N19,000–20,000 ($62-65), compared to about N10,000 for homegrown varieties.

The local rice could be even cheaper, but the diesel for generators and levies imposed by local authorities keep prices elevated.

Farmers typically buy only seed varieties with short maturity dates to use less fuel. A downside is that those varieties have smaller yields.

7,852.4

Sub-Saharan Africa rice imports (million tonnes) 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Nigeria

2010

2011

Other SSA

2012

2013

2014

2015

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There has not been any recent policy focused on improving the quantity and quality of rice produced in the country. Under former agriculture minister Adesina, there was a strategic plan to create a rice boom, but it never became policy.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY GOALS

Professor Olumuyiwa Osiname, who worked on the rice strategy with Adesina and is now at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, says that efforts must be coordinated if Nigeria hopes to become anywhere near self-sufficient. "If what we want is an import-substitution policy, we should concentrate on areas where we can get industrial rice [quantities] and not small-scale farming that will sustain only small farmers and their families. States to focus on are Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger and Katsina. There are big dams in these states, and they can grow irrigated rice twice a year. [...] If we concentrate on 10 states like this, we can handle 70% of our needs.”

Debisi Araba, regional director for Africa at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, says that players need to address “critical failures along the value chain. [...] We should focus on increasing milling capacity and efficiency, which will in turn provide signals for increased crop production. There is urgent need to develop site-specific irrigation systems, small-scale dams and connecting farms with functioning roads. The public sector also needs to evolve strategies where public funds de-risk and stimulate private investments along the entire chain.”

Last year, many civil servants began to acquire farmland across Kebbi and Zamfara states, given the success of the Anchor Borrowers lending scheme. But they still rely on the likes of Jega, who has no formal training and no machinery – but plenty of experience in the field – to help nurture their crops to maturity.

Nigeria’s new rice generation, like the economy it seeks to improve, is now in slow motion.

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Ade Adefeko

Vice-president, corporate and government relations, Olam

Farmers big and small

T

he Singaporean agribusiness Olam is taking a greater interest in Nigeria’s potential. Olam set up a 10,000ha rice farm and a rice mill in Nasarawa State in 2013.

As of December 2016, 4,450ha were already under cultivation and the firm was expanding its outgrower programme, which works with smallholders in the area.

like the International Rice Research Institute, the Africa Rice Center, CIRAD in France, Cornell University and the Rice Research and Training Center in Egypt.

Apart from the above, Olam has an internal research and development facility to develop and adapt seeds to the local conditions, a seed cleaning plant and a state-of-the-art rice mill.

TAR: Is Nigeria ready for selfCost-wise, how does local milling sufficiency and possible exports compare to importing rice? in, say, 2019?

Local costs are high due to lack ADE ADEFEKO: Let us not overreach of infrastructure, fuel costs and the high ourselves by talking about export. cost of raw materials. For instance, a This cannot be legislated but must tonne of fully packaged rice can be bought be clearly articulated via a policy in Thailand for $380 free on board, while that encourages local production through a tonne of paddy in Nigeria costs N150,000 providing improved seeds, pesticides ($470). This is paddy, and if you convert and herbicides, fertiliser, financing, to rice terms, the cost is $826/tn as you training, as well as proper irrigation. recover only 60% as head rice! So, overall, We are in the lead on this at Olam, as the cost is very high. The major component we do two cropping cycles and exceed is the extremely high cost of paddy. the national average yield of about 1.8tn/ha, “We want to act as catalysts, as we do about close to equipping smallholder farmers 10tn if you add dry and to secure their future” wet season [together].

Government has made considerable progress though, Is smuggling still a big problem? with the Central Bank of Nigeria Anchor Nigeria consumes almost 7m tonnes Borrowers Programme that loops in of rice, and there is a gap of nearly 3m thousands of farmers. But they need tonnes between production and to combat smuggling from the ports consumption. Almost 2m tonnes of rice and land borders, which makes local rice is smuggled into the country annually. more expensive and largely unaffordable.

I am a proponent of fiscal measures Is President Muhammadu Buhari’s via tariffs and levies to bring in rice import-substitution policy working? legitimately to fill in the gap over a defined Are you working with the government period while investment in backward on this? integration is pursued. This has worked We are involved in the Anchor Borrowers for cement and sugar, and I don’t see Programme: we have assisted over 5,000 any reason why it cannot work for rice. local smallholder farmers since 2013, and 25,000tn of paddy has been produced.

