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THE WORLD BENEATH OUR CITIES • THE BUSINESS OF EXECUTIVE JETS

www.forbesafrica.com

AFRICA

NOVEMBER 2018

INSIDE:
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FORBES AFRICA

CONTENTS – NOVEMBER 2018 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 10

24

8 | Editor’s Note // Methil Renuka

10 | Brief 360

COVER STORY
16 | FATHER AND FUTURE
Key contributors to the growth of the Nigerian
economy, they have redeined banking by leveraging
technology and connecting people to market. From
just £100 in his bank account, Pascal Dozie has built a
business empire his son Uzoma is taking to the future.
BY PEACE HYDE

FOCUS
24 | COULD HE BE THE TURNING POINT?
Tito Mboweni inherits Africa’s sick economy as
president Cyril Ramaphosa chases growth.
BY GODFREY MUTIZWA

26 | THE SUB CITY: WHAT LIES BENEATH

What secrets does a city hold within its bosom?
In Johannesburg, one of them is an intriguing
labyrinth of tunnels that once served as a postal

26 delivery system. Could such relics of the past be the

subterranean realms of the future? Urban planning
points to what is now called ‘hypogeal cities’.
BY ANCILLAR MANGENA

38 | BEYOND THE PLUMES OF SMOKE THE

WEED ECONOMY
In September, South Africa became the third coun-
try on the continent to pass a ruling favoring canna-
bis. Last month, Canada fully legalized its use. The
world of business and medicine is slowly awakening
to its beneits, weeding fact from iction.
BY KAREN MWENDERA

TECHNOLOGY
48 | BLOCKCHAIN AT THE POLLS?
Blockchain is being adapted for election usage
elsewhere in the world, and could provide the an-
swer to making voting more transparent in Africa.
BY TOM JACKSON

Cover image by Kelechi Amadi-Obi

2 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

56
ENTREPRENEURS
| THE IMPACT INVESTOR
54 Norman Beaulieu has an innovative business
approach to community development in Africa,
regenerating degraded land and providing solutions
to mitigate climate change.
BY NICK SAID

| TWO’S COMPANY
56 Two millennials, both FORBES AFRICA’s
Under 30 alumni, born on the same day and with
similar stories of entrepreneurship, are collaborating
to disrupt industries and shape the future of Africa.
BY ANCILLAR MANGENA

LIFE
64 | CRAFTS AND CAMARADERIE ON THE
COAST
Durban’s farmers markets are a magnet for
consumers and small businesses alike, boost-
ing the informal economy in the sunny South
African city.
BY REHANA DADA

| CHAMPAGNE AND CAVIAR IN PRIVATE

72 AT 30,000FT
The glamorous world of private jets is no longer the
domain of the super-rich. Private aviation is set to
soar in Africa as business keeps checking in.
BY GYPSEENIA LION

78 | TAKING A BITE OUT OF AFRICA

Hungry in London with a stomach dreaming of
home? From the smoky to the sensory, the city
offers distinct African culinary encounters.
BY ALASTAIR HAGGER

SPORT
| FAME AND MIGHTY BUCKS
86 Lebo Mothiba, only 22, is viewed as a potential
rising star who could rival the likes of Benni Mc-

78 Carthy and Steven Pienaar as one of South Africa’s

greatest sport exports.
BY NICK SAID

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 3

FORBES AFRICA

CONTENTS – NOVEMBER 2018 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 10

Pg72
CONTENTS – NOVEMBER 2018

CHAMPAGNE AND
CAVIAR IN PRIVATE
AT 30,000FT
BY GYPSEENIA LION

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tranquil
Comfort is defined, relaxation is refined and an
enviable selection of entertainment savoured when
you stay at Mövenpick Hotel & Residences Nairobi

movenpick.com
 AFRICA

NOVEMBER 2018 – VOLUME 8 NUMBER 10

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FORBES AFRICA

EDITOR’S NOTE

ENCOUNTERING
RAW POWER
T
he elephant in the ing morning. The saving grace that day was being able to track
room. the Nilgiri Tahr. I got my story, capturing at least 50 of the
I have heard endangered species on camera.
this idiom count- Surely, life on the road for a journalist is filled with pertinent,
less times at meetings and personality-changing experiences that ensure the ink in your pen
summits, referring to obvious never runs dry.
problems no one wants to ad- Also high up on that list for me, was looking for poisonous
dress. And every time I hear it, snakes, with the snake-hunting Irula tribals of South India who
I see the elephant in the room. make a living selling anti-venom.
The reason? I have literally In my two decades in mainstream print journalism in some of the
had an elephant in my room. most enticing economies around the world, I have had many such
Some of the infinite joys of unforgettable run-ins, with both beauty and beast.
this profession I hold so dear In Africa too, my first encounter with the wild was one night
are the unlimited opportunities to chase the stories you dream of – in Limpopo almost a decade ago while on assignment for a busi-
and occasionally, have the stories chase you. ness travel publication from Dubai. I was descending a moun-
As a young reporter with India’s biggest news magazine, I was tain in an open jeep with two other journalists, when we were
once sent on assignment to the hilly ranges of the Western Ghats to enveloped by a pride of seven lionesses.
track the endangered Nilgiri Tahr, a mountain goat endemic to the They circled the vehicle for a full five minutes, glaring,
region. growling and displaying raw power and fury as only nature can.
It was after 9PM when I arrived and checked into the hotel up the Indeed, these are the encounters that pump the adrenaline into
hill. On one side, it faced a deep, dark forest, and on the other, a man- our stories, as we draw lessons from nature and translate that feline
sion that uncannily resembled Norman Bates’ eerie cottage in Alfred power to become the leaders we must be.
Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho. I hope the travels you are planning over the holiday season take
The hotel’s owner doubled as the lone check-in staf and you too on some enlightening, emancipating journeys.
resembled Bates himself.
It was a cold, moon-lit night and my cottage was by a rumbling
river. I was going over my work notes around 11PM when the lights
went out.
I froze as I heard a loud thud by the long, wide windows – one
of which had opened in the wind – at the other end of the large
room. That is when I saw it – the silhouette of a mighty tusker, in
the flesh, motionless by the bay window, his massive trunk almost
Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla

inside my room.
The next minute saw me sprinting out of the cottage in the dark
METHIL RENUKA, EDITOR
with my handbag, and to this day, I can’t remember if the elephant
chased me down as I ran for what seemed like eternity. letters@abn360.com
“Oh, I should have warned you,” grinned Mr Bates the follow- www.forbesafrica.com

Views expressed by commentators in this publication are not necessarily those held by FORBES AFRICA or its members of staff. All facts printed in FORBES AFRICA were confirmed as being
correct at the time the magazine went to print. Note: Dollar prices in the magazine are approximate figures and based on exchange rates at the time of going to press.

8 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

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 BRIEF 360
TESLA MODEL 3
BECOMING ONE OF THE
BEST-SELLING LUXURY
CARS IN AMERICA
Reports by Bloomberg and
CNN reveal that Tesla Inc.’s
Model 3 is becoming one of
the best-selling sedans in
America.
The car broke into
America’s top 10 best-selling
sedans of the third quarter
and came 5th after Toyota
Corolla, Toyota Camry, Honda
Civic and Honda Accord.
Tesla, Inc., headed by
South African-born CEO
and chairman Elon Musk,
announced last month that
it sold 55,840 Model 3s in
the third quarter, nearly all
of which went to American
customers.
This made Tesla the first
and only electric car to break
into the ranks dominated
by Japanese and Korean
carmakers
The average selling price
of the Model 3 is $60,000.

FAMILY ISSUES REWARD AFTER AFRICA’S

YOUNGEST BILLIONAIRE GOES MISSING
The family of billionaire Mohammed Dewji has issued a
reward for anyone with information on his whereabouts.
Dewji’s family has ofered 1 billion Tanzanian Shillings
($436,674) to anyone who can help them find the
president of the MeTL Group.
The Tanzanian entrepreneur was abducted last month
on his way to a gym session at a luxury hotel in Oyster
Bay in Dar es Salaam.
Azim Dewji, a family spokesperson, said in a
statement: “We would also like to show our sincere
gratitude to everyone for their tremendous outpouring NEW ICONIC BRIDGE TO EASE TRADE
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned a bridge
of love and support that we have received in the wake of
that has been hailed as a landmark in Africa, and connecting the
such adversity. We urge you to continue keeping MO in Ugandan capital Kampala with the port of Mombasa in Kenya.
your prayers as our nation continues the search for him.” The 525-meter New Nile Bridge or Jinja Bridge, opened oicially
Dewji was featured on the cover of FORBES AFRICA by Museveni last month, is the second cable-stayed bridge in
in July 2013 and was named FORBES AFRICA’s Person East Africa after Tanzania’s 680m-long Kigamboni Bridge, The
New Vision newspaper reports. The bridge is also the fifth-
of The Year in 2016. The 43-year-old single-handedly
longest of its kind in Africa.
turned his father’s trading business into Tanzania’s Museveni says the engineering feat is a symbol of the ongoing
largest import-export group. relationship between Uganda and Japan. The new bridge is
Dewji’s personal networth is $1.5 billion, according funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
to the Africa billionaires list released by FORBES earlier and the Ugandan government. Business leaders in Kampala say
it will transform trade in East Africa.
this year. He is also Africa’s youngest billionaire.

10 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018


FORBES AFRICA UNDER-30 LIST-MAKER
BAGS EMMY NOMINATION
South African actress Thuso Mbedu has
bagged her second international Emmy
nomination.
The 27-year-old shared the exciting news
on Twitter, saying: “A 2-time International
Emmy nominee. Wow.”
Mbedu has been nominated in the best
actress category, alongside other actresses
from Brazil, Germany and the UK.
The young actress was nominated for
her role in the second season of local drama
series Is'thunzi.
Mbedu was named by FORBES AFRICA
as one of 90 Africans under the age of 30 to
watch in 2018.
The winners of the international Emmys
will be announced at a black-tie ceremony on
November 19 at the Hilton in New York.
Photo by Jay Caboz; Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla; Photo by Victor Boyko/Getty Images for Aurora Humanitarian Initiative; Photo by Stuart
Fox/Gallo Images/Getty Images; Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Image sourced from constructionreviewonline.com
CONGOLESE DOCTOR Hospital in the eastern Congolese
A ‘ROLE MODEL FOR city of Bukavu. The clinic, which
ALL MEN’ opened in 1999, each year treats
thousands of women, many of
Denis Mukwege, a doctor who
whom require surgery to recover
helps victims of sexual violence in
from sexual violence.
the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, won the 2018 Nobel Peace Mukwege is also a past winner
of the United Nations Human
Prize last month, together with
Rights Prize and the European
Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist and
survivor of sexual slavery. Parliament’s Sakharov Prize.
A Reuters report quotes the Playwright and activist Eve
Norwegian Nobel Committee as Ensler calls Mukwege a role
saying: “Denis Mukwege is the model.
helper who has devoted his life “This Nobel peace prize
to defending these victims. Nadia should be held up as a beacon –
Murad is the witness who tells of in the darkness of swelling sexism
the abuses perpetrated against and male supremacy – for all men
herself and others.” to follow,” Ensler writes in
Mukwege heads the Panzi The Guardian.
AFRICAN STARTUPS ON
TIME LIST
In TIME Magazine’s
first-ever list of 50 Genius
Companies, several
African startups are named
alongside global brands
like Netflix, Nike, Airbnb,
Spotify and musician
Rihanna’s Fenty.
The African startups are:
-Babymigo, a Nigerian
online platform for mothers
and pregnant women.
-Ghana’s Bitland, a real-
estate company that sells
land using bitcoins.
19-YEAR-OLD MAKES
WAVES AT ETHIOPIA'S
FIRST AI LAB
Betelhem Dessie is one of
the youngest pioneers in
Ethiopia's emerging tech
scene, known as
Sheba valley.
According to reports, she
is coordinating nationwide
programs run by robotics
lab iCog, the Addis Ababa-
based artificial intelligence
– Compiled by Karen Mwendera
NOVEMBER 2018
FORBES AFRICA
BRIEF 360
-AgriProtein, a South
African startup solving
the problem of sustainable
animal feed for poultry
and fish farmers by
harvesting insect protein
through landmark fly
farms.
-Wonderbag, a South
African-made non-electric
portable slow cooker that
cooks food for up to 12
hours without the use of
any extra fuel source.
-Kenya’s Ona, a mobile
data collection company.
-BRCK, a Kenyan tech
company that provides
free public Wi-Fi.
Sophia,
the
robot
(AI) lab that was involved
in developing the world-
famous robot, Sophia.
Dessie, a student at the
University of Addis Ababa,
is also a project manager
at iCog. Reports say Dessie
has four software programs
copyrighted solely to
her name, including an
app developed for the
Ethiopian government
to map rivers used for
irrigation.
FORBES AFRICA | 11
AFRICAN
R A NOTEBOOK
OTEBOOK BY MELITTA NGALONKULU

DRC
MINING: Canadian mining corporation Ivanhoe Mines has an-
nounced a major copper discovery in the DRC on its Makoko
site. This is the third such discovery made by Ivanhoe in the
country since it began drilling on its 700sqkm of licences in
the Western Foreland area in July 2017. The Makoko site is
west of its previous Kamoa-Kakula discovery.

UGANDA
POLICY: The country is the first
sub-Saharan African economy to
increase interest rates this year
to counter inflation pressures,
caused by a weakening currency
and rising oil prices. The Monetary
Policy Committee (MPC) in the
east African nation increased the
benchmark rate to 10% from 9%.

Illustration by Katlego Banoe, Pictures: Royalty free / Freepik / Wikipedia / PNG Images / Gemma Coffee
SOUTH AFRICA
MINING: Last month, Minerals Resourc-
es Minister Gwede Mantashe issued the
revised Mining Charter for the sustain-
able transformation and development
of the mining industry. Plans are to raise
black ownership at permit-holding min-
ing companies to 30% from 26% within
five years.
SEYCHELLES
PASSPORT: The Seychelles has
the most powerful passport in
Africa, according to the latest
Henley & Partners Passport
Index. Seychelles’ citizens are
able to access 152 destinations
around the world without a
visa or by applying for one
on arrival. Mauritius ranks 31st
ZIMBABWE amongst the world’s top pass-
MINING: South African platinum ports and is the second-most
and chrome miner Tharisa says it coveted in Africa, with access
will spend $11 million on exploring in to 146 destinations.
Zimbabwe. Tharisa says its produc-
tion hit record highs for the full year
ending September 30 and it expects
to increase output in 2019.

12 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

Advertorial BY PHILIP MORRIS

THE WORK ENVIRONMENT UNPACKED

Creating sustainability and opportunities for employees.

PHILIP MORRIS SOUTH AFRICA GROUP OF
COMPANIES RECOGNISED AS A CERTIFIED
TOP EMPLOYER 2019
Philip Morris South Africa Group of Compa-
nies (PMSA) has been awarded the Top Em-
ployer certification for the third consecutive
year in recognition of an excellent working
environment and exceptional development
opportunities.
Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) is a
globally diverse organization with a talented
and diverse workforce of more than 81,000 em-
ployees who speak more than 80 languages and
come from all corners of the world. The key to
our success is our employees. Our priority is to
continue to attract, support and keep with us
diverse and unique individuals.
We are a leading international tobacco
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development, and an award-winning employer.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A TOP EMPLOYER
We are certified as a Top Employer following
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from the way we recruit to the development
opportunities that we ofer our people. The
certification is a testament to the company’s
consistency and excellence in ofering an en-
riching working environment and exceptional
From left: Federico Flores; Emma Mphahlele; Mpho Pule; Marcelo Hugo Nico (Managing Director);
Priscilla Msimanga; Rishaad Hajee; Annette van Niekerk; Jay Moon; David Kadalie; Ulreich Tromp;
Neetesh Ramjee; Granville Robson
development opportunities for employees.
“As Philip Morris South Africa Group of
Companies we are proud to be certified as a
Top Employer 2019 in South Africa for the
third time and are committed to our current
and future employees to continue to focus on
developing and implementing the best HR
practices, finding and growing the best talent
that makes us who we are,” said Daniela Ilie,
head of People and Culture at PMSA.
ABOUT THE CERTIFICATION PROGRAMME
The Top Employers Institute Programme pro-
vides certified organisations with the ability to
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Organisations certified as Top Employers
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This global Certification Programme has
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Top Employer CEO David Plink says, “We
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demonstrate exceptional employee conditions
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practices by putting their people first. These
companies help enrich the world of work with
their outstanding dedication to HR excellence
and because of this, they are recognised as an
employer of choice.”
PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL INC.
We are a leading international tobacco com-
pany engaged in the manufacture and sale
of cigarettes and other nicotine-containing
products in markets outside the United States
of America. We’re building our future on
smoke-free products that are a much better
consumer choice than continuing to smoke
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to ensure that our smoke-free products meet
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these products ultimately replace cigarettes
to the benefit of adult smokers, society, our
company and our shareholders. For more
information, see www.pmi.com and www.
pmiscience.com.
PHILIP MORRIS SOUTH AFRICA
GROUP OF COMPANIES
Philip Morris South Africa (Pty) Ltd, an
ailiate of Philip Morris South Africa Group
of Companies was established in 2003. Our
cigarette portfolio consists of Marlboro and
Chesterfield, and we distribute our products
domestically as well as to export markets
in the region. We also distribute other
tobacco products such as roll-your-own,
pipe tobacco, and nasal snuf, including the
market-leading pipe tobacco brands Boxer
and Best Blend manufactured by Leonard
Dingler (Pty) Ltd, the other ailiate of Philip
Morris South Africa Group of Companies.
As of 2017 we added to our portfolio, as
the first PMI market in Africa, our most
advanced smoke-free product IQOS.

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FORBES AFRICA

BIG SHOTS

14 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

THROWING
ROCKS FOR
PEACE
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPH: MOTLABANA MONNAKGOTLA
A
bout 10 kilometers
from Johannesburg’s
central business
district is Westbury,
a tiny township plagued by
unemployment, gangsterism and
drug wars. The area has a violent
history.
In September, community
members took to the streets to
protest the scourge of crime here.
A woman had been shot dead
and a little girl wounded in the
crossfire between rival gangs.
In this picture, Westbury locals
throng the streets after a protest
that had turned particularly sour.
For three days, main roads were
closed, as residents burned tyres
and hurled rocks at policemen
who they believed supported the
gangs.
Bheki Cele, South Africa’s
police minister, visited Westbury
to address the community over the
increasing gang-related crimes in
the area, saying he was on their
side and promising to introduce
policing units to restore order.
South Africa’s recently-released
crime statistics reveal 57 people
are murdered every day. The
statistics cover the period from
April 2017 to March 2018.
Look out for an in-depth story
on South Africa’s gun culture in
the December issue of FORBES
AFRICA. Watch this space.
16 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
 &
Key contributors to the growth of the Nigerian economy,
they have redeined banking by leveraging technology
Photos by Kelechi Amadi-Obi

and connecting people to market. From just £100 in his

bank account, Pascal Dozie has built a business empire
his son Uzoma is taking to the future.