How does Olam use technology Profits per farmer per hectare have to secure and increase productivity? increased from about N305,000 to over Olam is into large-scale farming N1.2m. Olam hopes to scale this up to and uses state-of-the-art technologies about 20,000 farmers, as we want to act like: LiDAR, normalised difference as catalysts by providing training and vegetation index images and yield maps. improved rice varieties, equipping the […] Olam also draws on knowledge smallholder famers to secure their future.

Interview by E.E. from various international institutions

DOSSIER | AGRIBUSINESS

Purple tea leaves are said to be rich in an antioxidant which could offer health benefits

TEA

Purple shoots of progress

As a drought wreaks havoc on agricultural output across the country, Kenya is trying to boost production of drought-resistant crops like purple tea

U

nlike other tea farmers in Kericho, a lush highland plain atop Kenya’s Rift Valley, Thomas Cheruiyot’s tea trees did not all dry up during the drought earlier this year.

Cheruiyot has 5,000 trees of black tea and 1,000 trees of purple tea – a heartier speciality variety that is more resistant to drought and other threats that was first grown in the Mount Kenya region – on his two-acrefarminKapcheptoror.He had carefully pruned his crops to increase their chances of survival.

Other tea farmers in the area were not as lucky as Cheruiyot.

The long drought has made tea leaves dry and reduced their ability to sprout fast. As a result, Kenya’s tea production is set to hit a new low this year.

The most recent figures from the government-run Tea Directorate, which licenses manufacturers and advises policy, shows that production for the month of February dropped by more than half from 54m kg last year to 22.6m kg this year.

Kenya’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture. The country is Africa’s largest exporter of tea and the fourth-largest producer of tea worldwide. Around 10% of the Kenyan population depends on tea for their livelihoods. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, tea contributes 4% to the country’s gross domestic product. Last year, tea export earnings amounted to $1.2bn, a slight drop from the $1.3bn earned in 2015, according to the Agriculture and Food Authority.

HIGHER SELLING PRICE

The country’s tea agency is betting on drought-resistant varieties and speciality teas in order to avert future shocks and boost earnings for the industry. “Our target is that 5% of tea production should be speciality tea, of which 50-70% should be purple tea,” Samuel Ogola, managing director of Kenya’s Tea Directorate, tells The Africa Report. “So we are talking about 25m kg of tea being purple

$1.2bn Kenya’s tea export earnings in 2016, a slight drop from $1.3bn in 2015 SOURCE: UN’S FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION

and other speciality teas.” Kenyan farmers are particularly keen on purple tea, as it can weather poor growing conditions and has a higher selling price.

According to the country’s Tea Research Institute (TRI), purple tea is rich in anthocyanin, a special antioxidant said to deliver health benefits. The TRI developed purple tea over a period of more than two decades to help strengthen the country’s export diversification. The variety is resistant to drought, frost, disease and pests and is also high-yielding. The directorate is encouraging farmers to grow it.

“We are meeting growers in each county, telling them that now they can get a licence to process their own purple tea,” says Ogola. The Tea Directorate is also betting on the adoption of about 50 other drought-resistant strains of tea that have been developed by researchers in the industry.

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78 DOSSIER | AGRIBUSINESS

to boost speciality tea farming. But there is a long way to go. In 2015, Kenya produced just 427,000kg of speciality tea, compared to 443m kg of black tea.

3.23 3.56 United Kingdom

plant also processes white, green and some speciality teas.

The other KTDA-managed tea factories, in Michimikuru and Itumbe, have the capacity to process purple tea, but operations in these factories have not yet begun.

“The [market for] speciality teas, including purple tea, is still young, and KTDA is also making efforts to expand the markets,” says John Bett, the authority’s marketing manager. Currently, the KTDA exports small shipments of less than 300kg to Britain, China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Martin Kabaki, chief executive officer of Kenyan Purple Tea – a company selling and promoting the product – is optimistic about the potential for purple tea.

“Kenyan purple tea has the potential to put Kenya on the speciality tea map similar to what Matcha has done for Japan,” he says.

Top 3 Kenyan tea importers (million kgs)

12.81 9.34 9.48

8.26

Pakistan

Egypt

KENYA

are capable of processing them.

In a series of new regulations, the directorate relaxed the requirements for starting a cottage factory. Previously, 250 hectares of speciality tea were needed in order for one to set up a factory, but it is now just 20 hectares.

“Two or three growers can pool together and set up a cooperative or a company and get a licence to process,” says Ogola.

Since relaxing the rules last September, the directorate has licensed seven purple tea factories, and others are in the pipeline.

The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), which is an umbrella agency for smallholder tea farmers, operates three of these factories, but they are not yet operational. One group in Kangaita is growing 15 acres of purple tea as a pilot programme. The Kangaita

July 2015 July 2016

HEALTH-CONSCIOUS TYPES

Purple tea processing involves hand rolling, while black tea is torn and crushed

JUSTEAKENYA

SOURCE: KENYA TEA DIRECTORATE

PROCESSING PROBLEMS

Back in the lush rolling highlands of Kenya’s Rift Valley, Cheruiyot planted purple tea when he heard of its drought-resistant qualities and higher prices. But his enthusiasm for the crop soon waned because his region lacked the infrastructure for processing speciality teas.

He had assumed that the purple teawould beprocessedinthesame factories that process black tea.

“I planted 1,000 tea trees in 2014 and when I started picking, [the distributor] could not payme more thanwhattheywereofferingforthe ordinary tea,” says Cheruiyot. Due to the lack of capacity, the processor mixed the purple with black tea and paid farmers the typical rate of $0.14/kg. Cheruiyot then sold his purple tea to a purple tea factory in a neighbouring county, but it stopped buying his supplies after a while. He got $0.80/kg, significantly higher than the price for black tea. Purple tea processing involves hand rolling, which is a different method than the traditional crush, tear, curl procedure used for handling black tea.

To boost production of purple tea and other speciality varieties, the government is encouraging the creation of new factories that

Kabaki started by exporting 400kg of purple tea in 2016 to the US and now says his company is on the way to exporting 10tn per annum.

“The market potential for Kenyan purpleteaintheUSisgreat,andwe have not even scratched the surface yet,” Kabaki argues. “I recently showcased the Kenyan purple tea at Expo West, which is the biggest food and beverage tradeshow in North America. The interest that I received was overwhelming.”

For now, the specialist grows will continue focusing on niche markets in developed economies.

Locally, speciality tea consumption is still small. According to the Tea Directorate’s Tea Industry Performance Report issued in February, local consumption of all types of tea dropped to 2.2m kg in the month of February as compared to 2.26m kg over the same period last year. This has not spoiled the growers’ optimism for the longer term. “Speciality tea has picked up very fast even in Kenya. It is in high demand by the urban population. But then, this population – including those who are health conscious and trendy – is not too big,” says Ogola.

Anthony Langat in Nairobi

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80 DOSSIER | AGRIBUSINESS

ETHIOPIA

Seeking an end to the starvation cycle

ERIC LAFFORGUE/ART IN ALL OF US/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Ethiopia is rolling out programmes to protect vulnerable people against the country’s worst droughts in half a century

B

odiesofdeadcattlelitterthe groundaroundthecentreof a small town in the Warder Zone of Ethiopia’s Somali Region.

The area’s population – one of the hardest-hit by the latest drought – has lost as much as 90% of its cattle since 2014. Many women and children have fled their villages, and the men are searching for pasture for their remaining animals.

Ethiopia is struggling to cope with the devastating impacts of the recent drought caused by the El Niño weather pattern. The number of people in need of emergency food aid has risen by two million since the beginning of the year, reaching 7.8 million. The government is appealing for $1bn in emergencyhumanitarianfunding.

“We have witnessed a rapid rise in the number of people seeking food assistance in the past couple of months,” Mitiku Kassa, head of Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission, tells The Africa Report.

SOARING PRICES

The east of the country is the worst affected. Intensified drought, flooding and extreme frost have led to crop failures, Mitiku says.

Soaring food prices are adding to the problem across the country. According to the national statistics agency, year-on-year food inflation has risen to 12.6% despite government attempts to rein it in. The price of staple foods such as barley, maize, sorghum, teff and wheat have risen beyond the reach of many.

The government was initially well prepared to deal with rising food insecurity, but the country

has been hit by drought every year for the past three years. Aid groups lauded the government for averting catastrophes in recent years, and Save the Children described the recent droughts as the country’s worst in 50 years. At the height of the crisis, an estimated 10.2 million people were in need of emergency food assistance, but no deaths from starvation were officially registered.

Because of the droughts’ lasting damage to agricultural production, farmers are estimated to need four years to recover from asset depletion. The sector is critical to the rest of the economy. Agriculture contributesabout50%tothecountry’s gross domestic product. The sector generates 90% of export earnings and supplies about 70% of the country’s raw materials for secondary activities, according to the World Food Programme.