BY PEACE HYDE
 Pascal Dozie

I
t’s always a diicult
proposition, handing
over the reins of a
business you have
painstakingly built
ground-up. But for
Pascal
P a Dozie, Nigeria’s self-
made investment and finance
guru, there could not be a
better successor than his eldest
son, Uzoma Dozie, Group
Managing Director and Chief
Executive Oicer of Diamond
Bank. But Uzoma has learned
from the best.
The rise of Pascal Dozie
can outrival any rags-to-riches
Dickensian tale. He gained a
fortune through tenacity, hard
work and wit, on a long and
diicult road from Owerri in
Imo State where he was born
in 1939. His entrepreneurial
journey began against the
backdrop of a Nigeria marred
by the bloody Biafran war
waged between 1967 and 1970
that saw over 30,000 Igbo lives
lost. Pascal, at the time, was
finishing his degree at The
London School of Economics
where he shared a class and
rubbed shoulders with The
Rolling Stones lead singer
Mick Jagger, who dropped out
to form the English rock band.
The war back home meant
he had to find alternative
means of making a living.
Learning to be independent
since the loss of his father
when he was only 15, Pascal’s
major influence was his
mother who owned a bakery.
As a young man, he found
himself on the streets of
Uganda cutting his teeth in the
exchange business until the Idi
Amin coup truncated his work.
“When Amin took over, we
were no longer wanted, so we

18 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018


COVER STORY – PASCAL AND UZOMA DOZIE
had to come back to Nigeria but there was no money to come
back home with.”
Pascal and his wife were unemployed and as a result, the
couple planned to relocate to the United States (US) in search of
greener pastures. But they changed their plans in the last minute
due to his mother’s ill-health and her wish to be closer to her
first grandson, Uzoma.
Pascal had to quickly find another way to make ends meet.
He decided to start a consulting firm, the African Development
Consulting Group, where he worked for multinationals like
Nestle and Pfizer.
“My first objective was survival and of course I had an
ambition. You set up a company, you want that company to grow;
you want it to be robust and profitable.
Being in consulting was a tricky afair
because you have a lot of receivables. It
was a hustle job. A hustle to get payment
and a hustle to do the job all the time.”
Then there was the issue of
rudimentary communication systems to
B
BEING IN CONSULTING
contend with. W
WAS A TRICKY AFFAIR
“There were no phones. At one point
in time, I had to meet someone in Sokoto, B
BECAUSE YOU HAVE A LOT
and I boarded a flight to go there. Lo and
behold, in the queue boarding that plane
O
OF RECEIVABLES. IT WAS
was the man I was going to see, catching A HUSTLE JOB. A HUSTLE
a flight to another destination. So he
apologized because there was no way for
TTO GET PAYMENT AND A
him to tell me not to come. So he asked H
HUSTLE TO DO THE JOB
me if it was possible to wait for two days.
We had no choice and we found a hotel A
ALL THE TIME.
and waited for the man to come back. If – PASCAL DOZIE
there was any delay, there was nothing
we could do but keep waiting until he showed up,” says Pascal.
Slowly but surely, his business began to prosper, but Pascal had
even bigger aspirations. During the days of his consulting business,
he conducted a feasibility study of banks and unearthed a hidden
opportunity. But that was the easy part. At the time, Nigerian law
stipulated that to set up a bank, no one single person could have more
than 5% shareholding in the bank and the firm’s shareholders must be
representative of Nigerians from all over the country.
“Now the problem was how do you find them? That was a major
challenge. Once they are found, you are now dealing with so many
diferent people from diferent backgrounds, which means a lot of
time; there were a lot of quarrels. We traveled around all of Nigeria to
find people who will invest in the bank.”
Secondly, Pascal had noticed traders from the remote villages in the
east of the country, where he grew up, faced the problem of carrying
huge bundles of cash when they traveled to Lagos on business, making
them prone to robberies. To make matters worse, there were a number
of shortcomings in the banking system. For example, to deposit money
FORBES AFRICA
in a bank, one would have to wait long, sometimes queuing up for
almost four hours before a single transaction.
“And to cash a cheque was also diicult. You could go to the bank
and they will give you a number in the queue. You could then leave the
bank, go to the shop and do so many errands that by the time you come
back, your number would still not have been called. There was that gap
in service,” says Pascal.
With a passion for economic development, he believed that without
a strong financial sector, the Nigerian economy was not going to
develop.
“You need a robust financial system to get the economy working, so
I said ok, ‘why don’t we try looking at this and provide a solution’. I said
‘if we could get a bank to mitigate against all the things we are lacking,
then we can create value for businesses
and also contribute to the economic
development of Nigeria’,” says Pascal, who
was featured on the cover of FORBES
AFRICA in October 2012.
Meanwhile, Uzoma, the eldest of his
five sons, was contemplating which career
he was going to pursue. The choices boiled
down to engineering, medicine or law. He
had witnessed the tough early days of his
father’s entrepreneurial journey.
“I think my parents were hustling
when I was born. We were five boys and
I remember we lived at 27 Commercial
Avenue, which was also my father’s
oice. It was a three-bedroom flat and I
remember two of the rooms were oices
and one was the bedroom for all of us. My
dad was a consultant, so he didn’t have a
fixed job then and I think my mother had
a more stable job than him. Because they were hustling, life was very
practical,” says Uzoma.
Where his father is assertive and confident, with each word
measured and delivered as though he was giving a keynote address,
Uzoma’s youthful exuberance is infectious. But there are similarities
too. Pascal is a gentleman in every sense of the word, who loves Mozart
and Bach, while Uzoma also has a calm down-to-earth demeanor.
Watching both father and son speak is like looking at two old friends
catch up over drinks. Afectionately calling his father ‘PD’, there is
an air of reverence and respect for the man who has orchestrated
the Dozie legacy and built a multi-million dollar empire from a
modest consulting firm, today spanning banking, private equity and
telecommunications. Pascal commands his investment and finance
empire through the family-owned investment company Kunoch,
which pours money into everything, from power generation to gas
processing, oil exploration, real estate and banking.
However, for Uzoma, banking was not his first calling. After some
initial soul-searching, he opted to be a doctor and that journey led
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 19
 Uzoma Dozie

him to the United Kingdom (UK).

After studying Chemistry at the
University of Reading, he pursued
a masters in Chemical Research
at University College London
(UCL) before completing an MBA
at Imperial College London. A
serendipitous recession in the UK
meant Uzoma was unable to find
a job, and decided to relocate to
Nigeria to enrol into the mandatory
National Youth Service Corps
(NYSC) scheme set up by the
government. It involves Nigerian
graduates in nation-building and
the development of the country.
Pascal, through his contacts,
secured a role for Uzoma at
Guaranty Trust Bank, which was
the start of the latter’s love afair
with banking.
“When I left university in the
UK, I had a lot of credit from banks.
I had a credit card, I had a debit
card, I had a cheque guarantee
card, I was using ATM and when
I came back to Nigeria, it was
like going back into time. None
of those services existed. You had
a chequebook, which may be,
only one of the new generation
banks ofered, and one of the
motivations or aspirations for me
with Diamond Bank was trying
to deliver in the Nigerian market
those services which I was used to
in the UK,” says Uzoma.
Both father and son fervently
believe in the power of technology
to drive eiciency in the financial
sector. The first thing Pascal did
to solve the issue of carrying cash
over long distances was to set up
the Diamond Integrated Banking
System (DIBS). This meant that
you could carry a chequebook
instead of cash and when you
came into the bank, you received
your cash. It may sound pretty
easy and standard now but at the
time in Nigeria’s history, it was
revolutionary.
“Nigeria has come a long way.

20 | FORBES AFRICA V MBE

BE
E 20
0 8

The area that we have not had much success
is on our political front. There has been a
lot of progress on the economic side; [but]
individually, almost everybody is working in
silos. But until we have that political will to get
the economy to where it ought to be, we are
just paying lip service.”
He sold the consulting business to raise the
capital to start Diamond Bank. Soon, another
opportunity presented itself to Pascal, this
time in the telecoms industry. A South African
company was looking to set up shop in Africa’s
largest economy and Pascal saw in this an
opportunity too good to pass up.
“So many companies were interested
in the MTN project. The Nigerians didn’t
know much about what it was about. All
they knew was that there was this new way
of communicating, which was by mobile
telephones, and nobody knew what that
was all about. It was one of the first few
transparent projects the government ever
conducted. The government practically vetted
all the shareholders of the company,” says
Pascal.
The South Africans wanted to pump
millions into a 60% stake in MTN Nigeria,
with Nigerians owning 40%. Pascal managed
to raise a 20% stake in the new company. But
before the deal could close, he says his name
was published in the newspapers for unethical
trading.
“The MTN people came to me to say ‘we
do not want anything to do with you again’.
Some mischievous people accused me of
playing both sides and the main fact that I was
double dipping would have cost us the project.
So they wrote a letter to me and I didn’t reply.
So they didn’t want to see me, I was more or
less like an outcast. So I was not even there the
last day of the bidding,” says Pascal.
“It was later on that the chairman of MTN
was going back to South Africa and he met
that company I was supposed to be involved
in and they asked about me and the man said
he didn’t know who I was. Then they realized
that somebody was trying to be mischievous
and they came back to me and apologized,”
says Pascal, and the rest as they say is history.
Today, the company is one of the most
successful in Nigeria and Pascal maintains his
position as chairman.
The apple did not fall far from the
COVER STORY – PASCAL AND UZOMA DOZIE
tree. Uzoma religiously preserves the
organizational culture, using new technology
to democratize the dissemination of financial
services to Small and Medium Enterprises
(SMEs). Pascal had always put employees
in the saddle, empowering them to take
decisions. That philosophy has worked
well for the organization. Furthermore,
his decision to realign the structure of the
organization and create accessibility for
tech-savvy millennials has helped the bank
maintain its position as one of the leading
ONE OF THE
MOTIVATIONS OR
ASPIRATIONS FOR
ME WITH DIAMOND
BANK WAS TRYING
TO DELIVER IN THE
NIGERIAN MARKET
THOSE SERVICES
WHICH I WAS USED
TO IN THE UK.
– UZOMA DOZIE
financial services institutions in the country.
Uzoma has had varied roles within the
organization, starting as an assistant manager
and head of the bank’s oil and gas group,
where he expanded the oil and gas businesses.
One of the things Uzoma also pioneered was
leveraging the power of mobile apps to make
transactions easier for customers. “We used
mobile apps to stop people from coming to
the branches and put everything you wanted
to do in the bank, apart from withdrawing
cash at the bank, on the mobile app. Now, it’s
a platform where it’s beyond banking and one
of the new things we are doing is to provide a
relationship oicer and democratize banking
FORBES AFRICA
so that even the guy at the bottom of the
pyramid will get premium banking services
and we can only do that through technology,”
says Uzoma.
Next, the bank began automating the
customer transaction experience by enabling
customers to do self-service. Robots were
introduced to reduce the workload and allow
humans to concentrate on the things they are
good at such as creativity and innovation.
“We have eight million people who use
their mobile phones to do banking and we
have a partnership with MTN. I see Diamond
Bank as a platform to help people connect to
market. When you talk to people we helped
open a bank account into the market place, the
first thing they will tell you is that ‘I can now
save to take my children to school, I can now
save to improve my business’. Diamond Bank
is a platform for transformation by connecting
people and their market,” says Uzoma.
The way the company has managed to
achieve this is by leveraging technology and
redefining the business model, which goes
beyond banking and coming up with a sharing
and collaborating approach as well.
“If I want to lend to a customer, I need to
know much more than his financial record, I
need to know about his non-financial records
so it gives me a better understanding. We use
other platforms to connect and engage with
our audience like Diamond TV and we also
get feedback from what our people want and
what the trends are,” adds Uzoma.
Under his leadership, the bank has become
one of the most-successful middle-market
banks. According to Uzoma, this was as a
result of understanding customer cash flows
which made it easier to lend to them.
“I don’t know when was the last time I
went into a banking hall to do a transaction.
Young people have a good opportunity in
the tech sector. I would like to see Nigerians
developing software and looking at it from
our own perspective and being original. One
of the things I found in our financial system
is the banking system is not technologically
advanced like some of the banks we have in
Europe,” says Pascal.
“We can use technology to solve a lot of
problems in agriculture and a lot of problems
in banking. Even deploying technology in a
social and economic area. For example, our
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 21
FORBES AFRICA

COVER STORY – PASCAL AND UZOMA DOZIE

population, VAT registration, national

identity and so many applications. People
are working in various silos, why can’t we
get all these systems to be coordinated?
If you go to Dubai and you enter a taxi
and you lose something, you can retrieve
it. Once you enter a taxi, it is entered
in a central location and everything is
harmonized.”
They are a team that work well
together. Uzoma is a tech visionary who
believes in the power of technology to
provide opportunities to leapfrog as a
people, and he is relentless in pursuing
that goal.
For Nigeria to harness that power,
however, there has to be efective
leadership to create impact and
transformation. According to Uzoma: “We
have everything we require in Nigeria
to really leverage technology, but we
haven’t been able to do that. We need the
leadership to put the policy, regulation
and legislation in place to help us achieve
this. One of the things I am passionate
about is educating investors to invest in
Nigerian businesses. People are going
outside to get investors from venture
capital from the US and in 10 years’
time, we are going to find that we have
a few Nigerian companies that are very

I WOULD LIKE TO successful globally but they will be owned

by foreign companies because Nigerian
SEE NIGERIANS investors who had the capacity did not
D
DEVELOPING understand what they are letting go,” says
Uzoma.
SOFTWARE AND Pascal echoes his sentiments. “You will
not find any company owned by Nigerians
LOOKING AT IT being managed by the third generation
FROM OUR OWN or fourth generation as such but you
will find that among Indians in Nigeria,
P
PERSPECTIVE AND and the Lebanese in Nigeria. But ours
B
BEING ORIGINAL. [Nigerians] have been short-term because
the first generation sets up the business,
– PASCAL DOZIE then the next generation tries to develop
it and the third generation squanders it.”
These days, that has been Pascal’s real
focus. He believes in order for Nigeria to
efectively compete globally, there has
to be a focus on succession-planning.
At 79, he is full of life and bursting with
ideas. His goal is to create an awareness
of building generational wealth through
family oices. This dynamic father-son
duo is here to stay and set a sterling
example for African business.
From modest beginnings – just £100
in his bank account in Lagos when he
started – Pascal has built an empire his
son is determined to take to Africa’s
glorious future.

22 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

As a federal enterprise, GIZ supports the German Government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development.

For our operations in Addis Abeba/Ethiopia, we are looking for an

COORDINATOR FOR THE PROGRAMME FOR INFRA-

STRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA (PIDA)
Job description:
Only 38% of the African population has access to electricity, less than 10% is connected to the internet and only 25% of Africa’s road network is paved. To
address these deficits, the African Heads of State and Government adopted the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) in January 2012
as the strategic infrastructure framework on the continent. PIDA improves energy supply, regional transport corridors, internet connectivity as well as trans-
boundary water management and thus is a key driver for socio-economic development and intra-African trade. On the continental level, the Commission of
the African Union (AUC) is responsible for the political steering of PIDA whilst the NEPAD Agency facilitates the technical implementation. The first Priority
Action Plan (PIDA-PAP 1: 2012-2020) comprises more than 400 infrastructure projects, out of which more than a third are already operational or under
construction. AUC and its partners are currently starting the process to develop the PIDA-PAP 2 (2020-2030) which defines the infrastructure priorities of the
next decade to pave the way for an integrated, industrialized and service-oriented Africa. In its new phase, the GIZ “Support-to-PIDA”-Program supports the
AUC and the NEPAD Agency with the promotion of regional infrastructure development by designing an integrated, employment-oriented and gender-sensitive
corridor approach as the conceptual basis for future infrastructure development; by supporting a consultative and systematic process to define African
infrastructure priorities in the PIDA-PAP 2; by attracting private sector resources for African infrastructure development; and by improving the quality of
(early-stage) project preparation. GIZ is now searching for a senior expert to support AUC with the political and strategic steering of these processes as the
so-called PIDA Coordinator. More information on PIDA can be found on www.au-pida.org.

Your tasks:
The PIDA Coordinator, seconded to the Department for Infrastructure and Energy at AUC (AUC-DIE), will be responsible for the overall coordination of the
PIDA-process with a focus on the following tasks
š Coordinate on PIDA/infrastructure matters with key stakeholders (esp. within AUC, with the NEPAD Agency, the Regional Economic Communities, the
AU Member States, the African Development Bank and other PIDA financiers, the civil society, the private sector)
š Facilitate the high-level political process of the development of the PIDA-PAP 2 to agree upon Africa`s infrastructure priorities of the next decade
š Advise AUC-DIE on improved development of regional infrastructure on the continent and conduct respective actions to implement recommendations
š Coordinate PIDA communication activities to increase visibility and awareness on infrastructure/PIDA matters and projects
š Facilitate Member States and partner coordination around PIDA and regional infrastructure matters
š Prepare and manage related PIDA consultancies, e.g. on the development of the integrated corridor approach
š Support AUC-DIE Director with PIDA project management related activities, e.g. management of PIDA Unit at AUC-DIE, budget formulation, impact
monitoring and reporting
š Follow-up and report on implementation of joint AUC-NEPAD-GIZ objectives with respect to PIDA

Your profile:
š At least a Masters’ degree in political science, economics, engineering or another relevant academic field
š Longstanding work experience in infrastructure development in Africa
š Work experience in financing infrastructure projects
š Proven track record of the coordination and facilitation of high-level political processes on the African continent
š Many years of work experience in international organizations; work experience within AU institutions as a clear advantage
š Excellent written and verbal communications skills
š Excellent mastery of English and French
š Strong computer skills (Microsoft Office, internet research, social media, other digital tools)
š Profound communication skills; political sensitivity, experience and diplomatic skills when interacting with political decision-makers
š Intercultural competence and sensitivity, conceptual and process-oriented thinking
š Proven organizational, coordination and leadership competency

If we caught your interest, we are looking forward to your application until 11/11/2018.
For further information: www.giz.de/jobs. You can find this job under the Job-ID P1281V071.
FORBES AFRICA
FOCUS – SOUTH AFRICA
COULD HE BE THE
TURNING POINT?
Tito Mboweni inherits Africa’s sick economy as president
Cyril Ramaphosa chases growth.
BY GODFREY MUTIZWA
I
f the performance of South Africa’s
currency in the week since Tito
Mboweni was picked as finance
minister is any good, Africa’s only
economy in oicial recession might be on to a
good thing.
The rand, Africa’s most freely-traded
currency, gained more than 5% against the
dollar in the week since the former central
bank governor replaced Nhlanhla Nene
who quit after lying about his dealings with
a business family, the Guptas, accused of
bribing government oicials including former
President Jacob Zuma.
The former labor minister brings a
no-nonsense approach analysts say will
be needed to take Africa’s second-largest
economy out of a largely self-inflicted
second recession in less than a decade amid
graft allegations. He will need to rein in
government spending, six months before
elections that may drop the ruling African
National Congress’ (ANC) support below
half for the first time since the dawn of
democracy in 1994.
“Fiercely independent and often regarded
as a bit of a maverick, Mr Mboweni is
nevertheless likely to emerge as one of Mr
Ramaphosa’s more inspired decisions,’’ says
Gary van Staden, analyst at Cape Town-based
NKC Research.
“He is certainly among the more highly-
regarded choices the president could have
made and we expect him to add momentum
to the decisions of the job summit and
economic stimulus package.’’
Mboweni served four years as labor
minister in former President Nelson
24 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
Mandela’s government where he
developed the first post-apartheid labor
law. At the South African Reserve Bank,
where he was the country’s first black
governor, Mboweni spent a decade, and
built a reputation as a conservative banker
and defender of the country’s newly-
adopted inflation-targeting regime.
His major achievement was building
the country’s foreign exchange reserves
from less than $10 billion to $40 billion
when he left in 2009 after two terms
deemed by most as successful.
“The economy is now in a safe pair of
hands. It is someone senior both in the
ANC and in the government as he served
as a minister of labor previously. What is
also important is we have ratings agencies
watching us and this will bode well for them,’’
says independent economist Mike Schussler.
Mboweni takes charge of an economy
that was in recession in the first six months
of the year, hobbled by nine years of poor
management under Zuma which left business
confidence shattered. With the economy
barely growing during the period, the country
lost its investment grade rating from Standard
& Poor’s (S&P) and Fitch Ratings.
Only Moody’s maintained its rating above
junk and the company deferred a decision
after Mboweni’s appointment, fanning hopes
it will give him time to mend the country’s
finances and present a credible growth plan.
But economists say it might be too late for
a country that needs to cut spending while
chasing economic growth.
“I am afraid we have overplayed
our hand on the numbers,’’ says Dawie
Tito Mboweni
Roodt, an economist at Eicient Group in
Johannesburg.
“The fiscal numbers are unsustainable and
the debt numbers in particular are terrible.
From a numbers point of view, I am afraid this
is a downgrade.’’
The new minister has a full problem tray
as he comes in: unemployment is sitting at
27.2% as companies grapple with soaring costs
inflated by a weak rand, falling government
revenues in a country where 17 million people
depend on government grants, and weak
business confidence.
But his appointment may provide the
turning point the country desperately
requires, according to Van Staden.
“The former Reserve Bank governor can
be a diicult personality, but his skillset and
deep understanding of financial markets are
likely to see him embrace a market-orientated
policy framework with a no-nonsense attitude
and dedication to economic growth and social
development. We expect the appointment to
have a positive impact on the credibility of the
Ramaphosa administration.’’
It is credibility Ramaphosa has been
Photo by Sunday Times via Getty Images
building and one he will need quickly,
according to Ravi Bhatia, a director at S&P
which rates the country’s debt junk with
a stable outlook. Its next rating decision is
scheduled to be announced on November 23.
“He will have to get up to speed quite
quickly,’’ Bhatia said pointing to the country’s
Medium Term Budget Policy statement
released in October. “He will have to push
through measures that will deliver growth.
We want to see growth being delivered and
the fiscal line being controlled.’’
THE SUB CITY:
WHAT LIES BENEATH
What secrets does a city hold within its bosom?
In Johannesburg, one of them is an intriguing
labyrinth of tunnels that once served as a postal
delivery system. Could such relics of the past be
the subterranean realms of the future? Urban plan-
ning points to what is now called ‘hypogeal cities’.
BY ANCILLAR MANGENA
 FORBES AFRICA

FOCUS – URBAN PLANNING

A passage leading to the ‘Post

Oice tunnel’ built in 1935

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 27

FORBES AFRICA

FOCUS – URBAN PLANNING

J
ohannesburg’s central business district (CBD) holds a
secret within its deep, dark belly.
On the surface are the citadels of power housing some
of Africa’s oldest and biggest corporate institutions.
Beneath this morass of steel and concrete, is a labyrinth of
tunnels few know of.
We search for them, walking miles in the sun, scouring the
grimy innards and alleys of a business district that was once seen
and filmed by Hollywood producers as a Manhattan ‘lookalike’.
These streets have been witness to searing political upheaval
and mass unrest, and bear the scars of a brutal apartheid past.
But every city needs daily witnesses in its account of the here
and now, and you find them on the streets – the shopkeepers,
traders, commuters and the security guards who watch the CBD
change color and character from morning to night.
And sometimes, the best leads come from these purveyors of
change, the ordinary people who witness the city up close every
day.
And luckily, we find ours – the security guard who will
indirectly lead us to the tunnels.
“Yes, I have been inside these underground tunnels,” he says,
reluctant to reveal his name or tell us more. He relents, however,
and gives us a number we can call, that of the site manager of what
he calls “the Post Oice tunnels”.
With his help, on a sultry October morning, we arrive at the
Old Johannesburg Post Oice on Jeppe Street, a street lined with
shops and informal traders selling everything from cell phones to
socks. pitching the property to prospective clients? Did she know about
Business here has a life and rhythm of its own, oblivious to the tunnels?
what lies beneath. “I can’t believe there are tunnels here. I have never even heard
“I have been living and working here for 30 years and I have of them but I think people would appreciate this place more if
never heard of what you are talking about,” shrugs Givemore they did,” she tells us, not wanting to be named.
Sithole, a worker in the area, when we ask if he knows about the Even the construction laborers working on the post oice site
tunnels. are unaware.
But history and fact co-exist. Visser takes us to the tunnels. We find the entrance, with the
According to an 80-year-old report simply known as “the help of his colleagues, and it’s wide enough to fit a small car.
heritage report”, the tunnels were built in October 1935, at the It has a large red metal door, with access temporarily blocked
height of apartheid, for the efective delivery of mail between the by bulky construction material.
Post Oice and Park Station, about 2km apart. The workers manage to clear the entry and open the door.
The tunnels also connect to Gandhi Square at its other end, and Inside the tunnel, it’s like a big black hole – it’s pitch-black but
in total, are 3kms-long. holding within its bowels an old secret.
“This tunnel was built at a time when more and more people “Beware of rodents and snakes in there,” warns Visser, as we
were coming to Johannesburg to look for work in the City gingerly step in.
of Gold. There was a lot of congestion on the roads and they Through this tunnel, according to the heritage report, estimates
created this big ‘machine’, which I hear even connects to Gandhi are that 900 bags of mail were conveyed on wheelbarrows and
Square, which is about another 1.2 kilometers away,” says Johan sifted per hour at each end. They also had rudimentary versions of
Visser, a site manager at the Africa Housing Company, which is the conveyor belts of today.
redeveloping the Old Johannesburg Post Oice. The tunnels were shut down in 1956 for reasons not known,
Before we meet him, we run into a real estate agent, who is abandoned and forgotten, until about two years ago when they
currently leasing space at the site of the old post oice. We ask were rediscovered by Ray Harli, an architect and Director at
if she knows about the history of the building – how was she UrbanSoup Architects and Urban Designers.

28 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

 The entrance to one of the
tunnels, which run 3km in
total under Johannesburg

Underground tunnels under

construction in the 1930s

We meet him at the post oice end of the tunnel, but he

recounts how he stumbled upon the Park Station side of it – and
the intriguing network he discovered under the surface.
“We are constructing a very large
transport hub in Newtown [part of
Johannesburg’s inner city]. While we
were excavating, we came across an
opening. We weren’t sure what it was
and when we went inside, we discovered THIS IS A HISTORIC
the tunnel, and realized it goes deep.
Finding the tunnels felt like a treasure
BUILDING, SO WE HAVE
hunt. It was also partially scary because TO KEEP AS MUCH
it was very dark inside. We didn’t go in
deep that day and went back a few weeks AS WE CAN AS IS.
later with a full team. We walked inside - JOHAN VISSER
for over a kilometer. There was water
inside and we had to turn back when the water was too high,” says
Harli.
About 6,000 kilometers away in Egypt, almost a century ago,
one can almost imagine the euphoria that must have accompanied
Howard Carter’s discovery of the chambers that led to King
Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
But Harli was pragmatic; soon after the discovery, he went
straight to his oice and contacted the Department of Heritage to

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 29

FORBES AFRICA
FOCUS – URBAN PLANNING
FINDING THE TUNNELS FELT
LIKE A TREASURE HUNT.
IT WAS ALSO PARTIALLY
SCARY BECAUSE IT WAS
VERY DARK INSIDE.
– RAY HARLI, ARCHITECT
learn more about the subterranean discovery.
While the tunnels were operated by the post oice, they were
constructed by the workers who built the railroads of the time.
It’s a fact revealed by Anne Benson, whose grandfather, William
Pryce-Rosser, she says, designed the tunnels.
“We have a whole album of photos of the tunnels being built.
My grandfather used to tell us the tunnels were there and he had
worked on them. He was involved in a lot of work at the time and
he was very proud of them,” says Benson. The pictures she has of
the tunnel being constructed are indeed rare.
She also shares with us the typed-out ‘thank you letter’ her
grandfather received in 1934 from the ‘Town Clerk’s Department’.
The tunnels cost a fortune in their day. For example, according
to the yellowing heritage report referred to earlier, it cost a
whopping £170,000 at the time and used 15,750 tons of concrete.
There was also a section of the tunnel called ‘parcels and baggage’,
which was 914 metres long and cost £71,000 to build; and then a
section called ‘signals’, which was 640 meters long.
“The city didn’t know about the tunnels, but the Department of
Heritage did,” says Harli.
Since learning about them, Harli has been looking into how
these tunnels can be best put to use.
“Now, people call me ‘Mr Tunnels’,” he laughs.
“A year before we found these tunnels, I was in New York and
they have an underground tunnel that they have converted into
what they call the world’s first underground park. They cut holes
30 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
on the pavement up above to let light inside. They even have trees
underground,” says Harli.
Inspired, he hopes the Johannesburg tunnels could be
commercialized too.
“The world is moving in very interesting directions and
we can use places like this that already exist for underground
developments. For example, the idea is to link Park Station
with our transport facility in Newtown so that there is a direct
pedestrian link underground. Having this direct link will bring
connectivity between diferent transport hubs. A more ambitious
plan would be to build a commercial retail space with cofee shops
and art exhibitions,” Harli says of his plans.
According to him, with the right type of management, this
could become a destination space. He ofers the example of the
city’s stylish Maboneng Precinct, which had been abandoned but
was revamped and turned into a key tourist destination featuring
food markets and art galleries.
“People desperately want [options]. Changing this up can be a
very good opportunity which will also preserve the heritage,” says
Harli, calling the potential development “a sub city”.
Harli adds that the problem with the Johannesburg tunnels is
that there is no agreement on who owns them.
He says he would need about R30 million ($2 million) to turn
them into “a heritage shrine” where people can enjoy them as
green, public spaces.
“It is also hard to convince government to spend on this type
of development because there are some major problems in the
inner city. Some people could argue a space like this is a ‘nice
to have’ but our argument is that it is something that could be
commercialized,” says Harli, who is considering a few rounds of
crowdfunding to kick-start the project.
“I have told the city about what we would like to do but we
need to find out who definitively owns the tunnels.”
An artists’ impression of how
the tunnels can be used to
link transport hubs
 The ownership is unclear, and this is a fact reiterated by a
contact we meet at the Johannesburg Development Agency, which
is the city’s real estate developer.
Harli wants to get down to business at the tunnels, but Africa
Housing Company, which owns the Old Johannesburg Post Oice,
has plans to fix the building and turn it into apartments and
commercial shops.
Photos by Motlabana Monnakgotla; Photos supplied; Photo provided by Anne Benson; Illustrations supplied by UrbanSoup Architects and Urban Designers

“There is a lot of history here. We are turning the place into

shops and apartments while keeping its history. We restore and
repair, but most of the things are still here. The only problem is
that when the building was abandoned, there were dwellers living
here who took some of the things, like all the brass and copper
wires,” says Visser, showing us the granite table at the reception
that is still in the same spot as it was at the old post oice.
Africa Housing Company has retained the windows, murals,
the clock, telegram booths, doors, ceilings and stairs, adhering to
the old look and feel.
“This is a historic building, so we have to keep as much as we
can as is,” says Visser, showing us some of the over 200 apartments This clock still remains intact
at the Old Johannesburg Post
now built where the old post oice was. Oice even after 83 years, and it
At Gandhi Square, which is said to have yet another entrance still works

into the tunnels, there is already some commercial activity

underground.
An entrepreneur, Gerald Garner, owns Zwipi, an underground
bar here, which was once an old bank vault with safety boxes. He
also owns JoburgPlaces, which ofers walking tours. Garner has
been ofering inner-city walking tours since 2011.
“Since it is such a historic building, it made sense to open
a restaurant-bar in the old bank vault. We also do most of our
walking tours through this space and host safaris and secret
underground dinners here.”
It just points to the fact that such areas can be re-
conceptualized and commissioned back to life.

WILL UNDERGROUND RESIDENCES WORK?

According to Namibia-based architect Gerald Mandevhana, many
countries like Finland and China have even gone further, with
concepts like underground homes.
According to Mandevhana, Mexico City even proposed an
‘earthscraper concept’, a 75-storey pyramid going 300 meters into THE ARCHITECTURE,
the ground to accommodate about 100,000 people, and Singapore
built a subterranean oil storage facility that goes down 100 meters.
ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION
Mandevhana says the idea of underground living is not as far- INDUSTRY IN AFRICA IS QUITE
fetched as we may think.
African people have lived underground for centuries, he says.
ADVANCED NOW AND SEVERAL
“Two hundred thousand years back, some of the homosapiens AVANT-GARDE PRACTICES AND
led troglodyte lives in caves in South Africa.”
However, Mandevhana acknowledges a lot has changed in the TECHNOLOGIES ARE ALREADY
last 200 millennia and today, the prospect of underground living BEING IMPLEMENTED.
has to come with readjustments to suit modern lives.
“On an infrastructure level, I believe we can actually implement – GERALD MANDEVHANA,
the move. The architecture, engineering and construction ARCHITECT
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 31
FORBES AFRICA

FOCUS – URBAN PLANNING

industry in Africa is quite advanced

now and several avant-garde practices
and technologies are already being
implemented,” he says.
However, at a systems level, he says the
world has a long way to go because cities
are complex organisms.
“Many concepts have been pushed
up to define and idealize cities; central
place theory, garden city movement,
radiant city, city beautiful movement,
broadacre city, right up to today’s smart
cities with artificial intelligence and deep
learning systems at the heart of things.
As complex socio-technical organisms,
all systems will need to be reviewed to
ensure they optimize interactions between
people, technology and the new hypogeal
environment. Our systems are not yet
ready for urban scale shifts towards
subterranean life,” he says. An artists’ impression of how
the entrance to the underground
Harli and Mandevhana both see tunnels could look
the potential of commercial spaces
underground.
But Harli too is of the opinion that,
in Africa, underground housing may be
diicult to implement.

“You cannot justify building Deon Du Plessis, Function Manager,

accommodation underground right now
in Johannesburg when there are many
abandoned buildings. I understand
OUR CITIES ARE in China, where space is a problem. I
don’t see residences underground but
GROWING AT SUCH A rather underground public space with
RAPID RATE THAT WE commercial spaces,” says Harli, adding
that building underground will always
CAN’T KEEP DOING be a more expensive proposition than
WHAT WE ARE DOING. IT construction above the ground.
“For example, building an
IS NOT SUSTAINABLE. underground parking structure is five
times the cost of building one above the
— DEON DU PLESSIS ground,’ he says.
Urban Development, at SMEC, a
multi-disciplinary engineering and
infrastructure solutions company,
agrees.
“It costs more to drill down the
ground. We also still have a lot of land
that we can build on in Africa. From a
health and safety point of view, it will
also be a challenge because you need
ventilation and fire protection down
there, for instance,” says Du Plessis.
Mandevhana says that building
underground has higher initial costs
but says there are anticipated lower-

32 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

FORBES AFRICA

FOCUS – URBAN PLANNING

running costs as well, which implies “a less-costly lifecycle”

compared to surface developments.
“The negative is that, currently, the resale value of these
homes is quite low, as prospective buyers avoid them due to
their unconventional nature. At an urban scale, the amount
of earth that will need to be removed to create volumes for
the developments will be something to think about,” says
Mandevhana.
There are ups and downs to several of these hypotheses.
Science informs us that underground developments will not
need costly heating and cooling systems due to the thermophysical
properties of the earth; they could be used as shelter from adverse
weather; and would require little, if any, exterior maintenance.
Another big question or concern is that of food supply
underground. Would we be able to grow food underground?
Mandevhana has some answers.
“Due to similar conditions between underground spaces and
greenhouses, it’s possible to grow the same types of food that we
grow on the surface, but again, there is an opportunity to use the
surface for agricultural purposes, aforestation and reforestation
to reverse global warming, for instance,” he says.
Based on questions that have arisen from the recently-
unearthed ancient Turkish city of Nevşehir, perhaps an even
bigger concern is if humans will be able to physically and
psychologically adapt to life underground.
“The generalizations about these factors afect the applicability
of hypogeal cities. Sensory deprivation is one such factor, people
are stimulated by their surrounding environment, and this
becomes critical in small, enclosed spaces. On the physiological
side, the challenges are associated with lack of natural light,
indoor air quality, high humidity levels underground, and even
lack of noise,” says Mandevhana.
It means the fundamental principles of urban design and urban
planning will need to be redefined, the role of the urbanist and the
architect will need to be clarified and the engineering field will need
to establish relevant innovations to provide appropriate solutions if
we are to go the underground mass residential route in Africa. Du
Plessis thinks the first priority is to fix the infrastructure problems
we have now, before exploring underground options. “Our cities are
growing at such a rapid rate that we can’t keep doing what we are
doing. It is not sustainable. Our biggest opportunity is to revitalize
Hillbrow and the central business district,” he says.
His first call is to build more compact cities that are taller.
“The trick is to provide urban spaces that actually work. You don’t
just need a roof over your head but you need to be safe, be able to
work, for children to be able to play in the park and having attractive
spaces. It is a much bigger social construct that needs to be addressed.
We need to build much closer to where we work,” he says.
Du Plessis thinks underground developments, like the
Johannesburg tunnels, can best be used to provide better transport
routes for people to get to work faster.
(This and above) Work Be it for commercial space, housing or transportation, it seems
progresses at the Old
Johannesburg Post Oice these old tunnels have triggered a new debate that may change the
way we live. Forever.

34 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

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BEYONDTHE
PLUMES OF
SMOKE
In September, South Africa became the third
country on the continent to pass a ruling
favoring cannabis. Last month, Canada fully
legalized its use. The world of business and
medicine is slowly awakening to its beneits,
weeding fact from iction.
BY KAREN MWENDERA

THEWEED
ECONOMY
ON A HIGH
 FORBES AFRICA

FOCUS – CANNABIS

H
ouse of Tandoor, a trendy
rooftop bar that pulsates with
life on the weekends, with
reggae music, dancers and
cannabis smokers disappearing under thick
clouds of smoke, is as quiet as a church when
we visit on a Monday morning.
It is situated on Rockey Street in the
vibrant, often-chaotic suburb of Yeoville in
Johannesburg. This area is a hub for expatriates
and small business owners plying their trade at
informal markets.
Inside the bar at House of Tandoor on this
September day is a tall, elderly man with a long
beard, lost in the pages of a newspaper and
smoking a joint.
It has been two weeks since the
Constitutional Court in Johannesburg
decriminalized the personal consumption of
cannabis in private spaces.
In this small suburb, cannabis has always
been an open secret, savored not-too-discreetly
in the smoky beer dens and even openly on the
streets. Regulars swear this is where you find
the best cannabis in town.
For 23 years, the tall man with the beard
at the bar named Eric Mpobole has been a
cannabis activist in South Africa. He is the co-
owner of House of Tandoor.
“Here in Yeoville, this is a ganja village. It has
been so for two decades. So for the government
to decriminalize [ganja]… we decriminalized
it a long time ago,” he tells FORBES AFRICA,
exhaling smoke.
More than two decades ago, Mpobole started
out at House of Tandoor as a sound engineer
and DJ, with Langa Mradu.
In 2002, the two took over the place turning
it into a hotspot for people wanting to sway to
reggae music, indulge in a game of pool, and
smoke a joint (rolled cannabis) or two.
Born and bred in the township of Soweto in
Orlando East, to Rastafarian parents, Mpobole
had his first taste of cannabis at the age of 13.
“I didn’t become Rastafarian, I was born
Rasta,” he says.
The 50-year-old firmly believes cannabis
(also called weed, dagga, ganga or marijuana)
has helped keep him healthy.
Last year, he planted cannabis seeds, and
they grew into a plantation he now calls the
“plantation of God”.
This is in a bushy fenced-of area, located
a 10-minute drive outside of Johannesburg’s
Eric Mpobole

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 39


central business district; he does not tell
us where it is. He shows us a video of the
plantation on his phone and you see four-
meter-tall cannabis plants.
A few days before we meet him, he had
harvested them for medicinal purposes.
With the new ruling in South Africa, he plans
to grow more cannabis at a bigger location.
Mpobole is hopeful the next step will be
the commercialization of cannabis.
“We need to educate them [people] on
40 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
HERE IN YEOVILLE, THIS IS
A GANJA VILLAGE. IT HAS
BEEN SO FOR TWO DECADES.
SO FOR THE GOVERNMENT
TO DECRIMINALIZE IT, WE
DECRIMINALIZED IT A LONG
TIME AGO.
– ERIC MPOBOLE
Tandoor, a group of men in dreadlocks sit
relaxed under plumes of smoke, listening to
the mellow tunes wafting in, and watching
the hustle and bustle of Yeoville’s colorful
streets below.
They are basking in the dawn of a new
Lunga Mradu
era, smoking cannabis in their own space
crushes without fear of the police.
a bud of
cannabis
It’s a new kind of freedom.
Mradu, the co-owner of House of
Tandoor, is one of the men on the balcony.
He wears a beanie, dark shades and a
psychedelic t-shirt with a graphic of Bob
Marley smoking cannabis.
Before the ruling, Mradu says he had
been arrested and detained by the police for
possession of cannabis too many times to
count.
“To me, ganja has been legalized, [but] it
has been free all my life, because even if I get
arrested, you find the same thing in prison.
“I even smoked in the prison cells, why
must I be scared of the police?”
Mradu has been an advocate of cannabis
ever since he was a boy growing up in the
Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
He says he does not drink alcohol or take
any drugs.
how to grow, how to process it and how to “People are saying no to ganja because
take it to the market,” he says. they don’t know what it is,” he says, crushing
“If I was there in the decision room, I a bud of cannabis in his palm, then delicately
would suggest one thing, that why can’t we placing it on brown rolling paper. He licks
treat marijuana like any vegetable or any the sticky end, carefully rolls the blunt in
fruit?” he says, as he lights up yet another between his thumb and index finger and
joint, and gets down to some pressing then strikes a match.
matters. It lights up and he proceeds to take a deep
puf, then deliciously exhales the smoke.
A NEW FREEDOM? “The government should legalize ganja,
In the afternoon, on a balcony at House of but they have to teach people to know what