The Addis government has been responding to the drought primarily by distributing food and cash to those affected. In 2005, the government launched its Productive Safety Net Programme, which is now supporting eight million people across the country. The programme aims to increase families’ long-term resilience to food shortages by providing food and

Ethiopia recognises that pastoralists need specific support to prepare for times of drought

$1bn Amount of emergency humanitarian assistance Ethiopia needs as the number of people affected by the drought hits 7.8 million SOURCE: ETHIOPIAN GOVERNMENT

cash transfers, often in exchange for work on projects that benefit the community. In early May, the World Bank said it would contribute $100m to the programme.

PROMOTING RESILIENCE

The government has madeachieving food security one of the main target areas in its second Growth and Transformation Plan, a fiveyear development agenda.

“Strengthening disaster prevention and response ability as well as ensuring adequate and timely transfers and promoting resilience among chronically food-insecure households is our focus,” a spokesman for the country’s Agricultural Transformation Agency tells The Africa Report. “[The plan] also seeks to address issues of nutrition in a more systematic way. In addition to chronically food-insecure households, the [plan] identifies pastoralists and agro-pastoralists as requiring specific support.”

Crises in neighbouring countries are complicating the picture for Ethiopia. Ongoing conflict and a similar food crisis in Somalia are driving refugees across the border into Ethiopia. Many refugees from Eritrea and South Sudan are also settling in Ethiopia.

Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa

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INTERVIEW

“Everything that lives is by God” Shortlisted for another music award this month, Stonebwoy’s prizes are as prolific as his hits. But counting his silverware is not what motivates this paradoxically quiet man of the dancehall scene Interview by Shingai Darangwa in Johannesburg

t’s just past 8pm on a Friday night and the narrow, winding road that leads to the Fairway Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort is plunged into darkness by an electricity outage. When I eventually arrive and enter the five-star hotel on Johannesburg’s prestigious Randburg golf course I cross paths with a hotel staffer holding a bucket full of alcoholic beverages. He, too, is headed for the suite where Ghanaian reggae-dancehall superstar Stonebwoy is posted up for a week.

Ten or so people, an even mix of men and women from the musician’s entourage, are crammed into a smallish room. A few more are camped by the balcony area overlooking the hotel’s pristine lawns. Bottles of Hennessy are scattered across the room and there’s a thick blunt on rotation. Stonebwoy isn’t here. I’m offered a drink by one of this posse who is entertaining the others by playing music off his iPhone.

He explains that Stonebwoy is wrapping up a meeting nearby and will be joining us soon.

When Stonebwoy, with his distinctive thinly knotted dreadlocks running down the side of his shaven head, walks in about 30 minutes later the energy in the room amplifies. The smiles grow broader and the music gets louder.

He reaches for the blunt and shares a joke with a few of the others before heading out again, his manager, Blakk Cedi, trailing close behind.

His PR person arrives and we move to another room where Stonebwoy awaits. I ask him how he’s doing. He responds by reaching for my recorder and theatrically running through some Jamaican patois: “Uh huh. Ya maan.

Respect. Bless up. Man up. Reeeespect.”

At the time of our interview he is revving up to make the pilgrimage – like many of his West African dancehall predecessors and contemporaries – to the land of dancehall itself, Jamaica.

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FOCUSGH_PHOTOS

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84 ART & LIFE

His inspirations: the albums “Not only do these albums contain fine and unique style coated with melodies that heal the mind spirit, but together they are an archive for future talented generations to be inspired by” Blunted on Reality Fugees “The album, with its hip hop and reggae, blends so well and takes me into a trance”

Dutty Rock Sean Paul

“Unearthed another side of dancehall for me; I began finetuning that part of me as well”

Exodus Bob Marley

“This album is ‘reggae’ in its most diverse form. I learned a lot from it”

I Ternal Fire Capleton

“This internal fire is why my name is ‘BURN IT ON’.

I love the energy and the delivery”

Grass to Grace 2face

“This album opened my heart to a future sound that inspired my musical process”

Caribbean has even seen him branch out into collaborations with Trinidadian soca artists.

But for now he is in South Africa to shoot a few scenes of MTV’s popular teen lifestyle television show, MTV Shuga. “We’ve been doing (big things) for quite a while now, and it’s only getting bigger,” he says. “I know that you can only be an A-lister to get on the MTV Shuga. As artists, our job is seen like fun, but you’re still working. So I never get to do anything extraordinary. But I enjoy seeing people, making contacts and just linking up with new people.”

His previous visit to South Africa was in October for the 2016 MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs), where he was nominated for Best Live Act and performed at the show. Stonebwoy has built a reputation as one of the continent’s most prolific performers, and he thrives on that: “I believe that’s the time where you have to break the song down or reinterpret the song for the people to understand,” he says. “So whilst they are sitting there. This is the time for you to strip it down and make

it work for them. I put a lot into my performance. That’s your opportunity to interact with them.”