is ganja, what does ganja do to a human
being. They need to have programs on
television and newspapers on what is ganja,”
he reiterates.
Underneath his seat is a plastic bag with
dozens of “bankies” (weed stufed into
transparent bank coin bags).
He says the strands of cannabis come
from the neighboring Kingdom of eSwatini
that locals refer to as Swazi Gold or Green
House. It is grown in the Hhohho region in a
wet and warm forest-filled town in the north
called Piggs Peak.
Some of the weed smoked in South Africa
allegedly also comes from Lesotho in the
mountainous northeastern Mokhotlong
district or from the rural outskirts of South
Africa in Pondoland in the Eastern Cape.
It is an illicit market hard to track.
According to the UN’s World Drug Report
2018, there were 151 countries that reported
cannabis drug seizures between 2012 and
2016.
This means that the illicit market for
cannabis consumption or trade is a thriving
market that is still under the radar.
Cannabis has been illegal in South
Africa since the early 20th century when
the prohibition of the sale of cannabis
came to pass.
In 1922, a period marked by extreme
apartheid laws, regulations were issued
under an amended Customs and Excises
Duty Act that criminalized the possession
and use of “habit-forming drugs”
including dagga.
It also prohibited the cultivation and sale
of the plant.
“This period in South African history
[1850 to 1925] is marked by the rise of the
segregationist state and the entrenchment of
racist laws. It is argued that the prohibition
of cannabis in South Africa was an
almost inadvertent result of attempts to
scientifically justify colonial oppression,”
states researcher and historian Craig
Paterson in his master’s thesis for Rhodes
University in 2009.
In Prohibition & Resistance: A Socio-
Political Exploration of the Changing
Dynamics of the Southern African Cannabis
Trade, c. 1850 – the present, he examines
the trade of cannabis in South Africa after
its prohibition.
FORBES AFRICA
FOCUS – CANNABIS
In the 2018 ruling, the Constitutional He tells FORBES AFRICA that some
Court found that the criminalization of arrests have been made even after the ruling;
cannabis (and its history) was characterized these were people found in possession of
by racism as it was used by many indigenous cannabis in a public space or ‘dealing’ it.
South Africans and was not as harmful as
historically argued. THE CANNABIS COUPLE
On the outskirts of Johannesburg, in
NOT ENTIRELY OFF THE HOOK Lanseria, is a couple who have dedicated
In South Africa alone, statistics reveal that their lives advocating for cannabis.
in 2015 - 2016, possession of cannabis made A few days before their interview with
up a staggering 65% of all drug-related FORBES AFRICA in September, they had
crimes recorded by the South African Police cops at their door wanting to search their
Service’s (SAPS) annual crime report. home. On the Thursday morning we meet
These were people who were either them, they are in their lodge, called the Jazz
caught in possession of or trading cannabis. Farm, with a garden featuring plants of all
Police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu kinds. Three dogs lie in the living room with
Naidoo from SAPS says “that drug [cannabis]
is hardly ever imported. Most of the time, it
is exported. Most of it is grown here, in and
around the country”.
Although cannabis has been
decriminalized to an extent, it does not mean
cannabis users are entirely of the hook.
THERE’S ONLY A
The Constitutional Court ruling does CRIME IF THERE’S
not mention the quantity of cannabis that
qualifies as personal use and what qualifies
A VICTIM, AND
as ‘dealing’. [CANNABIS] IS
“All I’m saying to people is they must
interpret the ruling on their own. What we THIS VICTIMLESS
have done as an organization is we have
given guidance to our police oicers on how
CRIME THING.
to conduct themselves,” says Naidoo. – MYRTLE CLARKE
Julian Stobbs and
Myrtle Clarke call
themselves “the
cannabis couple”
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 41
FORBES AFRICA
FOCUS – CANNABIS
not a care in the world.
The cannabis oil they make at home has
become daily medicine for one of their pups
sufering from arthritis.
In their living room, adorned with
colorful art, a cofee table is the resting place
for bongs, containers filled with cannabis,
and lighters.
Myrtle Clarke, 53, and Julian Stobbs, 58,
call themselves “the cannabis couple”.
The pair who worked in South Africa’s
film and media industry have been cannabis
smokers for over 30 years.
But it was 2010, the year they got raided
and arrested for the possession of cannabis,
which triggered their fight for the rights of
cannabis users.
At 2AM on a cold August morning that
year, police were banging on their kitchen
door. Stobbs opened it with nothing on but
his underpants when six guns were stuck
into his face.
“Have you got illegal drugs in this house?”
the cop shouted.
The couple said yes and proceeded to
show the police their stash.
They searched their home without a
warrant, taking anything and everything
related to cannabis, from books to bongs to
buds.
They were convinced the couple were
running a syndicate drug lab.
“We were totally in shock,” says Clarke,
denying the allegations.
The police found no evidence of a drug
lab, only cannabis that the couple consumed
themselves.
After being detained by the police in their
home for five hours, they were taken to the
police station not far from their home for
questioning, and kept in a shabby, smelly
holding cell.
At 4PM the next day, they were released
after a R1,000 ($70) bail.
They were charged with the possession of
cannabis.
Their court appearance was supposed to
take place early 2012, but was postponed.
In the meantime, they studied a book
titled Cannabis Human Rights And The Law,
given to them by a friend, and learned about
the rights they have as cannabis users.
“There’s only a crime if there’s a victim,
and [cannabis] is this victimless crime thing,”
42 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
Clarke says.
In a turn of events, they went from being
plaintifs to defendants.
Instead of facing charges, the couple sued
seven diferent government departments for
human rights violations.
They claimed that the plant should be
completely legalized to grow, buy, sell and
use for recreational or medicinal use.
A year later, in 2013, they registered an
NGO called Fields of Green for All aimed at
reforming South Africa’s cannabis laws.
Their postponed trial eventually
happened in August 2017.
However, nothing was concluded as “the
court proceedings went over time”.
The couple are still awaiting a new date
for the trial but in the meantime are doing
everything they can to challenge South
Africa’s cannabis laws.
They were invited as keynote speakers
at the SA Drug Policy Week 2018 in October
in Cape Town to enlighten and educate
attendees on the use of cannabis.
In their kitchen, on the counter, is a large
transparent jar with dozens of cannabis buds.
“Look at that, how can that be illegal, look
how beautiful it is. It’s God’s gift. You think
God made a mistake?” says Stobbs.
“Cannabis is just part of my persona, and
I’m the proof that it doesn’t make you stupid
or lazy, and we have achieved what we have
achieved by being daily cannabis users.”
“It has been a fight because it’s very
diicult to get people to take you seriously.
But now that we’ve got the judgment, they
will listen to us, at last,” adds Clarke.
The couple wish they could settle down
and retire in their lodge but they want to
continue the fight.
Next on their agenda? To achieve
complete cannabis legalization in the
country.
‘MARIJUANA RUINED MY LIFE’
Critics of the cannabis ruling are concerned
its legalization will cause more harm than
good.
Twenty two-year-old Micheal Mojapelo
has been clean of cannabis for four years
now and has dedicated his life to helping
drug abusers based in South Africa.
He is dressed in an orange shirt barely
covering the tattoos on his left arm, and a
WHEN PEOPLE END
UP IN TREATMENT,
SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE
OF MARIJUANA, IT’S
VERY SAD TO SEE,
BECAUSE SOMEONE
GOES UP AND THEY
CAN’T ACTUALLY
COME DOWN.
– TAKU MHONYERA
green cap adorned with buttons, when we
meet him.
Photos by Karen Mwendera; Photos supplied; Graphs sourced from The State of Legal Marijuana Markets, Sixth Edition,
He was only 12 years old when he first
tried cannabis.
“The first time I smoked marijuana, I
wanted to be cool. And then I found that
marijuana did for me what I could not do
for myself. Which is basically make me
feel better about myself. It made me feel
confident. It gave me self-esteem. But that’s
because I have a disease of addiction,” he
says, his voice thick with emotion.
And only when he turned 18 did his
a report published by Arcview Market Research in partnership with BDS Analytics
life change for the worse. In high school,
he mixed with the wrong people and
experimented with other drugs.
“I ended up dealing, and it wasn’t just
marijuana. I used to deal crack cocaine, I
used to deal kat. And I ended up living in a
crack house,” he says.
As a result, he failed his matric year.
Reality sunk in and he was forced to make
a decision to change his life for the sake of his
family.
Making the decision to go to rehab,
Mojapelo stopped smoking completely.
“I stopped because smoking marijuana
ruined my life,” he tells FORBES AFRICA
regretfully.
He checked into the Crossroads Recovery
Centre, a drug rehabilitation center based
in Johannesburg, where he met with Taku
Mhonyera, who owns the branch and is the
head of treatment.
“When he came to rehabilitation, he
was just lazy. [His addiction] took away the
 Micheal Mojapelo
(left) checked into
Taku Mhonyera’s
rehab to rid himself of
the addiction
On its website, the company says that
the Poison Cannabis IPA beverage contains
hemp or Cannabis Sativa flavor, aroma and
oils, while the Durban Poison Cannabis Lager
contains no THC.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the
key principal psychoactive constituent of
cannabis, is what gets one high.
The company, which was launched in
March 2015, currently retails the drinks at
select stores and on its website. The beers
were launched in September.
Internationally, multi-billion dollar
beverage brand Coca-Cola has also been
motivation and life was passing by. That’s the could lead to greater abuse of cannabis, looking closely.
whole point of this kind of stuf, so it’s sad to increase the rates of addiction, and aggravate “Along with many others in the beverage
see when it’s in that form, you know,” says the medical, psychosocial and psychiatric industry, we are watching the growth
Mhonyera. problems caused by it. of this ingredient in functional wellness
Mhonyera has dealt with over a thousand “In a country like South Africa marked beverages around the world. The current
clients and drug abusers but he says cannabis by inequality and economic disparity, the discussion had in North America was purely
abusers only make up a small percentage of vulnerable will be more significantly afected exploratory,” says the company in a statement
them. by these problems,” he adds. to FORBES AFRICA.
“When people end up in treatment, The Constitutional Court has given But just how much is the global cannabis
specifically because of marijuana, it’s very parliament two years to update the industry worth?
sad to see, because someone goes up and they legislation relating to marijuana to be in line It is estimated that by 2022, the legal
can’t actually come down,” he says. with its ruling. spending of cannabis in the rest of world
Despite the way the plant afected would be $32 billion.
Mojapelo’s life, he is hopeful one day he can THE NEXT BIG BUSINESS? This was cited in The State of Legal
launch his own business to support his child. Since the September ruling, some Marijuana Markets, Sixth Edition, a report
He wants nothing to do with the cannabis businesses in South Africa are looking at published by Arcview Market Research in
industry. innovative ways to cash in. partnership with BDS Analytics, a company
“The risks of cannabis are many. It is In Durban, a craft brewery called Poison that produces cannabis industry market
addictive and may lead to dependence City Brewing has created Poison Cannabis trends and consumer insights.
and withdrawal. Intoxication may cause IPA and Durban Poison Cannabis Lager. “We are talking about an industry in
disturbances in levels of consciousness,
perception or behavior,” says psychiatrist
Hemant Nowbath, a member of the South
African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP)
based in the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province
of South Africa.
“People who use cannabis have higher
risks for depression and anxiety. Cannabis
may also cause psychosis and lower the age
of the onset of schizophrenia. Cannabis
could impair cognitive functions leading to
poor school performance and diminished
achievement,” he adds.
“Motor coordination may be impaired
leading to an efect on driving ability and the
increased risk of injury. Acute cardiovascular
efects including myocardial infarction and
strokes may occur.”
Nowbath is concerned the new ruling

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 43

FORBES AFRICA
FOCUS – CANNABIS
which $12.9 billion will be spent this year,”
Tom Adams, Managing Director of Industry
Intelligence for BDS Analytics, tells FORBES
AFRICA.
That’s up from $9.5 billion last year.
“There are lots of fast-growing industries,
but I have never seen anything like this,” he
adds.
News reports say Canopy Growth
Corporation, a medical marijuana company
in Canada, received $4 billion at the end of
2017 after an investment by Constellation
Brands, maker of Corona beer.
Canopy Growth generated $54 million
in revenue. Weed stocks surged as Canada
prepared to legalize marijuana in October
and Canopy Growth climbed more than 14%,
hitting a record high of $57 a share.
All eyes are on Canada as it legalized
recreational marijuana last month, becoming
the second country in the world to do so after
Uruguay.
Says Shane MacGuill, Head of Tobacco
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT
AN INDUSTRY IN WHICH
$12.9 BILLION WILL BE
SPENT THIS YEAR.
– TOM ADAMS,
BDS ANALYTICS
44 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
Research at market research provider
Euromonitor International, in a press
statement soon after the legalization of
cannabis in Canada: “This full, (almost)
no-holds-barred legalization of recreational
cannabis – the first of its type in the world
– is a historic landmark in the rapidly
developing global debate. The evolution of
the Canadian market – and in particular its
economic, excise and societal impact – will
be closely monitored internationally by those
looking for ballast on both sides of the policy
conversation. It also shifts the spotlight on
to the next markets weighing liberalization
moves – the neighboring US, Australia and
some EU member states to name just a few
of a what is set to become a rolling tide of
legalization.”
Legalizing marijuana ‘edibles’ are next
on Canada’s agenda according to a report by
Bloomberg.
Despite cannabis being still illegal in many
parts of the world, Adams says it is “a massive
existing consumer product category”.
If countries opt to fully legalize cannabis
and regulate its trade, he says there will be
enormous economic benefits.
These include employment and business
opportunities, health benefits, investments,
and a line of by-products such as edibles,
vape pens, and more that can have a
multiplying efect.
“There’s an opportunity reached out into
every field to capitalize on the fast-growing
legal industry,” says Adams.
ADULT-USE OVER MEDICAL-USE
Currently, many of the countries with
partially-legalized cannabis have been
reaping the benefits of medical marijuana.
It is estimated that by 2022, legal adult-
use spending on cannabis will reach $20.9
billion, while medical spending will hit $11.2
billion. This $9.7 billion diference is in spite
of the fact that medical-use is legalized in
more countries than legal adult-use.
“Even with the broadening of medical
programs around the globe and strong
medical sales, adult-use markets are
expected to outpace medical-only markets by
the end of this year,” the report says.
The illicit cannabis market, which
remains untraceable, could potentially
increase the value of the cannabis industry.
With its legalization, governments would
also need a legal structure in place to ensure
that it becomes a fully-functioning economy.
“You can have legalization, but if you
don’t have regulation as well, the economic
benefits just don’t appear,” says Adams.
Closer home, African countries have the
best climate to grow cannabis.
“Much of Africa has the perfect climate
for growing cannabis and economic
situations that allow it to do it very cheaply
because the labor costs are very low and
therefore, this is a phenomenal opportunity
for economic development for a lot of
African countries,” he says.
However, only three countries on the
continent have legalized the growing of
cannabis to some extent, namely Zimbabwe,
Lesotho and South Africa.
Based on Paterson’s 2009 report, “It
is hard to estimate either the quantity of
cannabis produced in southern Africa or the
monetary value of its trade.”
Many are not willing to disclose the
numbers.
“In reality, very few people involved in
the southern African cannabis trade have
managed to dramatically improve their
standard of living. Usually, they have only
MEDICAL
managed to supplement their income, or to
create a limited source of extra income,” he
says.
Additionally, locally-produced cannabis
MARIJUANA?
Cannabis is widely debated to have
is done at a low price. This means that even
different medical beneits.
the wholesalers and large-scale dealers of
cannabis do not derive an exceptionally large
income from it, he says.
Researchers have shown the chemical
However, according to Aadil Patel,
compounds in marijuana have 3.ARTHRITIS: Studies have shown
National Head of the Employment practice
medicinal applications. According to that medical marijuana has the ability
at Clife Dekker Hofmeyr, a commercial law Medical Cannabis Dispensary, a South to reduce joint inflammation and
firm in South Africa, if Africa were to achieve African online resource for medical related pain symptoms.
full legalization of cannabis, this would result marijuana, cannabis could assist people
in many employment opportunities. suffering with the following diseases. 4.GLAUCOMA: The use of medical
Because the South African climate is marijuana can not only help stop
favorable for growing cannabis, “one can 1.ALZHEIMER’S: Studies have shown the damage caused by intraocular
imagine the jobs that could be created that marijuana may be effective in pressure, but can also help reverse
through cannabis farms”, he tells FORBES inhibiting the progression of this deterioration of the optic nerve.
AFRICA. disease through a variety of biological
mechanisms. 5.HIV: Medical marijuana is effective
“The establishment of such farms will
in treating the symptoms caused
have a knock-on efect and create other
2.CANCER: Some doctors prescribe by many HIV medications, including
employment opportunities related to the the use of marijuana as an aid to help nausea, lack of appetite, nerve pain,
fields of business (including buyers, sellers, combat the disease and mollify the anxiety, depression and insomnia.
advertisers and other entrepreneurs), effects of chemotherapy. “Studies have
medicine and religion,” he says. also shown a positive effect in regards to 6.PAIN RELIEF: One of the most
inhibiting tumor growth in leukemia and common uses of medical marijuana
breast cancer as well as the invasion of is for the treatment of chronic
Aadil Patel
cervical cancer, liver cancer, brain cancer pain. Cannabinoids, the medical
and lung cancer cells,” says the Medical compound found in marijuana, has
Cannabis Dispensary. pain-relieving (analgesic) properties.

In terms of where the future of On a global scale, investors are silently

cannabis may go, Adams believes complete
legalization around the world is sure to
happen and it is only a matter of time.
But until then, those operating in the
illicit market will be the only
ones benefiting.
monitoring the growing trends of what
could be the next big emerging market.
It would be interesting to see, much like
many of Africa’s natural resources, whether
a small hairy green cannabis bud would light
up the African economy.

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 45

 THE NOT-TOO-
DISTANT FUTURE OF
TELEVISION
The business and consumption of television as we know it is going
to change forever. From digital living rooms to newsrooms, stay
tuned for a more personalized, multi-screen experience.
W
e live in a world of
constant disruption.
Technological
advancements have
turned everything on its head. Companies
like Uber, Airbnb, YouTube and Facebook
have shaken the incumbents in their
respective industry, paving the way for
new business models that value eiciency
and instant gratification. Fintechs are the
next group of relatively new startups to
disrupt one of the world’s largest sectors
– banking and finance. And while every
industry in the world is impacted by these
technological enhancements and changes
in consumption, media has probably
changed the most.
Before we get into the changes
impacting the evolution of television
news, it’s important to take stock of the
market. In sub-Saharan Africa, the pay-TV
landscape is dominated by DStv. Hybrid
services that bundle over-the-top (OTT;
content delivered over the internet)
services with digital terrestrial and IP TV
like Kwese and Wananchi Groups’ Zuku
46 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
BY SID WAHI
are smaller in terms of subscribers, but are
making inroads across the continent.
The deadline for the switch-over to
Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) has
passed in most markets in Africa, but
remains an opportunity for growth and
channel development. Netflix and Amazon
Prime have been globally available since
2016 and are growing subscriber numbers
in emerging markets, competing directly
with pay-TV providers, while Facebook,
Instagram and Snapchat are investing in
scripted short-form programming. With
the abundance of choice, for both free and
paid content, the share of screentime is
getting increasingly fragmented.
PwC, a professional services firm,
publishes a report, Entertainment and
Media Outlook: An African Perspective,
each year. The report does a good job of
measuring the pulse of media across the
continent. PwC predicts that the total TV
market in South Africa, which is the largest
TV market on the continent, is going to
exhibit reasonably strong growth. They
predict that the pay-TV sector will add 1.5
million households by 2022, contrary to
the decline in pay-TV viewing predicted
by media pundits as a result of the
availability of OTT alternatives like Netflix
in South Africa. TV advertising remains an
important part of the overall TV market,
but accounts for just under a quarter of the
sector’s total revenue.
In West Africa, Nigeria’s TV market
grew year over year by 17.1%, despite a
challenging economic climate. Again,
pay-TV dominates revenues in the sector,
commanding 75% of total revenues, while
advertising accounts for just 19%. Poor
broadband penetration and availability
Photo by Cosmin4000 via Getty Images
has delayed the onset of the internet
video segment, extending the life of linear
TV in Nigeria.
How is content creation changing?
Industry leaders like Netflix have
brought in data analytics for better
content creation and acquisition. In
June, The Economist published a cover
story on Netflixonomics, which reported
Netflix has identified some 2,000 “taste

clusters” by watching its watchers.
An analysis of how well a program
will reach, draw and retain customers in
specific clusters lets Netflix calculate what
sort of acquisition costs can be justified for
it. Historically, the calculus of whether a
show or film is worth making was based on
relatively subjective criteria, and, on the
intuition of people experienced in content
creation. Data will become increasingly
important in determining what to produce.
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence
(AI) and machine learning are going to
play an important role in augmenting the
abilities of content producers, particularly
journalists. AI-driven computer vision
tools, speech recognition and natural
language processing, when combined
with a real-time content feed, can help
a content producer create enhanced
visualization and representations of data,
fact-checking, and guest identification
cataloguing.
AI is enhancing the newsroom in many
other ways. From streamlining media
workflows to automating mundane tasks,
TECHNOLOGY – TELEVISION
enabling journalists to focus on what they
do best – reporting. AI is also being used
to improve turnaround times by allowing
content creators to crunch more data.
Research can be performed much faster,
and information can be correlated quickly
and eiciently. Facebook is using AI to
detect word patterns that may indicate a
fake news story.
One of the largest cost components
within a television news station was
the cost of connectivity. Historically,
connectivity for a TV channel was largely
based on expensive satellites. Reliability
was also an issue; bad weather could
afect the quality of the signal.
Portable cellular backpack solutions
like LiveU, which uses the internet
through mobile cellular networks,
bound with other networks, like wireless
internet, have rendered legacy satellite
uplink systems redundant.
Robotic cameras used within news
studios take up less space and don’t
require dedicated personnel to operate
them. Integrated hardware solutions that
incorporate all the elements of live TV
in a single box have reduced the cost of
operating a TV channel.
What are the transmission protocols of
the future going to look like?
How people receive content is becoming
just as important. IP-delivered content
opens new doors to how advertisers can
target consumers. As TV becomes more
digitalized and smarter, the line between
TV and OTT is blurring. Advertisers and
ad agencies will eventually merge their TV
ad digital planning and measurement.
It’s no secret that video on demand and
other internet video services lag pay-TV
across Africa. This is largely due to the
availability and afordability of broadband
internet. While this remains a challenge
in the short-to-medium term, providers of
telecommunication services are entering
the content distribution space.
How will consumption patterns change
in the future?
We’ve covered how data informs
FORBES AFRICA
decisions around content production.
Data is also used in the consumption
side of the equation, particularly when
it comes to delivering personalized
content recommendations. Netflix does
this particularly well with its content
recommendation algorithms. This
becomes important when dealing with
massive amounts of content, for example,
user-generated content from social
media sites.
On any given day, over a billion hours
of video are watched on YouTube. Seventy
percent of this content is recommended
by YouTube’s algorithms. Going down
the rabbit hole of YouTube is something
most of us are familiar with; your well-
intentioned first click on a video someone
sent you leads to a three-hour binge, from
videos about political conspiracy theories
to a clip on the antics of various house cats.
The recommendations are
personalized, and they’re the first thing
you see when you sign on to the site or
YouTube app. They help you find the
needle in the haystack of the millions of
videos on YouTube that you actually want
to watch.
The shift to second screen viewing
has already taken place, with viewers
often multi-tasking, watching Netflix
and engaging with their friends on social
media. There has been a lot of buzz
around augmented reality and virtual
reality. If you look past the gimmickry and
hype, there hasn’t been a tectonic shift in
either technology.
Wherever the future of television takes
us, you cannot understate the importance of
quality content, whether user-generated or
scripted, free, paid or ad-supported. Almost
all content will move towards a multi-screen
environment with a highly personalized
stream of content, rendering channels
obsolete. The television will be just one of
the many screens available to audiences.
News production will become more eicient
to produce, insightful when consumed and
ubiquitous in its availability.
– The writer is the Managing Director of
CMA Investment Holdings.
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 47
 BLOCKCHAIN
AT THE POLLS?
Blockchain is being adapted for election usage elsewhere in
the world, and could provide the answer to making voting
more transparent in Africa.
K
enyan elections are
notoriously tricky afairs,
usually with disputed results
and occasionally with
accompanying violence.
Other African elections often descend into
chaos, as most recently seen in Zimbabwe, but
in blockchain, the open, distributed ledger most
commonly associated with bitcoin, a solution
may have been found.
Earlier this year, presidential elections took
place in Sierra Leone. During the vote, Swiss
foundation Agora used blockchain to record
votes in more than 300 polling centers. As
blockchain records transactions in a verifiable
and permanent way, it is almost impossible
to alter. Therefore, by recording votes on it,
elections in theory become more transparent.
This greater transparency could be pivotal
to ensuring more efective democracy and
calmer elections across Africa, where disputes
over votes are common. Kenya looks set to
become the next country to test the benefits,
with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula
Chebukati saying it would utilize blockchain in
the next elections.
What impact could it have? Michael Kimani
48 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
BY TOM JACKSON
is Chairman of the Blockchain Association of
Kenya, and he says that will depend on how it
is used.
“From my experience, any deployment of
distributed ledger technology could be at one of
three points in the electoral system – the main
server where voter registration data is held, the
national tallying center where all information
from across the country is collated, and the
tallying centers where group representatives
take part in a tallying process,” he says.
Wherever and however the IEBC chooses
to employ blockchain, electoral laws would
have to be changed to accommodate it. Kimani
also says it’s worth keeping in mind that the
technology itself is still nascent.
“Beyond cryptocurrency, there hasn’t been
any deployment at scale,” he says.
Nevertheless, Kimani believes the IEBC
statement is a positive starting point, and that
using blockchain could have a significant
impact on reducing fraud.
“The concept of a distributed ledger for
processes that were previously limited to
a single entity would provide significant
improvements for the whole process,” he says.
“I am less concerned about the technology
itself. It really boils down to man-made
specifications that can be implemented. I see
potential problems in setting up the necessary
governance structures required to make it a
reality. There are some things the technology
can do, but the rest of it is really up to humans
– the laws we set up, the institutions we set
up, the audit processes we set up to check on
the technology where it fails, and the dispute
resolution structures we set up.”
Challenges remain. Yet, blockchain is being
adapted for election usage elsewhere in the
world. It has been piloted in elections by the
state of West Virginia in the United States,
while tech firm Kaspersky Lab has built a
platform that utilizes it for voting.
Alexey Malanov, a malware expert at
Kaspersky Lab, says it is the next logical step
on from online voting, which has been used in
countries such as Estonia in northern Europe.
“Online voting can be highly beneficial for
modern society – it has the potential to make
voting easier, cheaper and more convenient.
In the modern, eiciency-driven, mobile
world, various limitations of oline voting
have become apparent: it’s expensive, time-
consuming and often inaccessible – or at least
challenging for people who aren’t physically
present to cast a vote,” he says.
 WHY DIGITAL BANKING IS
UNIQUE IN
AFRICA
Jaydeep Gupta, the Regional Head of Retail Banking, Africa and Middle
East, Standard Chartered, on why banks need to adapt and respond to an
ever-changing operating environment on the continent.

AFRICA’S GROWTH PROSPECTS

There is no doubt there is a significant
opportunity in Africa not just in banking but
across many industries. While the banking
industry has faced a slight slowdown in
other global markets, in Africa, this hasn’t
been the case. According to a recent report
by McKinsey, Africa’s banking sector is
projected to grow significantly over the
next five years. In fact, it’s nearly twice as
profitable as the global average.
Looking at retail banking, in 2017, retail
bank revenue in Africa was at $35 billion
and, according to McKinsey, it’s expected
to increase by 8.5 % per year, reaching $53
billion by 2022.
By bringing both digitization and
technological innovations into the

Photo by Burak Karademir via Getty Images / Supplied

economies, we are seeing more companies
rival new segments with the progressive
application of risk analytics. There
is also an increased use of non-bank
data for customer behavior analytics
and proactiveness in looking at credit
extensions over a period of time.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
We have been exploring opportunities in
the market to drive digital banking and in
March, we launched our first digital retail
bank in Côte d’Ivoire. It was the perfect
opportunity to launch a fully end-to-end
digital bank, with only one physical branch
to test our model for future roll-out. The
platform allows customers to execute all
banking activities from a mobile device,
including 70 banking services through the
app. In addition, for the first time, the client
onboarding journey has been digitized and
in under 15 minutes, a client can open a new
account through the app.
What has also been introduced is
the ability for clients to track and trace
a request submitted, which is a first for
Standard Chartered…
We are now preparing to launch digital
banks in our other markets across Africa.
CHALLENGES IN DEVELOPING MARKETS
We have faced a number of diferent
challenges in Africa, some of the most
common being the heavy reliance on cash
and low-banking penetration. The most
important challenge in my opinion is to
stay ahead of the curve and evolve along
with market demands. In today’s digital
world, it’s critical that we collaborate
with diferent partners and form
alliances in order to provide clients with
a convenient and superior customer
experience, in line with a rapidly-
evolving market.
INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY
We always protect and grow our market
share by utilizing our client services and

50 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018


Alexey
Malanov
“Online voting can help overcome these
challenges, but this brings several uncertainties
of its own: how to properly secure the process
and how to make sure that the votes aren’t
changed or altered by an external or internal
party.”
Usage of blockchain technology for general
elections, however, is not reasonable at the
moment, he says.
“It’s quite a slow technology. A public
blockchain processes 10 transactions per
second, [which] is not enough to ensure
voting for millions of citizens within one day,”
Malanov says.
However, Kaspersky Lab is sure blockchain
has vast potential yet to be uncovered, with
its Business Incubator team exploring
opportunities for secure implementation
of blockchain for commercial use, and how
its transparent, incorruptible and trusted
characters could benefit areas beyond
cryptocurrencies.
“We saw a great market opportunity and
decided to support an experimental and
promising project called Polys. It’s a secure
online voting system based on blockchain
technology and backed by transparent crypto-
algorithms,” Malanov says.
“From the user’s perspective, it consists
of a web service through which to organize
voting and cast a vote, using a mobile phone
or tablet. As in any vote, there are several
key requirements that would make online
Photo supplied; Photo via Getty
voting trusted and secure – transparency of
the process, anonymity of a voter and their
confidence that their vote won’t be altered
in favor of a candidate or option they didn’t
choose.”
Blockchain-based programs like Polys
provide all this, and it’s surely only a matter
of time before we start seeing them used in
African elections.
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Hilton Sandton supports the well-being of
Team Members and their families by offer-
ing wellness programs, initiatives like:
• Thrive@Hilton, this is our Team
Member Value Proposition, focused on
enabling our Team Members to grow
and flourish in Body, Mind and Spirit.
With Thrive@Hilton we continue to
invest in our Team Members and evolve
the way we work and lead in order to
create space for what matters most:
innovation, creativity and building
connections. At Hilton Sandton, we
have Fun Fridays, once a month we
have one activity for all Team Mem-
bers which is held out of working
environment and all departments are
encouraged to have a fun activity once
a week, amongst other activities we
either cultivate our roof top garden,
play soccer or netball with our adopted
school based in Alexandra Minerva
High School.
• Thrive Sabbatical, to go on a four-
weeks, personally designed sabbatical
to either: “Give a Dream”, enrich the
lives of others through a humanitarian
or volunteer activity of their choice.
“Live a Dream”, achieve a personal
goal, explore a new interest or embark
on a meaningful adventure.
• Work/life benefits offer Team Members
flexibility to balance the responsibilities
of personal and professional life.

capabilities, which keeps us ahead of the
competition. We are also placing heavy
focus on digitization, which is one of the key
items on the bank’s transformation agenda.
We are making strategic investments in
technology to stay ahead of the curve and
are constantly enhancing our products and
services to make banking simpler, more
convenient and secure. An example of this is
the introduction of enhanced digital banking
services, including our mobile app, SC
Mobile, and Retail Workbench ‘Bank on an
iPad’ platform.
PROMOTING INCLUSIVENESS
Look at multiple ways of including and
empowering women in the banking industry,
one of which is providing innovative and
tailored products and services designed to
suit the needs of women in Africa.
This is especially evident in, and made
possible by, the digital journey. With
enhanced digital and analytic capabilities,
we are able to develop solutions that are
specifically designed for women, as well as
students and entrepreneurs. We are also
exploring ways of empowering women and
providing them with the necessary tools
to succeed in banking and hold leadership
roles in the industry. An example of this
is our Women in Technology Incubator
originally established in the United States
and rolled out in Africa in 2017 with Kenya
taking the lead.
MOBILE WALLETS
The digital banking movement in Africa
started with the mobile wallet. There are
over 100 million active mobile money
users in Africa. The mobile wallet has
improved the lives of Africans by facilitating
participation and accessibility.
We are starting to witness the next
generation of products being made available
to customers in Africa. An example of this
is the recent widespread use of e-wallets
that are beginning to pave the way for less
reliance on cash in Africa. Along with less
reliance, other benefits like afordability,
increased security and greater convenience
FORBES AFRICA
STRATEGIES
act as key drivers for customers. invested in and continue to be built on.
Digital banking in Africa is especially Without proper analytics, companies
unique because it has the potential to will struggle to understand consumer
remedy some of the continent’s greatest behavior. To provide customers with the
economic challenges, while simultaneously best possible service, you must understand
presenting some of the largest opportunities where they are coming from.
for digital and online banking. Therefore, it is very important that solid
collection strategies and procedures are
MORE REGULATION put in place.
Banking in Africa, and the world, has
evolved significantly over the last 10 years. – Interviewed by Melitta Ngalonkulu
Customers are now demanding more
convenient, quick, and easy services.
Providing online and mobile platforms is no
longer a benefit, but a requirement. We have
also seen regulators in Africa
more heavily, and frequently,
enforce regulation across the
continent.
This, in turn, has forced
banks to adapt and respond
to an ever-changing operating
environment. Looking at online
and mobile banking solutions
specifically, banks have not
necessarily replaced them, but Jaydeep Gupta
they are definitely exploring
options for updating them in
line with these changes and
ensuring the security of their customers. For
AFRICA:
many, this has forced them to think outside A HOTBED OF
of the box.
INNOVATION
ROBOTICS AND AI OVER PEOPLE?
There is no doubt that robotics and Artificial • According to a recent report
Intelligence (AI) will change the people by McKinsey, over 40% of
interface, but it definitely does not mean that African banking users prefer to
it will replace it. use digital channels for their
If anything, leveraging advancements in financial needs. This is no
technology will only complement customer surprise and is indicative of the
services and help us be more eicient and digital shift we are witnessing
targeted. For example, banks today are across sub-Saharan Africa.
utilizing AI to analyze financial data in
order to provide customers with tailor-made • The African banking sector has
and fully-customizable banking solutions, been described as a ‘hotbed’ of
designed specifically to suit customers’ innovation. As Africa begins
individual needs. to enter an exciting era of
digitization, innovation will play
ADVANCED ANALYTICS a key role in unlocking the future
It’s critical that these capabilities are potential of banking.
IVORY
TOWER
INTHE
CLOUD
Long the domain of seedy
degree mills peddling
debt-laden vocational train-
ing, online education is now a
priority, and a proit center, at
top-tier universities thanks to
innovators like 2U Inc.
BY ANTOINE GARA
I
n 2014, when Douglas Shackelford
was named dean of UNC’s Kenan-
Flagler Business School, his most
important strategic initiative was
clear. UNC was a top-tier public university,
but its Bschool, barely in the top 20, was on
a mission to greatly expand its enrollment
on the cheap.
“Our traditional revenue sources were
52 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
changing, and not in a good direction,” says
Shackelford, 60.
So UNC forged ahead with a little-
known company called 2U, based in
Lanham, Maryland. In exchange for 60%
of future tuition revenues, 2U would invest
$5 million to $10 million building out
UNC’s software and marketing capabilities,
scour the globe for online applicants and,
importantly, leave the admissions decisions
and teaching to Chapel Hill.
The results have been impressive: Seven
years after it launched its program with 2U,
UNC is the largest online M.B.A. provider,
with 938 students, most of whom pay full
tuition. Only half as many are enrolled in
the full-time residential program.
“We’ve doubled our student body
without adding any buildings in Chapel
Hill,” says Shackelford, noting that
tuition for MBA@UNC costs $124,000.
In fact, online revenue has nearly tripled
to $14 million, while faculty head count
has held steady, and operating income
has gone from a $1.4 million loss to a $5
Photo by Jamel Topping
million profit.
Known as an online-program manager,
or OPM, 2U is the United States’ leading
provider of software for universities seeking
to quickly expand enrollment digitally. Its
cloud-based content-management platform
allows students and stafers to seamlessly

2U chief Chip Paucek at the
company’s headquarters
in Lanham, Maryland. The
books may be props, but 2U’s
$4.7 billion valuation speaks
volumes about its acceptance
at scholarly institutions
connect to universities’ existing systems,
handling everything from loading lectures
and hosting intimate discussion groups to
troubleshooting technical glitches.
In its first decade, 38,000-plus students
have en-rolled in 2U-administered degree
programs, and 2U is on track to generate
as much as $412 million in revenue this
year, a 44% increase. The company isn’t
yet profitable since it’s launching programs
at a quickening pace and only recoups its
hefty initial investments by the fourth year
of its typical 10-year contract. Still, 2U’s
Nasdaq-listed shares have risen from their
2014 IPO price of $13 to $80, making the
company worth $4.7 billion. “We have a
massive amount of market runway,” says 2U
chief executive and cofounder Chip Paucek,
who’s aiming for 5% of the $80 billion global
market for graduate degrees.
Master’s programs are 2U’s sweet spot,
and its oferings to university administrators
are soup to nuts.
Besides software, the company has
a small army of social-media-savvy
marketers to assist in recruiting. It also
finds placements for students in areas like
education, nursing and social work. For
Georgetown’s midwifery program, for
instance, 2U partnered with hospitals so
that each online student delivers 20 to 40
babies by graduation. When USC’s Rossier
School of Education demanded that
candidates have at least three semester-
long teaching placements, 2U built
relationships with elementary and high
schools in 50 states. So far it has placed
over 43,000 students.
For Cory Broussard, 37, who got his
M.B.A. from UNC in 2014, it meant not
having to quit his day job as an engineer on
an ofshore platform for Shell in the Gulf
of Mexico.
“The professors were just brilliant,”
says Broussard, who, like all 2U
students, attended periodic immersion
sessions on campus.
OPMs have a dismal reputation in
education circles because they have long
been associated with for-profit boiler-room-
type operations. They came under the
scrutiny of the Department of Education, in
part because they encouraged students to
pile on government-backed loans to finance
dubious degrees.
By avoiding any notion of being an
academic institution, 2U has positioned
itself as a white-label software-and-
services firm with a blue-chip client base.
Its graduate oferings are in fields with
strong job prospects. Besides UNC, 2U
has oferings with schools including Yale,
NYU, UC Berkeley, Tufts, Northwestern
and Vanderbilt.
Timing is everything in business, and
2U’s crisis-era launch was fortunate. With
finances strained and digital technologies
disrupting nearly every industry, top
FORBES AFRICA
ENTREPRENEURS
universities finally accepted online
degree programs as equal to on-campus
alternatives. 2U has 64 degree programs
with 26 universities and is adding more than
14 new programs each year.
Paucek, 47, 2U’s mastermind, has been
involved in educational ventures since
the early 1990s. In the 2000s, Paucek ran
Hooked on Phonics for Sylvan Learning.
After its parent company was sold, Paucek
partnered with John Katzman, the founder
of Princeton Review, to start 2U in 2008.
2U’s success has sparked a deluge of
competitors, including a new outfit from
Katzman, who left in 2012. There are others:
Coursera, which operates massive open
online courses (MOOC), manages a $22,000
a year M.B.A. at the University of Illinois
and will soon start programs at Michigan
and Penn.
Edx, a MOOC founded by Harvard and
MIT, ofers a master of science in analytics
from Georgia Tech for less than $10,000 and
will launch 13 other programs. Overall, the
number of OPMs is 30 and rising, according
to Eduventures Research.
If that weren’t enough, schools like
Harvard and Cornell are building their own
systems. Short-sellers are thus eyeing 2U, as
margin pressure is inevitable.
Paucek is undeterred. Last May, he
acquired short-course provider GetSmarter,
which ofers certificate programs in
data science, artificial intelligence and
blockchain.
Recently, 2U became the first OPM
to ofer a juris doctor. Paucek also plans
to ofer medical, dental and veterinarian
degrees.
Don’t underestimate 2U’s first-mover
advantage. In academia, where risk-taking
is anathema, reputation and word of mouth
often trump hard economic analysis. “It’s a
pretty simple business,” Paucek says, whose
2U stake is worth $100 million.
“If the student wins, the university wins.
If the university wins, we win. We believe
that. It’s not some PR talk.”
We do apologize for not carrying the full story
in our October issue on account of a printing
error. The error is regretted.
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 53
FORBES AFRICA
ENTREPRENEURS – NORMAN BEAULIEU
THE IMPACT
INVESTOR
Norman Beaulieu has an innovative business approach to
community development in Africa, regenerating degraded
land and providing solutions to mitigate climate change.
BY NICK SAID
M
esmerising childhood tales
from a Mombasa-based aunt
and a visit to South Africa’s
Alexandra township two
decades ago forged a passion for Africa in
Norman Beaulieu, who now wants to change
the fortunes of impoverished people living in
rural communities across the continent.
Boston native Beaulieu is the founder of
Village Corps, a community development
business which aims to use bio-energy,
agriculture and modern technology to help
overcome poverty and mitigate climate
change in some of the poorest parts of Africa.
Already underway in the Akyem
Abuakwa Kingdom in the Eastern Region
of Ghana, the project has potential across
the continent with South Africa’s Rharhabe
Kingdom in the Eastern Cape next in
line through continued support from the
Department of Trade and Industry.
“My aunt was a nun in Mombasa, Kenya,
in the early 1960s and as I grew up, she
shared all sorts of fascinating stories, many
of them about the challenges communities
face,” Beaulieu tells FORBES AFRICA.
“Later, I was at Wesleyan University in
Middletown, Connecticut, and my resident
advisor was South African. We became close
friends and when I visited the country for the
first time in 1997, we spent a day in Alexandra
and I got to see where he grew up.
“I was struck by how my childhood
54 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
stories of poverty became all too vivid before
my eyes. Over 30 years after my aunt left
Africa, it seemed like little had changed. I
was devastated by the entrenched pattern of
poverty, in all its many forms. So I became
rather fixated on coming up with a solution
to break that cycle.”
What Beaulieu witnessed were NGOs
tirelessly implementing their individual
solutions, such as drilling boreholes or
providing mosquito nets, in as many
communities as they could reach, all the
while constantly trying to raise money.
Beaulieu, who previously founded Aedi
Group, a sustainable project development
company in the United States, relocated to
Cape Town in 2016 with his wife Kristin and
two children to implement Village Corps’
innovative business approach to community
development.
“The Village Corps business model is in
part similar to a property developer who
secures both land and then an ‘anchor’ tenant
to create, for instance, a shopping center. The
anchor tenant pays annual rent as well as a
revenue share to the developer,” he says.
“Similarly, Village Corps secures
degraded land via long-term lease from
poor communities, yet varies from the
conventional model in that it develops the
‘anchor’ business itself through integrated
bio-energy and agriculture projects, paying
annual rent for land as well as an annual
Norman Beaulieu
revenue share back to the communities to
help address varied community-based needs
more systemically.”
“This integrated development model
uses an organic agro-ecological farming
system to regenerate land that cannot be
currently used thereby helping thousands of
smallholder farmers establish a more stable
and diverse income that collectively creates a
more resilient local ecosystem.
“Once established, other businesses can
co-locate adjacent to the bio-power facility
not only as a source of baseload renewable
energy, but also as a source of heat generated
by making electricity, which can be used in a
multitude of industrial processes.”
In Ghana, Village Corps, he says, is
regenerating up to 26,000 acres of illegal
mining land, called ‘Galamsey’ land, and
approximately 100 kilometers of polluted
rivers and streams in its first project.
“Illegal miners dug holes looking for
gold, which filled with water and created
stagnant pools, so the instances of malaria are
Photos Supplied
extremely high,” Beaulieu reveals.
“The ruined lands had also collapsed
riverbanks, polluting rivers and streams,
which were sources of drinking water,
so deaths from diarrhea and
septicemia are also very high in
this community.
“We regenerate the landscape
and soil in part by planting
perennial grasses like cow grass
and bamboo to help re-establish
riverbanks. The nutritious leaves
from these grasses are used for
animal feed and the remaining
stalks are used to make electricity
through steam combustion.”
Village Corps chairman, Kofi
Appenteng, is also chairman of
the Ford Foundation and the CEO
of the Africa-America Institute in
New York.
“The Village Corps model uses
bio-power to create a more stable
The village in the Galamsey lands where the
Village Corps project in Ghana is based
and diverse source of income for
thousands of smallholder farmers
all while delivering appropriate financial
returns to funders,” Appenteng says.
“An organized network of farmers
producing organic raw materials is
compelling for other industries to co-
locate within an industrial enclave that has
renewable power and a source of heat from
the power plant to make their products, this
creates many more jobs and tax revenues for
the government.
“Over the years of vetting so many
approaches to development work, the Village feasibility studies.
Corps model is the best I have seen.”
Emliano Maletta, a Spanish-based
agronomist who is an expert in bio-energy, is
also excited about the possibilities across the
continent and echoes the view of Appenteng. their solutions to mitigating climate change
“I think that Village Corps projects
in Ghana may become an outstanding
replicable model with great benefits in Africa States-based Regenesis Group, experts at
and worldwide,” Maletta says. “In terms
of regenerating degraded and abandoned
lands, this new approach enhances resilient
agriculture, agroforestry and perennial
grasses which increase raw material
productivity at the regional level.
“By combining new farming and agro-
industries’ sectors, these bio-refinieries can
produce and use local renewable energy
sources. A synergy with new value chains
including animal feed, food and cash crops,
bio-fertilizers and many other bio-materials
has the potential to replace fossil-based
products that are being imported, enhancing
a new local bio-economy with amazing
social benefits.”
With the model in place that
demonstrated a path to appropriate financial
returns, Beaulieu attracted private investors
and secured a grant from U.S. Trade and
Development Agency through the U.S. Power
Africa initiative to conduct the required
In addition to delivering financial returns,
the model has to deliver enduring impact
dividends as well.
“Village Corps has inextricably linked
directly with overcoming poverty,” according
to Bill Reed, who is president of the United
working with communities to implement
sustainable development projects.
“The Village Corps platform is the
broadest example of how it is possible to
achieve multiple value-adding benefits and
impact through a single investment efort.
It creates renewable energy through the
restoration of degraded land into healthy soil,
diverse habitat, and natural water sources in
a way that will allow much more productive
farming, achieve local food security and a
WE REGENERATE THE
LANDSCAPE AND SOIL
IN PART BY PLANTING
PERENNIAL GRASSES
LIKE COW GRASS
AND BAMBOO TO
HELP RE-ESTABLISH
RIVERBANKS.
significant reduction in sources of disease.”
From childhood stories of the struggles of
the poor in Africa to a business model for
community development, Beaulieu has
come a long way to realizing his vision of
‘overcoming poverty by cooling the planet’.
And as the program rolls out, he will have
the firm backing of Ghana President Nana
Akufo-Addo.
“The Village Corps platform is being
developed as a Presidential Special Initiative
by President Nana Akufo-Addo as it aligns
with the President’s vision of implementing
an integrated rural development approach to
creating agricultural jobs for youth, women
and ex-miners,” Nana Bediatuo Asante,
Executive Secretary to the President of
Ghana, tells FORBES AFRICA.
“Regenerating the Galamsey lands and
waterways into resilient and productive
agricultural systems throughout Ghana
will benefit communities for generations
to come.”
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 55
 TWO’S
COMPANY
Two millennials, both FORBES AFRICA’s
Under 30 alumni, born on the same day and
with similar stories of entrepreneurship, are
collaborating to disrupt industries and shape
the future of Africa.
BY ANCILLAR MANGENA