In 2015, Stonebwoy’s significant footing on the African music scene was recognised with a BET award for Best International Act (Africa). He won several other awards that year, including Best African Reggae, Ragga & Dancehall at the African Muzik Magazine Awards (Afrimma), and has since maintained an impressive showing at award shows.

RAP TO RICHES

Before the prospect of silverware presented itself to him, Stonebwoy was a venomous battle rapper tearing up the streets in his neighbourhood in the coastal city of Tema. He started gaining traction beyond his local community when he was a contestant on a popular radio rap show, Kasahare Level.

After the show, he teamed up with the already famous reggae-dancehall star Samini, who took him under his wing and helped him craft his unique sound.

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His inspirations: the artists Sean Paul “He has an appealing style which is so different from the usual dancehall we all know”

Samini “I love his energy.

Also, he carved the niche for the African dancehall genre”

Capleton

COCACOLAAFRICA

“I love his energy, style and conciousness”

Bob Marley “I love his teachings and his message”

Interacting with the audience is key to his musicianship: “to strip it down and make it work for them”

Stonebwoy released several wildly popular singles in 2012 – including ‘Climax’ and ‘Ghetto Love’, off his debut album, Grade #1. Then came the anthemic ‘Pull Up’, a song that transcended the Ghanaian border. In 2015 Stonebwoy featured Patoranking, the Nigeria powerhouse he’s often pitted against by the media and at the continent’s biggest shows, on the ‘Pull Up’ Remix. “We met in Ghana around 2009 at a karaoke type programme,” he says of their relationship. “A couple years down the line, in 2013, when he started blowing up I was like, ‘That’s the brother from day.’”

By and large, Stonebwoy’s is a serious persona, often devoid of the easy-going characteristics associated with his more flamboyant peers. He’s decidedly reserved and maybe even spiritual, referencing Jah often in conversation.

On the questions where I try to get to know more about him on a personal level he returns one-word answers or says plainly: “I don’t really know.”

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2face “He is melodious and has captivating high pitch with a soul that comes across in a typical chant that can be heard in a reggae song”

“I have one philosophy, which is that I know that everything that lives is by God and His Imperial Majesty,” he says.

“Even with the music, we have to praise Jah. In everything we do we have to praise Jah, we have to call on His name.”

This is why he refers to his fans as BHIM (Bless His Imperial Majesty) Natives.

LOVE SONG

A week later, I arrive at the state-ofthe-art Multichoice Studios to find Stonebwoy seated at a small café next to one of this massive television and film complex’s studios. It’s a few minutes before he goes live on one of South Africa’s premier music shows, Channel O’s Turn Up. He heads for the dressing room before emerging with a showy black outfit, complete with a diamondencrusted Hublot wristwatch, a pair of silver and black-stoned bracelets and two gold necklaces.

A few days before, on Valentine’s Day, he’d released a surprise video for his new single, a love song called ‘One Thing’. After his appearance on the show, I ask him how that came about. “That’s a new song we recorded towards the end of last year,” he says.

“I was just looking for the right time to release it and we felt like Valentine’s was the right time to do so because it’s a love song that people can relate to.”

The video sees Stonebwoy partaking in the dab, a popular dance move you wouldn’t have ordinarily associated with him. “Music and dance go together,” he explains, his eyes fixed on his cellphone. “At every point in time there’s a craze that everybody gets to kind of feel off. It’s just about that.”

Back from Kingston, Stonebwoy bags yet more silverware, this time at the Ghana Music Awards, when he wins Reggae/Dancehall Song of the Year for ‘People Dey’ and Reggae/Dancehall Artiste of the Year for the third time in a row. And he has a chance to take back his Best International Act title, for which he’s nominated at the BET Awards.

Stonebwoy’s always believed that he was cut from a different cloth. Despite a relatively timid demeanour, his is a lofty sense of belief that’s only been heightened by his success. “If I am being awarded on the biggest stages for serving people with music which gets them fulfilled one way or the other, then I am a happy person,” he says. “It’s just amazing that I’m getting the recognition and the awards for the job that I’m doing.”

86 ART & LIFE

Inua Ellams

Black pen power in Soweto

Books Decolonising the literary landscape

The Abantu Book Festival is part of a movement to force publishing out of its white cocoon

I

n May 2015, Thando Mgqolozana, then a 31-year-old author with three novels under his belt, announced, while sitting on a panel at the Time of the Writer Festival in Durban, that he was opting out of the “white literary system” and would no longer participate in book festivals that made him feel like an anthropological subject.