T
he road to
entrepreneurship is cold,
lonely and riddled with
potholes. It helps if you are
walking it with someone else.
Millennials Siya Beyile and Thato
Kgatlhanye are doing just that.
Together, they are redefining
business and shaping the future
of Africa.
“Entrepreneurs always talk
about collaborations but we don’t
do it enough. We want to resource
Africa’s future. Resources go beyond
natural resources, which is where
the world has been focused. Our
ideas, our people and the way we
do things has value, so we must take
advantage of it,” says Kgatlhanye.

ENTREPRENEURS — SIYA BEYILE AND THATO KGATLHANYE
Beyile and Kgatlhanye have big dreams, but a year ago,
they were strangers, treading a path of hardship and pain.
At just 25 years old, Beyile has a resume most would envy.
In 2013, he founded The Threaded Man, a fashion blog for
men, inspired by his mother, who often called him “umfana
othungiweyo”, the ‘threaded man’ in isiXhosa.
He worked with major brands such as Adidas, Stuttafords,
American Swiss, TITAN watches, H&M, SAB, Hugo
Boss and Pandora. He styled stars like Nomuzi Mabena,
MsCosmo, Khuli Chana, AKA, DA LES, Amanda Black and
Somizi Mhlongo.
At the age of 22, he was appointed Fashion Director of the
South African Music Awards and MTV Africa Music Awards,
he was named one of the seven leading voices of African
men’s fashion by GQ and he graced the cover of GQ Style.
Beyile was adored by many, but beneath the stylish
exterior was a story that was less
flattering.
A slew of bad business decisions saw
him lose money and his credibility, and
the setbacks almost cost him his life.
“I had to shut the business down
because of depression. I tried to commit I WAS A MASTER
suicide many times. I had made a lot
of money but I had not touched it. It
IN SOMETHING HE
had gone to pay loans and also buy my NEEDED AND HE
company back. I never got to enjoy it. I
shut down,” he says.
WAS A MASTER IN
It took a toll on his confidence. He SOMETHING I NEEDED.
tonsured his head and spent six months in
a rehabilitation facility, where he worked
– THATO KGATLHANYE
on rebuilding himself.
“I lost a lot of public value. People started unfollowing
me [on social media] and just didn’t like me. People in the
industry that I respected even turned on me. I would go to
places and people would whisper around me and look at me
with shame. It was embarrassing. I would go home and cry.”
He closed his business and moved back home to Cape
Town to rethink and rejuvenate.
With a new attitude towards life, he relocated yet again to
Johannesburg to start over. In February, he connected with
Photos by Motlabana Monnakgotla
Kgatlhanye, a FORBES AFRICA 30 Under 30 alumni and
award-winning entrepreneur.
“When we met, we realized we had the same vision
of disrupting. She was tired of being known as a bag
entrepreneur and wanted to make sustainable luxury and
wanted to get into fashion and I wanted my fashion to be
sustainable and wanted to run a factory but didn’t know how.
She had the experience of running a factory and I knew all
things fashion,” says Beyile.
Kgatlhanye is the founder of Rethaka Group, which
FORBES AFRICA
started in textile manufacturing and waste management. She
became known for collecting and recycling plastic waste into
solar-powered school bags for poor children.
“We started like that so we could get an understanding
of the nuts and bolts of manufacturing. Most of the time
we don’t own the value chain of products. Take clothes,
for example, people just go somewhere to buy things but
don’t know the suppliers of zips and buttons and you end
up cutting into your margins by virtue of not understanding
the value chain. So we collaborated to form a new company,
where we bring in the ability to build and make things in a
sustainable way and then sell them on our platforms,” says
Kgatlhanye.
Beyile and Kgatlhanye founded 712 Group, which now
houses both their brands. The company is named after their
birthday; they were both born on December 7.
“We are building a global
powerhouse with African brands.
Those brands will be spread across
technology, manufacturing, fashion
and sustainability. Africa right now has
become a focal point but a lot of the
brands we consume on a daily basis are
not African. We have a lot of talented
people in these spaces but we don’t
see them opening stores around the
world and disrupting. We feel like our
market has been hijacked. There is no
corporate structure that supports our
brands,” says Beyile.
The pair agree there is more power
in collaborating than working in silos.
“Working together helps. We know our strengths and
weaknesses. For example, I know that I can’t be CEO. In the
last five years, I have been in business, I have learned I am
not capable because there are certain things I don’t think
about. However, I have also learned I am a visionary. I am
good at coming up with concepts and connecting people but
I am not good at implementing. However, Thato is good at
taking the idea and having it live in the world, which is a nice
balance,” says Beyile.
Kgatlhanye concurs: “There were a lot of loopholes in
our individual businesses that we were struggling with. It
would have taken us longer to try togrow our businesses
individually than it will take us now as a combined unit. I
was a master in something he needed and he was a master in
something I needed.”
Beyile says they have both learned not to rush, but
rather to build a solid foundation, generate cash reserves
and work on growth.
“A lot of businesses led by young people will ‘grow’ but
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 57
 IF YOU HAVE
AMBITIONS TO
BE A BILLIONAIRE
AND TO BE ON THE
COVER OF FORBES
AFRICA MAGAZINE,
TO GET THERE,
YOU WILL SUFFER.
– SIYA BEYILE
when you look at their growth metrics,
staf turnover and profitability, those
things are not solid,” says Kgatlhanye.
Beyile agrees.
“The biggest lesson from my journey
is that business is not a friendly sport.
If you have ambitions to be a billionaire
and to be on the cover of FORBES
AFRICA magazine, to get there, you will
sufer.”
Given the current market, Beyile says
their business structure is diferent.
“When I look at media companies,
their staf turnover is low. This is
because young people are frustrated.
They don’t want a nine-to-five. They
want to build their own businesses and
have their own lives. We can’t expect to
hire young people full-time and expect
them to be happy and to work for us for
20 years… Young people need to be put
in positions of empowerment, so we
work with freelancers and businesses
owned by young people on a project-by-
project basis.”
They say the additional benefit of
collaborating is it helps them save
money on oice space, speeds up project
turnaround times, ensures quality work
and gives them faster and more efective
growth and team results.
It is true: teamwork makes the dream
work. The future is bright for these
Thato Kgatlhanye
young entrepreneurs born on the same
and Siya Beyile day in the same year and with the same
vision for Africa.

58 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

FORBES AFRICA

EXECUTIVE TRAVEL

The Vltava River and the historical

center of Prague

He has gone up the Eifel Tower and

enjoyed the orchestras and operas in Vienna.
Prague impressed Schoeman the
most and he booked himself into the best
accommodation the city could ofer, also

JJPRAGUE SCHOEMAN’S visiting cathedrals, palaces and museums.

He shopped too. Schoeman loves crystal and
Prague specializes in it.
Besides that, the clothing stores are
ubiquitous and the pricing very afordable,
says the designer.
“Usually when I travel, I travel as light as
The South African fashion possible as I like to shop for all sorts of things
designer is enamored by the that are beautiful and sometimes wearable.
I often buy luggage to return with my
haunting beauty of the capital shopping, as I run out of space in my hand
of the Czech Republic. luggage. Only the clothes I wear on the flight
go with me and I buy everything else that I
BY MOTLABANA MONNAKGOTLA need there, even toothpaste.”
Schoeman usually decides the budget
beforehand.

O
ne of South Africa’s top fashion
designers and entrepreneurs,
JJ Schoeman, whose
eponymous brand has kept
him in circulation for decades amongst the
country’s swish set, may hail from Highveld,
Centurion, but his favorite place in the
world is the Czech Republic.
When not styling Johannesburg’s
fashionable elite, he holidays abroad,
particularly in Europe.
His last trip was to Prague, over the
Christmas and New Year vacations. It’s his
favorite city, where he loves taking strolls
on the countless bridges crossing the
Vltava River.
This city’s baroque buildings, Gothic
churches and the landmark medieval
astronomical clock have never ceased to
amaze him.
“The city gives one the chills as one gets
a haunting feeling just strolling around. The
buildings and towers have a characteristic
Gothic look and feel. The feeling I got when
strolling over the many bridges over the river
Vltava, was [as though] a vampire would
possibly appear, somewhere, somehow…,”
says Schoeman.
“We flew economy class and did the
whole of Europe by first-class train. The plan
was just economical. If you are going to do
a big holiday with lots of things, then you
better make sure you have enough money.
Imagine flying for R100,000 ($7,000); then
there’s a whole budget that’s gone, so it’s
better fly for R10,000 ($700), because you
have so many things to do.”
The other European cities he visited
included Berlin, Paris, Vienna and
Amsterdam.
“It’s just simpler to spend within your
budget and in their currency, as one has
already decided how much that is,” he says.
However, Schoeman does not convert
foreign currency to South African rands;
he simply does not see the point.
On the plane, he catches up on all the Photo by Pacific Press via Getty Images / Supplied
movies he has missed during the year.
“Simply, as there is often not much time
for cinema,” he says.
“On a long-haul flight, I do like to take a
nap after watching a few films. Often, I have
engaged in light conversation with fellow
passengers, but it really depends if one makes
the connection.”
When not making clothes for
brides, businesswomen and celebrities,
Schoeman is traveling and the Czech
Republic will always be top of the list for
the fashionista from Centurion.

60 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

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62 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

Advertorial BY CHEP

DEVELOPING FUTURE
SUPPLY CHAIN LEADERS

B
onolo Masilo began her work career at CHEP, a world leader
in logistics and supply-chain management. Within six years,
she was in a boardroom in London, presenting a proposal to
the international leadership of the company.
She’d risen to become an innovation leader, had built a net-
work of contacts that spanned the globe and been identified as
one of her organisation’s brightest young talents.
Bonolo has been recognised as a precocious talent from the
outset. CHEP started on this journey with her when they award-
ed her a full bursary for her operations-management studies
at the University of Johannesburg, after which she joined the
company in 2011 as a graduate trainee.
By 2015, she had risen in the organisation to become an oper-
ations supervisor, which kickstarted an interesting journey for
her.
“I was probably the first CHEP female supervisor in the coun-
try,” says Bonolo. “It’s a male-dominated industry and you need
to work a little harder than your peers to be recognised. But it
does help you grow, and I emerged from the process stronger as
a person and as a professional.”
Enhancing her growing reputation as a future star in her area
was Bonolo’s selection for the company’s Bambanani inclusion
and diversity project. This groundbreaking program saw the Bonolo Masilo
company develop a course that allowed each person to uncover
their unconscious biases and address these, in order to make the transformation rapidly gaining momentum in her sector, as
organisation grow its people and its revenue. She was involved in more women find operations roles.
facilitating 60 workshops across sub-Saharan Africa and develop Bonolo says one of the keys to transformation is to build
a great deal from that. support networks with other women in the company and the
The impact she made on the lives of her colleagues through industry. “We need each other. It’s good to have someone to
Bambanani saw Bonolo selected for the CHEP talent develop- talk to for advice and solidarity. It’s exciting to be making a real
ment programme (TDP). This was a gilt-edged opportunity to diference.”
work on a strategic project as part of a global team. She sees her future with CHEP, perhaps one day as an
“I was the only staf member from South Africa chosen for Operations manager. “I’ve had great mentorship from women
the programme,” says Bonolo. “I met so many people, and got to in senior positions and I’m developing my skills, so I can get to
grow my network in the sector, travelling to Spain, France and the next level. I completed my BTech last year, and I might go
the UK.” for my masters next year. There are so many opportunities in
Bonolo says her involvement in the programme was a high- our company.”
light of her career.
“I really appreciate CHEP’s commitment to my development
and that of everyone in the business,” she says. “To me it is
clear why they’re seen as an employer of choice, and have been
recognised by organisations like the Top Employers Institute for
their exceptional employee oferings.”
Having blazed trails in her industry as a woman and a young
person, Bonolo is now seeing her dedication bear fruit. She sees
 CRAFTS
AND CAMARADERIE
Durban’s farmers markets are a magnet for
consumers and small businesses alike, boosting the
informal economy in the sunny South African city.
B
e it the cosy market at Umhlanga
or the expansive variety market
at Shongweni, the coastal city of
Durban in South Africa seems
to be the sunny hub for farmers markets
and small business owners setting up
impromptu trading venues.
Within minutes of arriving at the
Umhlanga Farmers Market, it’s easy to see
why it attracts a steady stream of shoppers,
despite the cold, penetrating drizzle on a
Durban morning. There’s a good selection
of fresh produce and specialty foods,
the vibe is lively and cheerful even sans
music or entertainment, and traders ofer
friendly, personalized attention. It helps
that the market is centrally located and in
the open air, fringed on one side by coastal
64 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
ONTHE
COAST
dune forest. A woman trading home-
baked date muins and peach tarts chats
away as she holds down a tent flap until
the wind fades long enough for her to tie
it down, and her customers happily banter
on until she’s able to serve them. Dogs
drag their owners across the clearing
to greet other dogs. And everything on
display looks oven-fresh and appealing.
“There’s a great variety of food we
wouldn’t normally get in supermarkets
– like the special cheeses or the vegan
cupcakes,” says the market’s owner Alexa
McWilliams. “These are traders who are
working from home and have a talent.”
She took ownership of the market
several years ago and maintains its
“charismatic, informal feel” because she
BY REHANA DADA
considers it an important platform for
small businesses. She explains that the
market is a success because of its regular
traders. “We see some traders come and
go because they expect to buy a Ferrari
after one morning, but it’s the regular
Photos by Erin Wolfsohn, Alexa McWilliams,
traders who have their regular customers.
Channing Pienaar and Eugene Ciaglia
Consistency is the most important thing
for a market”.
Kirsten Hughes, who trades fresh farm
butter and specialty cheeses, relies almost
entirely on markets for her income.
“Markets appeal to me because of
the freedom – there’s a lot of work with
sourcing the products but it’s not a nine-to-
five job,” she says, while cutting a slab of
a special artisanal wash-dried cheese. “I
have regular customers, and they can’t get
 FORBES AFRICA

FORBES LIFE – FARMERS MARKETS

I ALWAYS TELL THEM –

JUST TASTE, YOU DON’T
HAVE TO BUY.”
– HOUDA ABIET

stalls selling vegetables, eggs, home-baked

my products easily.” Her main trade is at
Shongweni, with a significant proportion
of it at Umhlanga.
The latter market’s newest trader,
Houda Abiet, began to trade her
homemade Mediterranean foods here
only a few weeks back, as a marketing
exercise. “It’s very interesting to see what
people like and don’t like, and they’re
inquisitive because they don’t know all my
products. I always tell them – just taste,
you don’t have to buy.”
McWilliams herself started her
marinated olive business at this market.
She says: “Markets worked better because
it’s a niche product [I sell] – I make it by
hand and I have a passion for it.” She grew
her business over the years and now has a
The I Heart Market in Durban
full-time shop, Olive-A-Twist in Ballito, but
does not think she would have got to that
level of sales if it were not for the markets.
“The markets will give beginners with
a great idea a phenomenal platform,” she
says.
“You get a diversity of people from all
over, so it’s also a great testing ground. I
would recommend it to anyone.”
Across the city, the Westville Farmers
Market enjoys a steady flow of customers
on Thursday mornings. Traders set up
shop at the Jimmy Bellows Sports Field,
alongside a protected riverine forest, with
expansive trees shading their stalls. It’s a
friendly space, and traders and shoppers
are casually familiar with each other.
Here, there are only seven or eight
cakes, honey and biltong. Clint Govender,
owner of the market, trades organically-
grown vegetables, eggs, and homemade
biryani. It’s a family business, with his wife
supplying the biryani, and the vegetables
sourced from his uncle’s farm.
“Customers are looking here for the
quality and the freshness, especially the
eggs,” Govender says. “And we’re 40%
cheaper than the shops.”
The market is about 20 years old, and
several stallholders and shoppers refer
to its “better days”, when there were
many more traders and a wider variety of
products.
Govender explains that over the years,
many of the old stallholders passed away
or relocated, and he hasn’t had success
attracting new businesses.
“The traders don’t always understand
that it takes time to build their clientele.
Jaco, over there, has been here two years,
but it took him maybe six months to build
up his client base, and now it’s worth his
while to come every week.”
Jaco Buyleveld sells plants and provides
a blade-sharpening service. He keeps his
business small by choice, operating only
at the Westville and Umhlanga markets.
Westville’s customers seem to be mainly
pensioners dropping by in between
their grandchildren’s school rounds, and
Buyleveld speculates that this is because
most of the younger residents are working

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 65

 IT’S ABOUT MAINTAINING
A STANDARD OF QUALITY
OF PRODUCT, AND ALSO
A PARTICULAR TYPE OF
AESTHETIC.”
– ANNA SAVAGE

into sales. We want to expand the business,

I Heart’s Anna Savage
outside of the area. He is not optimistic
about the future of the market, saying,
“Unless you get a younger customer base,
the market is doomed.”
A few kilometers up the hill, also on
Thursday mornings, the St. Agnes Fresh
Produce Market is noticeably devoid of
customers. It’s well-situated at a major
intersection, with its stalls looking out onto
the St. Agnes church’s gardens. There’s a
better variety here than at Westville, but it
feels like the traders are here for reasons
other than hard cash.
Although he hasn’t made a sale yet
today, John Phiri says that this market is
worth his time for building a longer-term
client base through orders. He trades
leather products that he makes – caps,
belts, wallets – here and at Umhlanga
market as well as at Golden Hours, Bluf,
and Durban’s craft/flea markets. Phiri’s
income is mainly from these markets.
He says: “Since I started my business,
I’m enjoying the markets – I do enjoy
talking to the customers. For sales, I prefer
Bluf and Golden Hours. Flea markets
are best because we expect thousands of
people and we sell well.”
Sidney Oerter is the only trader who
reports good sales here today. He trades
specialty cheeses he sources from around
South Africa, with the occasional import.
He started his business a few months ago,
and although he supplies a few restaurants,
his main customer base is at the markets
– Litchi Orchard, I Heart, and the brand-
new Drummond Farmers Market. He
explains: “Markets are an easy way to get
maybe ofer monthly hampers, but the
markets are our entry point.”
Georgina Erasmus, who trades honey,
eggs, organic cofee, and Madagascan bags,
at a number of diferent markets, says that
she will normally trial a new market for six
to eight weeks before deciding whether to
come back, although she’s been coming to
St. Agnes since it started a year ago despite
poor trade because, “it gets me out of the
house and we love the church, and we also
like some of the people who come here”.
Her main trade is at Shongweni and she
says confidently: “If you’re not selling at
Shongweni, then there’s something wrong
with your product.”
The line of traic winding along the
hills west of Durban every Saturday
morning is testament to the popularity of
Shongweni Farmers Market. Its customer
base is around 4,500 on regular weeks,
swelling considerably during the holidays.
Owner Christine Standeaven believes
that it’s the variety on ofer that makes
it worthwhile for people across the
age and income range to make the trek
across the city. There’s also food, crafts,
entertainment, as well as areas for relaxing.
“People come here to find items that
are unique, and they love supporting
people who are making a living for
themselves,” says Standeaven. “They
might get things cheaper in the stores, but
they’ll rather come to a crafter and take
the time to look for a special gift.”
She explains that the market started

66 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

 FORBES AFRICA

FORBES LIFE – FARMERS MARKETS

as a space where local farmers could
sell directly to the public, with a bit of
breakfast food, but she incorporated crafts
and expanded the food section after five
years when she found that they weren’t
increasing their customer base. The
intake doubled at that point. Just over
two years ago, the market moved to its
current location, with Standeaven building
undercover stalls for every trader and
concrete walkways to keep feet mud-free
when it rained.
As she speaks, it becomes obvious that
the market is successful because of her
high sensitivity to the needs of both her
traders and customers.
She says: “I can walk 15 to 16 kilometers
on a Saturday morning. I greet every
single stallholder, I look at what people
are bringing in, and I check everything.”
For example, Standeaven makes sure that
catering equipment is clean on arrival,
food vendors are constantly washing
their hands, and there is cold storage for
meat products. She has a team of cleaners
speedily picking up litter and cleaning up
after children and dog accidents.
And on the product side, she keeps an
eye on trends and fashions, so that she can
make sure that there are traders who can
cater for the full variety of customers.
Standeaven says that about two thirds
of Shongweni’s stallholders rely only on
markets for their income. “I watch what
people are bringing out of the market, and
I like to see them carrying bags because I The Umhlanga
know the stallholders are happy. I need to Farmers Market
create the best platform for my stallholders

Advertorial BY CONTINENTAL TYRE

CONTINENTAL TYRE’S VALUES CREATE VALUE

C
are is a verb at Continental Tyre South
Africa, which is why the company
has consistently been named a Top
Employer in South Africa.
It is critical for all employees to know and
understand how wealth is created and distributed
within the organisation.
Equally, every employee needs to appreciate
their individual contribution towards common
goals. To this end, our leadership team has estab-
lished line-of-sight for each employee.
Growth and profitability can only be achieved
through shared purpose and values (Trust, Passion
to Win, For One Another and Freedom to Act),
coupled with employees’ talents, motivation and
willingness to learn.
Our values unify how we engage and challenge
our actions, results, successes and opportunities.
Trust and transparency talk to just some of the
lived values of our leadership team – sacrific-
ing short-term gains for long-term growth. The
leadership team have committed their time, eforts
and minds being of service down the line to create
“one Continental”.
Over the past few years, there has been
significant investment in building our people
capability. Hosting development programmes
aimed at enhancing critical skills was just one of
the interventions we undertook.
2018 has certainly challenged our business.
This year – in the spirit of building capability
– business sustainability and humanising the
scoreboard has been our priority. Political and
economic uncertainty, both locally and globally,
has created added pressure to deliver afordable,
quality products consistently. These challenges
have brought us full circle to our values.
Our people have responded well to these
challenging times. Dialogues and joint action
planning define our culture, with various
platforms accommodating multi-faceted
conversations. We are motivated to change our
lived experiences by creating alliance and value,
striving always to be an attractive and progres-
sive employer.
Participating in the Top Employer awards has
been of tremendous use in raising our awareness
on policy, process and practice. Additionally, it
has added value to our brand. Continental Tyre
South Africa’s 70-year presence in South Africa
is evidence of our leadership and learning agility.
Our organisation is fully geared toward shaping
our future in motion.
OUR PEOPLE. OUR CULTURE. OUR FUTURE.
–Written by: Genevieve
Jozaffe-Naidoo, Training
Management and Organ-
isational Development
(TMOD) Manager
FORBES AFRICA

FORBES LIFE – FARMERS MARKETS

Olive-A-Twist’s Alexa McWilliams (left in picture);

and some of the olive bar’s produce (below)

THE MARKETS WILL GIVE

BEGINNERS WITH A GREAT
IDEA A PHENOMENAL
PLATFORM.”
– ALEXA MCWILLIAMS

to want to stay in the market, so that I have

an amazing outing for the people who are
coming to buy at the market. And I want it
like that every week.”
The I Heart Market in central Durban
is also proving to be a strong platform for
small businesses. It’s an arts and crafts
market at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on
the first Saturday of each month.
The market itself is a success story,
having begun with 12 stalls outside the
St Mary’s Church Hall in Windermere
in 2008, and growing rapidly to 120 or so
traders at its current location.
Says owner Anna Savage: “We knew
a lot of creative people who were doing
really interesting work – ceramicists, The market’s customer base is about formal plus-size modernwear.
fashion designers, jewelry designers – but 4,500, and collective sales for all traders She explains: “I am bold, bright,
they didn’t have anywhere to sell. So the average R460,000 ($32,500) at each feminine, and I’m a warm woman, so the
idea was to put together a market where market. work I do is mostly in bright colors. It’s
for a small fee you could set up a mini shop, For about a quarter of the traders, sales a confident woman who can wear bright
and start to build your customer base.” at I Heart account for over 60% of their colors.”
Savage curates the market strictly: monthly income. Just recently, demand has grown
“It’s about maintaining a standard of Duduzile Ngubane, a resident trader, enough for her to be able to focus on her
quality of product, and also a particular says that it was through I Heart and other business full-time.
type of aesthetic. We accept only locally- markets that she was able to grow her Says Savage: “I do really think that
produced products, but we also wanted fashion business, which started as a hobby. by providing this platform, the market
products that are exceptional – things Although she has a full-time shop, markets inspired people who wanted to do
that are dynamic and interesting, that still account for about 40% of her income. something diferent from their day jobs.
are ahead of the trends, but also that are Her line of fashionwear, Du Confidence, is It’s providing a place for small businesses
viable, with appeal for a larger public and made for “women who are confident”, as to launch, and it makes me really excited
in the right price range.” she says proudly. The range is casual and when I see people doing well.”

68 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

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B
BE R
RIC

LII – I E E I E

CHAMPAGNE
AND CAVIAR IN
PRIVATE AT
30,000FT

The glamorous world of private

jets is no longer the domain of
the super-rich. Private aviation is
set to soar in Africa as business
keeps checking in.
BY GYPSEENIA LION

FORBES LIFE – THE BUSINESS OF EXECUTIVE JETS
Luxury jets crowd the apron
at Lanseria International
Airport in Johannesburg
W
ell-heeled women glide
in and out of an opulent
mansion in a leafy suburb
in Sandton, Africa’s
richest square mile.
The champagne-colored granite of the
stairway meets the elegant tips of their
Manolo Blahnik stilettos.
This is a medical aesthetic and holistic
wellness center called Anti-Aging Art in the
posh suburb in Johannesburg.
It is a home-turned-medical center
belonging to Reza Mia, a doctor and co-
owner of the clinic patronized by the rich
and famous. Mia also happens to design jets,
as the founder and CEO of Pegasus Universal
Aerospace, an aviation company based
in South Africa with the sole purpose of
creating innovative aviation solutions.
Between surgical facelifts and building
sophisticated jets, Mia finally makes time for
an interview at 5PM on a Friday afternoon.
Dressed in navy blue scrubs, he sits on a
luxurious leather sofa as he tells FORBES
AFRICA about his connection with aviation.
Mia is currently designing a vertical
take-of jet that he says will add to the
convenience of private travel.
The aesthetic surgeon has been
developing the Pegasus One Vertical
Business Jet (VBJ1) since 2012, which he
says will be completed in three years.
It’s an attempt to revolutionize luxury air
travel in South Africa.
“It can land and take of like a helicopter
THE PERCEPTION IS anywhere a helicopter could, in fact more
places because it doesn’t have a spinning
THAT IT’S LUCRATIVE rotor blade and it is quieter especially for
BECAUSE OF THE KINDS built-up areas and neighborhoods. It can
accelerate and fly at the speed of a business
OF TOOLS AND SERVICES jet which is almost 800km/h so that is about
WE OFFER BUT IT IS A four times the speed of a helicopter,” he says.
Cool-air fan technology allows the jet to
TOUGH INDUSTRY TO BE take of and land anywhere, he adds, which
INVOLVED IN.” means it’s less hassle for customers.
Privacy and convenience count as
– GAVIN KIGGEN currency in this business.
FORBES AFRICA
Business aviation company, ExecuJet
Aviation, currently operates and manages
four bases for private jets in Africa.
The Johannesburg base is located at
Lanseria International Airport, about an
hour’s drive from the city.
The flashy cars in the parking lot speak
about the kind of travelers taking of from
here.
Staf meander in and out of the private
terminal on this busy day, yet there is no
millionaire in sight in an expensive Armani
suit jetting of for his next business trip.
You never see them, they are that discreet
about client privacy.
On a global scale, the company manages
and operates about 260 aircraft and is also in
Kenya and Nigeria, with the newest entrant
in Seychelles.
With almost three decades in the
aviation industry, the company has kept a
close watch on the rising market of business
aviation in Africa.
Stationed on the apron is a white
Bombardier Challenger 300 worth about
$26 million.
The nine-seater aircraft boasts a
bathroom and features glossy cherry-wood
surfaces.
This gloss is all-pervasive and there is not
a speck of dust in sight.
The soft, plush carpet is a shade lighter
than the grey leather seating decked with
comfy cushions that enhance the elegance.
ExecuJet’s Africa Vice President, Gavin
Kiggen, says despite the demand and
increase for private travel on the continent,
perceptions of the industry can be misleading
from both a business and client perspective.
“The margins are extremely low and
the competition is very strong because you
have new entrants who are trying to get
market share.
“The perception is that it’s lucrative
because of the kinds of tools and services we
ofer but it is a tough industry to be involved
in,” he says.
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 73

“[THE CUSTOMER]
KNOWS HOW THE
SEATS WORK, HE
KNOWS THE PILOTS
INVARIABLY THAT ARE
FLYING THE AIRCRAFT
ARE COMPETENT.”
– JACK COETZEE
As a developing region, Africa needs to
prioritize infrastructure while attracting
sales to uphold the competitive edge in the
global business aviation market.
This can be achieved through innovative
ideas. Promoting the economic benefits of
the market will lure investors from all over
the world.
Time waits for no man, and Africa’s elite,
exclusive travelers know that only too well.
According to a review by Mordor
Intelligence, Global business jet market -
growth, trends and forecast (2018 - 2023), the
exclusivity of private jets has ceased to be the
domain of the extremely wealthy.
This change is owing to time-share and
fractional ownership of aircraft.
ExecuJet reports Africa has 481
registered private jets and the year-on-year
growth for the business aviation industry in
74 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
Africa is 44%.
Private aviation is still a growing market
in Africa in comparison to the regions where
it is fully developed.
Approximately three quarters of the
sale of business jets is in the west, mainly in
North America and Europe.
Predictions are that India and China are
well on their way to become market leaders
by 2020.
With continued industrial growth in
Africa, consequently, there has been a rise in
business travel.
Despite the lag in competitiveness on a
global scale, private aviation in South Africa,
which is Africa’s second-largest economy,
has the potential to take the continent to new
heights as business keeps checking in.
Private jets are commonly used by high-
net-worth individuals, business executives,
sports teams and government oicials.
Time eiciency is the core reason why
these jetsetters prefer private aviation over
commercial planes. Greater control over
flight schedules and operation of the aircraft
forms part of the package.
Add privacy and a dash of luxury and the
high-flyer is ready for take-of.
The Jet Traveler Report 2018, the global
perspective on who flies privately and how,
by Wealth-X, categorizes high-fliers into
three types to make a comparison based
on their flight preferences. These include
owners, members and the wider ultra-high-
net-worth audience.
Unsurprisingly, 35% owners of private
jets are worth more than $500 million as per
The Jet Traveler Report.
The majority are over 60 years old.
‘Members’ are frequent fliers on membership
programs.
Private jets have now also become more
accessible and appealing to the wider
executive population.
The report states that on-demand private
fliers are the youngest and least wealthy
ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
In comparison to the wealth of members
and owners, these jetsetters have average
wealth of $67 million.
Editor and publisher of SA Flyer
and FlightCom magazines, Guy Leitch,
says although the South African market
is showing signs of recovery, there are
shortcomings.
“Poor on-the-ground infrastructure for
aviation, poor access to aircraft finance and
the lack of aircraft does not ensure adequate
support for development,” he says.
The same can be argued for the rest of
Africa.
Photo by Gypseenia Lion / Supplied
According to the Mordor Intelligence
review published in April, lack of
infrastructure is one the biggest limitations
that afect business jet sales in South
America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific.
The costs of building the much-needed
infrastructure are so high operations may not
be feasible.
Regions like Europe and North America
with higher private aircraft demands have

FORBES LIFE – THE BUSINESS OF EXECUTIVE JETS
lower costs. Flying privately in the regions is
charged on a one-way basis, therefore costs
are reduced as opposed to Africa where
charges are doubled.
“In those regions, there is always an
aircraft available that’s going to your
destination and you can pay a reduced rate
because it is considered an empty leg. Our
industry is unfortunately not that far ahead
yet,” says Kiggen from ExecuJets.
Industry data by Global Jet Capital
released in 2017 indicates that 2025 will
witness more than 25% growth in the
market.
The influx of new aircraft on the
continent is forecast to have a value of $3.9
billion, or just under $500 million per year.
The emergence of the “African aluent”
demographic on the continent has become
FORBES AFRICA
an important emerging segment for the
private aviation sector.
These individuals are younger than
their European counterparts and are on
average 40 years old, according to a report by
ExecuJet called The Evolution of Charter Into
Africa 2018.
Smartphones and technological mobility
make it easier for young flyers on the go, and
as a result, gives the market more visibility
and mileage.
“Social media has also brought a
phenomena called the influencer; these
are rich kids or media personalities who
document their travel through social media
(Instagram, Facebook and Twitter),” says
Kiggen.
These jetsetters snap the glitz and glamor
of private flying and share it with other
FORBES AFRICA

FORBES LIFE – THE BUSINESS OF EXECUTIVE JETS

influencers. This also makes it easier for

private charter companies in Africa to attract
clients from diferent spheres of life, thus
changing the perception that jets are only
used by the ultra-rich and famous.
In addition, an increase in enquiries for
hiring the jets, from even car manufacturers
for their marketing events, shows the
market is paving the way for more
diversified business.
Jeremy Nel, the CEO of Luxury Brands,
a South African luxury marketing group
based in Cape Town, argues that although
high-flyers use their mobile devices to
source best rates and most direct routes, the
reputation of the private charter as a brand
is something potential clients continue to
look out for.
“The branding of the aircraft is also
aligned to be the best fit, most clients who
outright purchase an aircraft will take the
plethora of advice as to the most suitable
model for their needs and then choose from
the best breed of operators,” says Nel.
Inner-circle referrals and the
relationship the client has with the
company, in addition to the preference
of a specific pilot, can further influence
decision-making.
Back in the richest square mile of Africa,
Sandton, in a modern oice adorned with
waterfalls and earthy décor, a tall man
dressed in a blue shirt walks in.
When he is not flying over the
shimmering turquoise waters of the
Maldives, South African pilot Jack
Coetzee is the Managing Director at
Quintessential Aviation.
With over 1, 500 flying hours to his
credit, Coetzee has seen private jet
passengers with requirements ranging from
Egyptian cotton linen to Kentucky Fried
Chicken on the flight.
“It is aircraft-orientated; they like a
specific type of aircraft.
“[The customer] knows how the seats
work, he knows the pilots invariably that
are flying the aircraft are competent,” he
says.
As for aspiring owners, Leitch
emphasizes they understand the
importance of the technicalities of owning
an aircraft, to avoid losing money.
The first step is to determine what it will
be used for, and then take the size, range
and price parameters into consideration.
“New or used [aircraft], it doesn’t matter.
Make sure you can crew it, maintain it,
aford it and then order it,” he says.
Much like commercial aviation, owners
and private charter companies must comply
with air laws and the strict regulations set
by the civil aviation authorities.
Odette Basson, Charter Manager
Africa, at ExecuJets, says some laws are
airfield dependent.
This is based on where you are traveling
in and out of, so compliance is critical.
“Yes, you can be an owner of a private
aircraft but it doesn’t mean you can just do
what you want. There are laws that govern
the flying,” she says.
In addition to overseeing operations
above the ground, regulators keep a close
watch on the hours the crew fly, which
aircraft they are flying and how frequently
NEW OR USED
[AIRCRAFT], IT DOESN’T
MATTER. MAKE SURE
YOU CAN CREW IT,
MAINTAIN IT, AFFORD IT
AND THEN ORDER IT.”
– GUY LEITCH
they go for training.
“Your crew must be trained
specifically, the aircraft must be
maintained specifically and according to
the operator’s specifications. You must
have a commercial license to operate and
you must have an air service license. It is
actually very well-regulated and governed
to death,” says Kiggen.
And thus it is that millions of dollars fly
over the richest and poorest cities of Africa.
The sky is a commodity. How much are
you willing to splash out for a piece of it?