Two years on, he says that the decision has not cost him anything financially. If anything, it has freed up his time to do more writing and to organise alternatives to the “colonial literary landscape”. This has resulted in the first Abantu Book Festival. Held in Soweto in December 2016, it brought together writers like NoVioletBulawayo, Yewande Omotoso, Zukiswa Wanner and Mongane Wally Serote, as well as musicians and poets like Thandiswa Mazwai, Lesego Rampolokeng and “It’s about honouring Koleka Putuma, for panel literature’s power to widen discussions, readings, horizons […] for everyone” poetry, music, food and a chance to buy books.

Mgqolozana and his team, which includes fellow author Panashe Chigumadzi, see the festival as a model that can influence not only consumption but production as well. “In the first edition over 800 books by black writers were sold daily for three days […]. This, in the context of a society that believes black people don’t read, don’t buy books, and aren’t interested in literature or literary activity. So you could say that Abantu Book Festival is a myth-busting move.”

In the face of a book industry entrenched in outdated elitism, the debate about decolonising literature is getting noisier by the day – on the internet, in academia, and on the ground – even if not everyone can agree on how it should be interpreted. For Grace A. Musila, associate professor at Stellenbosch University, it is about “honouring literature’s power to widen horizons and enlarge worlds […] for everyone, not a chosen few. It is about getting to the point where Sol Plaatje enjoys the same [value] as Thomas Hardy; where matriculants know Jack Mapanje’s poetry as fluently […] as they know Shakespeare’s sonnets; and where Afrophone language writing will enjoy as much attention as Anglophone or Francophone writing – and, at the very least, be readily available in bookstores in the same way.”

Neo Maditla in Johannesburg

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Nigerian playwright

It’s a place where men can talk

Therapy, relationship counselling and style advice: Nigerian playwright Inua Ellams’ new play looks into the goingson in black barber shops

I

nua Ellams is nothing if not ambitious. The Nigerian writer and performer’s new play, which starts a six-week run at London’s National Theatre in June, invites audiences to listen to conversations from the barber’s chair across Africa and the UK, as men try to fix the world and themselves.

“I am trying to explore the complexity of African masculinity on the continent, and I want to do it here because often we tend to be tarred with the same brush,” says Ellams.

The timing of Barber Shop Chronicles hitting the stage in London is propitious, just months after British cinema audiences flocked to watch Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. These films are wildly different in approach but both are fearless examinations of personal identity, sexuality and racism. Ellams reveals that his play covers similar themes.

“What I took from Get Out was this phrase ‘gas-lighting’ – when we feel something is off but we don’t quite know what it is and can’t articulate it, but know it is because of

Leap of Faith Juls BBnZ Live

Don’t go looking for Mr Eazi on Leap of Faith. Though the Nigerian artist’s breakout success has its beginnings in songs produced by Juls, like ‘Bankulize (Remix)’ and ‘Skin Tight’ – widely acknowledged as the game-changing records that took the Afrobeats bpm down a few notches, subsequently creating a sexier if more THE AFRICA REPORT

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KINSHASA 2050 Until 10 June KINSHASA | DRC Seven Congolese artists present their visions for the future of Kinshasa at the Goethe Institut. goethe.de/kinshasa

[our] race,” he says. “At the end of the play a young man [Ethan] comes into the barber shop and this is the conversation he has with the barber where he begins to question his sense of self, his sense of worth and his lack of ability or opportunity to articulate, and how he’s just looking for places where he can talk and for people who will listen.

It is one of the strongest strands of the play, and one of the most emotive.”

Ellams says: “The play is written for men to come and hear their conversations, their fears, their hopes and dreams on stage. It is written for African men in the diaspora and on the continent, so they can see how universal and important their conversations are.”

So why the barber shop setting? “Barber shops tend to be the only places where men with a certain amount of money have a legitimate reason to go out and leave their families and kids, and sit down and just talk to one another,” says Ellams. “I wanted to show that communal enjoyment of masculinity.”

restrained rendition of the generally up-tempo subgenre – Eazi is noticeably absent from this, Juls’s debut album. Instead, a host of bubbling Naija newcomers interpret Juls’s sonic ambitions: Odunsi, Nonso Amadi, Santi, Tomi Agape’s R&B and dancehall-tinged vocals pour and settle comfortably into the mould fashioned by the DJ/producer, THE AFRICA REPORT

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The play isn’t just for men, he insists.

Women “will see the conversations they have with their own friends reflected […] about fatherhood, money, racism, music, slang words and their usage, pidgin English and how important it is. It is about love, and the complexities and different ways in which you can love an individual.” They will also find an answer to the eternal question: “Why are they spending three hours getting their hair cut, what are they talking about?”

Above all, the subject matter is real. Ellams says 50-60% of the dialogue is reproduced verbatim from conversations he overheard while researching for the play in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana. “I didn’t invent these characters and I didn’t invent these conversations. This is what I found,” he says.

Ellams hopes to take Barber Shop Chronicles on tour across Africa. “No doubt it will have a second life,” he says. “But I don’t know where just yet.”

Interview by Ben Fox

evidently influenced as much

by Don Jazzy as he is by J. Dilla. The Ghanaian poet/MC Kojey Radical featuring on ‘Temperature Rising’ stretches far left on Juls’ already extensive scale of production.

And party-starting hit ‘Bad’, with an appearance from UK grime’s current golden boy Kojo Funds, provides the soft landing for this audacious project.

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ART TWENTY ONE

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BUS NUT Until 18 June ATLANTA | US Akosua Adoma Owusu re-articulates the Montgomery bus boycott through the medium of a school bus safety video. atlantacontemporary.org

SEASON II Until 25 June LAGOS | NIGERIA Solo exhibition by sculptor Olu Amoda (above: Medium Sunflower II). art21lagos.com

EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING Until 30 June JOHANNESBURG | SOUTH AFRICA Jo Ractliffe explores the photograph ‘without purpose’: reel ends or test shots as accidental gems. stevenson.info

TUSHAURIANE – LET’S TALK ABOUT IT Until 29 July LONDON | UK Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga’s wall-hanging sculptures from metallic waste. octobergallery.co.uk

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TWITTER TRENDS #NASAFlagbearer

Inna Modja

As election season heats up in Kenya, the newly formed Nasa coalition named veteran oppositionist Raila Odinga as its candidate for the top job

The Malian singer, actress and women’s rights activist is touring with her album Motel Bamako What’s the best concert you’ve ever seen?

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Lauryn Hill. She’s so iconic. I love her so much. She opened the door for a lot of us. She’s an amazing rap artist, a hip hop legend.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever performed?

We’ve been touring for over a year and a half now so it’s hard to choose, but recently in Brazil for the last day of the Carnival was amazing, so much energy and love. WOMAD was also amazing.

Bruno Mwas @MwasMosaic

What music do you listen to for a pick-me-up?

I’ve been listening to a lot of Gorillaz recently on the plane.

Unveiling the #NASAFlagbearer

How do you chill out?

Asiko Ondigo @e9cf15ed9e77405

I do a lot of yoga on the beach and at home. It’s a great way to relax.

A Raila-Kalonzo NASA ticket is like a RE-CONDITIONED Car. Looks GOOD and smells NEW; but Runs like an OLD JALOPY Matatu. #NASAFlagbearerr

Who, living or dead, would you take on a tropical island for a week?

I’ll take my boyfriend, Marco!

He’s so fun to be around and we also work together.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

Shades_254 @two_shades_down

So baba will never get tired of losing #NASAFlagbearer

When someone says that I inspired them to go and get what they dreamed about.

AllI HUSSEIN @mwalimu001

The secret to happiness is…?

Last kicks of dying horse #NASAFlagbearer

Doing whatever you want. Just listen to your heart and be what you want to be, do what you want to do, what makes you happy.

You don’t need to follow any standards. You just have to be you and that’s enough.

Research Consultant @Rube_Mfalme

I baptize u in the name of new Alliance, Ye shall be now known as Nasarite instead of CORDEshian. Spread the Gospel to all #NASAFlagbearer

What would you like people to remember about you?

RAILA cannot win.

The exciting feeling you’re experiencing is what all ARSENAL fans feel in October #NASAFlagbearer

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THE SEASON @castrofy26

That I was a cool person [laughs]. I’m just passing by doing my thing, just trying to bring a little moment of fun and hope.

Interview by Ruby Boukabou

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TRAVEL ALGIERS

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The white walls of Algiers

Algiers charms with its Mediterranean harbour views, hilly terrains, Moorish architecture and golden night lights. Here’s how to soak up its splendour in 48 hours

S

tart your morning by inhaling the scent of roses, eating sweet pastries and sipping strong kahwa (coffee) on the terrace of the café downhill from the central neo-moorish Grande Poste. Then check out the old postcards from the street stores to get ready to dip into the Algiers of days past.

The Casbah (1), Algiers’ old town, is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed citadel dating back to the 16th century. Several museums are situated within it. Best to get familiar beforehand with this important location in the Algerian revolutionby watching Gillo Pontecorvo’s docudrama The Battle of Algiers. Descending through the labyrinth of narrow lanes you’ll pass stores where you can buy local honey, herbal remedies, dates and gondoras (traditional Algerian dresses). There’s a great book store, Librairie du Tiers Monde, on Place Emir Abdelkader (2).

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ALL PICTURES BY LAHCÈNE ABIB/SIGNATURES

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Stroll back along the port to the main drag on rue Didouche Mourad and stop at number 54: Lalla Mina. This former cabaret is now a restaurant where you can taste traditional Algiers meals like rechta (angel hair pasta and white sauce) and couscous, of course.

Now for a spot of shopping on Didouche Mourad: Ahlam Nid d’Amour at number 90 has gorgeous dresses for a special occasion.

Next, back on the museum trail: perhaps the Musée des Beaux Arts, the Bardo (prehistory and ethnography), or the Musée de l’Armee. Make sure to visit the Maqam Echahid monument to pay homage to the martyrs who died in the fight for the country’s independence.

Relax in the stunning Jardin d’Essai du Hamma (4), the botanical gardens established in 1832 – a slice of paradise in the sometimes hectic metropolis. Get

your Instagram glee under the enormous treewheretheoriginalTarzanwasfilmed!

Plunge into a fresh seafood dinner at the Dolphin, perched over the bay. If you’re not ready to hit the sack take a taxi to the Portuguese night spot Piano Piano for a dance, or linger over a nightcap on the terrace of El-Aurassi hotel with its view over the golden-lit city.

The next day head up to Mont Bouzareah to visit the magnificent 19th-century neo-Byzantine Notre Dame d’Afrique basilica (2) and be blown away by the interiors and the view.

Now it’s time for what may be the highlight of your trip. An hour’s drive out of town is Tipasa, another UNESCO World Heritage site where you will see ancient Phoenician, Roman and Byzantine ruins.

As always, souvenir markets are close by, and you can take a short boat ride after your tour, or stroll along the port where fishmongershawkfreshlycaughtprawns.

Back in Algiers, head to the Hôtel St George El Djazair for an apéritif and dinner on the flower-scented terrace, then drift off to the whispers and stories of former guests: Edith Piaf, Simone de Beauvoir and Winston Churchill.

Ruby Boukabou in Algiers

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and decided that this was the career for me. In January 2004, I joined Stellekaya, a privately owned boutique wine producer in the heart of the Cape Winelands.

My first red wine won a gold medal at the prestigious Michelangelo awards and I was named Landbouweekblad Woman Winemaker of the year in 2009.

There have been a lot of changes in the wine industry. Post-1994, winemakers went outside the country and brought back new ideas from around the world.

Young winemakers were also excited to try unknown cultivars rather than sticking to the normal cabernets and merlots.

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PERFECT BLEND

Growing it alone Ntsiki Biyela, the first ever black female winemaker in South Africa, is making her mark in the world of wine

I

had no idea about wine. I had never tasted it before and didn’t know that it existed. When I finished high school, South African Airways were offering scholarships in oenology. To further my education I took the opportunity.

It wasn’t easy studying at Stellenbosch University. My lectures were mostly given in Afrikaans, a language I didn’t speak or understand. So I had to learn the majority of the material using notes in English. But I continued

working hard, which is something I was used to doing from my time as a child growing up in Mahlabathini in Zululand.

Just like any other industry that you get into that you don’t know, it’s difficult. For me, it was the fear of knowing that the industry is white and full of men.

But when I started, I had support.

I felt that it was okay.

I got a part-time job at Delheim Wine Estate. From there, it wasn’t long before I fell in love with wine

Right now, I think we are in the middle of both worlds. There’s a New World wine style and an Old World wine style. The combination brings the best into the vines. For example, blends were previously perceived as something that was lower-end. But now we focus on saying that blended wines are the premium wines. Also, consumers are getting excited. And without them getting excited about trying new things, there’s no room for us to experiment.

Most wineries are family-owned so to talk about transformation in a family-owned business, people feel like you’re invading the family values. And the culture of the industry, when you come in as a black person, doesn’t feel welcoming. But when you’ve been in it for a long time, you make friends and things look different.

Some people will always say that I’m the first black female winemaker, which is fine. I’m okay with that; I’ve got no issues with it because I can’t deny that. I am the first black female winemaker.

It’s about how a person says it and how it comes across. I’ve learned that there are things that you need to fight in life and there are things that you don’t. This is something I don’t have to fight.

Interview by Eugene Yiga THE AFRICA REPORT

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“Opportunity?”

“Africa.”

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