76 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

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 TAKING A BITE
OUT OF AFRICA
Hungry in London with a
stomach dreaming of home?
From the smoky to the sensory,
the city offers distinct African
culinary encounters.
BY ALASTAIR HAGGER
78 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
T
he unfussy algorithm of a
well-known review website
has decided there are 105
‘African’ restaurants in London.
Search for ‘European’ restaurants, and
you’ll discover 2,654 – now your gut might
be telling you something is amiss in the
capital’s gigantic foodscape.
‘European food’ seems rather a strange
and empty phrase (bouillabaisse and chips,
anyone?), but an equivalent suspicion
of categorization seems not to apply to
dishes from Africa, a continent boasting
54 countries to Europe’s 50. London may
indeed be aggressively cosmopolitan, but it
might be a while before this ravenous city
can really consider itself fully ‘woke’.
Thankfully, word-of-mouth is still a
solidly reliable guide to the thousands
of eateries in the city, so let this small
slice of recommended eats from the
African continent – Ghanaian, Senegalese
and South African – serve as a modest
appetizer, should you find yourself hungry
in London with a stomach dreaming of
home.
“For me, it should be seamless – the
tradition is in the flavor profile of the dish,”
says Zoe Adjonyoh, author of Zoe’s Ghana
Kitchen, of the challenge of reinventing
 FORBES AFRICA

FORBES LIFE – AFRICA IN LONDON

Khadim Mbamba at
Little Baobab

she says. The cookbook features “traditional Ghanaian recipes remixed for the modern
kitchen”.
“I’m very keen to champion and promote the next generation of female chefs cooking
cuisines from across Africa,” she says. “I see it as part of my challenge and responsibility
to keep encouraging them to fall in love with their heritage again through food, and tell
their own cultural stories – to be the masters and makers of this food revolution.”
A short bus ride through East London brings us to Little Baobab, a monthly food and
music pop-up above a vibrant corner grocery in Hackney. It’s a bright late afternoon,
and Senegalese chef Khadim Mbamba is making his ‘Lamb Mafe’ – lamb in a tomato and
peanut sauce (a traditional base sauce in Senegal), with rice and salad. It is creamy and
tangy-sweet; hearty, but fresh on the palate. He makes me a gift of a home-made chilli
paste that celebrates the spice’s medicinal punch but marries perfectly with the roasted
umami of the nut gravy.
The events are themselves a marriage of music and food; guests share starters, and
then choose from ‘Thiebou Dienne’ (fish casserole), ‘Chicken Yassa’ (chicken with onions
and olives), ‘Lamb Mafe’, or ‘Vegetarian Thiou’ (tomato-based vegetable stew). Mbamba’s
band – he plays bass – rounds out the sensory smorgasbord while the guests tuck in. It’s
an experience close to Mbamba’s heart, full of the joy of community so integral to the
Senegalese culinary encounter.
“There is a lot of soul in our food,” he says. “The love you have, making the dish – when
people eat that dish, they will feel that love.” Little Baobab began life as a restaurant,
with live music every night, but Mbamba and his team are now focussed on pop-ups and
catering (especially for weddings).
Westward now towards the financial center, and Etienne Pansegrauw’s Hammer
& Tongs braai restaurant in Farringdon. Braai dishes seem perfectly suited to British
culture: the locals crave an evolved barbecue civilization of their own, but wage constant
war with a climate that seems hell-bent on wrecking any carefully-planned Sunday

THERE IS A LOT OF
SOUL IN OUR FOOD.
– KHADIM MBAMBA
Plantain, Raspberry
Ghanaian flavors for a new audience. & Smoked Scotch
Lamb Mafe from
“The reinterpreting is in the creativity Little Baobab
Bonnet from Ikoyi
of how to rebuild the dish through
diferent cooking methods, or blending its
inherent ingredients in new ways.” Try her
‘Suya Cauliflower Florets’, featuring the
smoky notes of the Nigerian and Ghanaian
suya spice blend, by way of tasty example.
Through her increasingly popular
pop-ups and residencies, Adjonyoh tries
to avoid “preaching or teaching” what
Ghanaian food should or shouldn’t be.
Photos supplied

“I’m highlighting what’s possible, and

giving people the motivation to do more Carrots from
Suya Cauliflower from Hammer & Tongs
with these amazing flavors and ingredients Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen
to maximize their taste and longevity,”

NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 79

 Jeremy Chan and
Iré Hassan-Odukale

afternoon cook-out. What better, then, than

letting a South African do it all for you?
Pansegrauw, from South Africa’s Eastern
Cape, has invested in state-of-the-art
extractors that allow chef Rodrigo Navarro
to prepare a succulent array of locally-
sourced fresh meats, vegetables and seafood
on fires fed with sickle bush wood imported
from Namibia.
This elevates the food to much more
than barbecue (indeed, South Africans
might argue that braai and barbecue are
not the same thing at all; that the braai is
closer to something like a cultural state of
mind). ‘Mutton Chops in Cape Malay Curry’
are tender and sweetly charred; ‘Prawns
with Lime Salt’ are juicy and moreish; and
‘Pork Belly with Apple Cider Compote’
gains most from the sickle bush smoke, the
layers of pork fat richly infused with the
fragrant nuttiness of the wood. The surprise
star of the menu, though, is the ‘Honey YOU HAVE TO LOOK
Fried Carrots with Chilli’ – the plump,
crunchy carrots are cooked in honey before AT THE DISH AND afront – one isn’t completely sure if the menu,
being finished on the grill, giving them a
caramelized meatiness equal in textural
THINK – I WANT TO and the intensity of its creators, Jeremy Chan and
Iré Hassan-Odukale, isn’t just some bizarre but
complexity to anything fish or flesh. These DESTROY THAT! delicious practical joke (chef Chan likens his food
are the big, bold flavors of the camp fire, but
prepared with panache and an attention to
– JEREMY CHAN in the press pack to the paintings of Mark Rothko, a
correlation that some will think pretentious - I
the subtle combinations of flavor and aroma found it endearingly ballsy and appropriate).
that are the hallmark of great grill cooking. The ‘Plantain, Raspberry & Smoked Scotch Bonnet’ starter is like something from an Eiko
“If you go back five years, even, if you Ishioka fantasy costume sketch: there is a magenta slash of plantain, encrusted with a tart-
had opened up a wood fire place, I don’t sour raspberry salt, and a safron-yellow quenelle of citrusy chilli mayonnaise. The plantain
think that many people would have gone,” is dense and sugary, the raspberry salt reminiscent of a child’s fizzing candy powder, but with
says Pansegrauw. “So the timing has been a bass note from the emulsion of Scotch Bonnet warmth. It’s odd, exhilarating and a little bit
important. I wanted to see if British people Star Trek – you might be served this if you were an alien ambassador at a private function on
would be receptive to this kind of food; that’s the USS Enterprise.
why I opened up in an area near the city, “The dishes have to lure you in,” says Chan. “You have to look at the dish and think – I
rather than South West London for example, want to destroy that! So, for example, a pork chop that looks more like a pig than the animal
which has a large South African community. did – a cartoon version of itself. It’s about aesthetics and deliciousness, but unified. This dish
For every group of 20 Brits that come, there’s is your kill, your prize!”
usually one South African that drags them Childhood friends Chan and Hassan-Odukale were inspired to open the restaurant by a
here! But then they all come back.” visit to Lagos (Chan is from the north-west of England, Hassan-Odukale is Nigerian-born),
Our final destination is two miles west, but Chan insists that these are “purposely not Nigerian dishes. They have to be completely
but a galaxy away. Ikoyi is the first ‘African’ innovative. That’s the rule”.
restaurant in London to have earned a The ‘Smoked Jollof Rice’ is a sensuous love song to the crab – the perfect al dente rice
coveted Michelin star, but the continental has been cooked in a crab broth, and is finished with an unctuous crab cream; the entire
label seems even more incongruous here crustacean is used in the preparation. It’s sophisticated comfort food, demonstrating Chan’s
– the irony is that the Ikoyi concept plays instinctive understanding that juxtapositions tradition and experimentation at the core of
with the African association as readily as it everything good emerging from 21st century multiculturalism.
flirts with the aesthetics of costume design, “The dishes have to be driven by a creative interpretation of the ingredients,” says Chan,
science fiction and pop art. This thrilling in a suitably enigmatic coda to a week of great eating from Africa. “It’s about a primal
challenge to expectations is almost an connection with the guest. Everything is stripped of any preconceptions.”

80 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018

 Advertorial BY ABN

WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR

HEALTHCARE
At the recent Future of Health summit in Johannesburg organized by Philips
in association with FORBES AFRICA, pertinent issues were debated around
healthcare policy, insurance and universal access.

T
he public health sector has
become too saturated and
overworked to deal with
most of the South African
population, but on the
other hand, the private sector is battling
with revenue. So where does this leave
the proposed National Health Insurance
(NHI) plan?
Last year, South Africa’s Health Minis-
ter Aaron Motsoaledi announced NHI will
be operational as early as 2025.
Medical insurance and universal access
were hot topics of discussion as about 100 From left to right: Gugulethu Mfuphi (Moderator); Jabulile Nhlapo, Mechanical Engineer Associate, Building
South African medical practitioners and Services, WSP in Africa; Jasper Westerink, CEO, Philips Africa; Simon Spurr, CEO, Healthcloud

industry experts gathered together on

October 16 at the plush Hyatt Regency in
Rosebank in Johannesburg for the third
annual Future of Health Summit held in
partnership with Philips and FORBES
AFRICA. The theme was ‘The State Of
Healthcare In South Africa’.
One of the panel discussions posed the
question, ‘Does the NHI fulfil universal
healthcare?’. The panellists included Stav-
ros Nicolaou, Senior Executive, Strategic
Trade Development at Aspen Pharmacare,
Melanie Da Costa, Director Strategy and
Health Policy at Netcare, Laura Lopez
Gonzalez, Deputy Health Editor at the
Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism,
Heyn van Rooyen, Principal Oicer at
Medihelp, and Dr Boshof Steenekamp of
Strategic Projects: MMI Health.
The right to making quality healthcare
accessible for South Africans was urged
throughout the discussion.
This included the risks involved for the
public and private sector as well as how
resources would be equally distributed
amongst the two sectors.
The panellists deemed South Africa as
one of the most heavily-diseased countries
with a low-life expectancy, therefore best
practices needed to be built on to best
service all patients. They concluded that
solutions to the current problems faced by
the health sector would be a great place to
start to ensure the success of the NHI.
Eighty-two out of every 100 South Afri-
cans don’t earn enough income for medical
insurance, leaving them heavily dependent
on public healthcare for medical assistance
and according to the General Household
Survey, only 17 in 100 South Africans
have medical insurance and based on the
proposed NHI policy, they currently have
a high possibility of being phased out, once
the policy is in place.
The Chief Executive Oicer of Philips
Africa, Jasper Westerink, said discussions
on how the healthcare sector could be
improved on are of utmost importance for
Philips, as they provide the health sector
with the best medical technology. But em-
phasis is on South Africans living healthier
lifestyles that reduce unhealthy conditions.
“We believe that a value-based, rather
than a volume-based approach to measur-
ing health systems, is an important change
in perspective to ensure we are having the
right conversations around South Africa’s
readiness to address healthcare challeng-
es,” he said.
The Future Health Index (FHI), com-
missioned by Philips, indicates that acces-
sibility, technology and eiciency are top
priorities for South Africa’s health system,
which is why other insightful discussions at
the summit included prevention health-
care, the healthcare overload and the use
of healthcare technology as an enabler for
Artificial Intelligence and digitalization.
– Melitta Ngalonkulu
Advertorial BY SANLAM
THIS IS WHAT SANLAM HAS
ACHIEVED IN ITS 100 YEARS OF
INVESTING IN AFRICA
S
anlam has and always will call
Africa home. For the last 100
years, the Group has been 100%
committed to investing in Af-
rica’s potential, which is evident
in its expansion across 33 African coun-
tries and counting. This shows its mission
to create a continent of Wealthsmiths™
and an Africa full of potential for emerging
generations to inherit.
From small beginnings with just seven
founding members to being the financial
services group with the biggest insurance
footprint on the continent, the Group is
constantly evolving, but its core belief
remains the same: with hard work and
dedication, anything is possible. This at-
titude, combined with a trailblazing part-
nership approach, has secured the success
of Sanlam’s expansion strategy.
CEO Ian Kirk says that while others
have come and gone, Sanlam has chosen
to stay. “While some things may change,
certain things will always be prioritised
in our decision-making: our people, our
continent and creating a legacy we’re
proud of.”
All the decisions the centenarian has
made – from demutualising and listing on
the JSE 20 years ago to acquiring African
Life in 2005 and the SAHAM acquisition
that’s currently underway – have demon-
strated its unwavering commitment to the
continent.
It’s a strategy that’s paid of. And one
few other companies have been able to get
right. Kirk says the secret is in Sanlam’s
approach to entering new markets, which
is largely partnership-based, with a focus
on upskilling and investing in local talent
and enterprises. This is primarily driven
by the group’s Emerging Markets division.
Junior Ngulube, CEO of Sanlam
Emerging Markets, says that being African
means creating strategic partnerships
across the continent. “We have a win-win
business model. We grow and so do our
in-country partners. Our philosophy is not
to come into a country and take over. It’s
to work with relevant and trusted partners
on the ground. To let local managers and
boards run their businesses with our
support. This way we create jobs, upskill
individuals and invest in the countries we
enter in – and Africa as a whole.”
This approach has helped fuel Sanlam’s
consistently strong results. From January
to April 2018, Sanlam Emerging Markets’
(SEM) net result from financial services
increased by 34%, with the net value of
new business improving by 14%, excluding
structural activity. Overall, SEM recorded
new business growth of 19%.
Much of the SAHAM acquisition has
already been approved and enforced
across the continent with game-changing
results for Sanlam’s pan-African expan-
sion vision. Currently subject to final
regulatory approvals, the pending balance
of the acquisition should be concluded
soon. Ngulube said the acquisition makes
perfect business sense, “SEM is strong
in life insurance, while SAHAM is more
focused on short-term insurance. The
two businesses complement each other
and so are a natural fit. We’ve always been
partnership-focused and this is a way to
bring our two organisations together to
extract all possible synergies and facilitate
the cementing of our unique footprint
across Africa.”
Ngulube says the tri-partnership
between Sanlam, SAHAM and Santam has
positioned Sanlam as the go-to partner
for multinationals in Africa and abroad.
He says the group is increasingly finding
opportunities to support other interna-
tional insurers who are not based in Africa
but have African clients. Potential he sees
growing as Africa naturally takes its place
as a global superpower.
Next up, Ngulube and Kirk have
set their sights on the strong emerg-
ing markets of Egypt and Ethiopia. Kirk
concludes, “It’s impossible to stress how
deeply our vision is interwoven with our
roots in Africa. As Wealthsmiths™, we’re
focused on ongoing opportunity creation
for all Africans. There’s unrivalled ingenu-
ity and potential here, which we have the
privilege of investing in.”
In its 100 years in Africa, Sanlam has:
• Demutualised and listed on the JSE (20
years ago) – the largest initial public
ofering in the country’s history at the
time, more than trebling the number of
JSE shareholders overnight
• Shown sustained share price growth. In
1998, a share of SLM was worth R5.85.
Today it’s more than ten times higher at
R79.21 (April 2018)
• Increased its market cap by R161-million,
since 1998
• Championed SA’s first major black em-
powerment deal
• Expanded into 33 African countries
through the USD1050-billion acquisition
of SAHAM Finances, which is subject to
final regulatory approvals
 KINGJAMES 42536
See this spot?
This spot in Africa could hold a cure for the common cold, an answer to global warming or a
new mode of transport. Then there’s 30 million square kilometres more. For over a century
Sanlam has seen the potential in Africa, knowing all the greatness it holds. It’s why we have
and always will be deeply rooted in this continent and why we’ve invested in 33 countries
and counting, more than any other insurer. As the biggest non-banking financial services
group in Africa, we’ll proudly continue building a better continent for others to inherit.

For generations to come

Sanlam is a Licensed Financial Services Provider.

 BOOSTING AFRICA-
SINGAPORE RELATIONS
Hosted by Enterprise Singapore, the ifth Africa Singapore Business Forum
brought together over 600 business and government leaders to unpack new
opportunities for growth and development for the two nations.

Over 60 Singaporean companies are

currently doing business in 40 countries
across multiple industries. In the last two
years, Enterprise Singapore has successfully
facilitated close to 50 projects for Singapore
companies in Africa.
Enterprise Singapore CEO Png Cheong
Boon hoped that platforms such as ASBF
will encourage more partnerships and clos-
er business exchange.
“We are encouraged to see our local
companies, including small and medium
enterprises (SMEs), venturing into Africa
and gaining traction there,” he said.
Enterprise Singapore has three regional
oices in Africa, located in Ghana, South
Africa and more recently in Kenya (opened
PLENARY DISCUSSION ON AFRICA 2025: POSITIONING FOR GROWTH
From left: Omar Shahzad, Group CEO, Meinhardt Group; Venkataramani Srivathsan, Managing Director
in June this year), to facilitate the expansion
and CEO, Africa & Middle East, Olam International Limited; Amr Kamel, Executive Vice President, Business of Singapore companies into the market.
Development & Corporate Banking, Afreximbank and Sunil Kaushal, regional CEO, Africa & Middle East,
Standard Chartered Bank.
According to Cheong Boon, there are
tremendous opportunities in Africa for

T
here may be vast blue oceans
separating Africa from the is-
land state of Singapore in the
East, but they are not vastly
diferent when it comes to the
potential for growth and opportunities.
On August 28 and 29, over 600 delegates
gathered at the Grand Copthorne Water-
front Hotel for the fifth edition of the Africa
Singapore Business Forum (ASBF). The
forum has brought together over 3,000 busi-
ness and government leaders from across
the world since its inception.
Hosted by Enterprise Singapore, the
two-day forum provided guests a great
platform to engage in lively discussions and
networking. ASBF 2018 identified oppor-
tunities that can address critical issues in
key sectors such as manufacturing, digital
technology and financing in Africa and Asia.
The African continent continues to see
more development in digitalization, region-
al integration and global trade. Singapore’s
direct investments into Africa, in particular,
grew by a compound annual growth rate of
4.2% to $25.2 billion in 2016 from 2012.
example in the area of consumer products,
manufacturing, digital economy and
infrastructure development. Africa is the
second fastest-growing region in the world
after Asia. By 2025, it will house more
than 1.5 billion people, almost 20% of the
world’s population.
Singapore’s Minister for Trade and In-
dustry, Chan Chun Sing, who was also at the
forum, emphasized the importance of work-
ing together despite global trade tensions.
“Today, all of us are facing very challeng-
ing circumstances in the global economic
environment. While the economies of Af-

Enterprise Singapore Chief Executive Oicer, Png Cheong Boon, speaking at the fifth Africa Singapore
Business Forum 2018
Guests exchange business cards and ideas that will enhance trade between Africa and Asia. The Africa Singapore
Business Forum 2018 hosted over 600 business and government leaders from 30 countries.
rica and Southeast Asia continue to work to-
wards openness and integration, we also see
other countries retreating from globaliza-
tion because of their domestic diiculties,”
he noted.
He said that while there are countries
and companies that are reluctant to trade
beyond their borders, the two nations
must continue to nurture and support
economic integration and cooperation in
order to provide better jobs and better
income for citizens.
“Regional integration has been taking
place on the African continent for many
years and is also steadily taking place here
in Southeast Asia. In Africa, we are seeing
the Continental Free Trade Area, an ambi-
tious efort to create a unified African mar-
ket from Cape to Cairo,” said the minister.
The signing of six Memoranda of Under-
standing (MoU) between African and Sin-
gapore organizations aims to maintain pos-
itive trade, foster easier business exchange
as well as support the development of key
FORBES AFRICA
SPONSORED EDITORIAL
sectors in Africa such as infrastructure.
Amongst the organizations is Graymat-
ics, a Singapore company which inked an
MoU with Kenyan ICT specialist, Crescen-
tech, to provide security and surveillance
solutions in the banking, telecommunica-
tions and retail industries across Kenya,
South Africa and Nigeria.
Another signed agreement between
Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and
Mozambique’s Investment and Export Pro-
motion Agency promises the exchange of
consultancy, advisory and training services
in the ease of doing business, urban plan-
ning and Special Economic Zones.
The first of two plenary discussions, ‘Af-
rica 2025: Positioning for Growth’, focused
on the future of growth in Africa.
Moderated by Group CEO for Meinhardt
Group, Omar Shahzad, the session looked
at the unlimited potential the future holds
for Africa.
Amr Kamel, Executive Vice President in
Business Development & Corporate Bank-
ing at Afreximbank shared that the diver-
sity of sources of growth on the continent
has increased. He said Africa has witnessed
a marked improvement over the past few
years despite economic instability. This has
been achieved through the strengthening
of trade ties across big industries.
“If you look at Egypt, for example,
after going through very commendable
economic transformation and taking some
very tough economic decisions, it is now
growing very well and expected to achieve
a growth rate of 4.5% in 2018 and even
larger in 2019. You also have Kenya, Moroc-
co, who are doing quite well…,” said Kamel.
With the continuous investments
pouring into Africa, like the Singapore
trade agreements that have shown to
benefit both economies, there is un-
questionable potential for growth on the
continent. The glistening global financial
hub that is Singapore may be oceans
away but it has found a common meeting
ground with Africa.
– Gypseenia Lion
FORBES AFRICA
SPORT – LEBO MOTHIBA
FAME AND
MIGHTY BUCKS
Lebo Mothiba, only 22, is viewed as a potential rising star
who could rival the likes of Benni McCarthy and Steven
Pienaar as one of South Africa’s greatest sport exports.
I
t has been rare for South Africa to
have a player in Europe’s heralded
top five leagues in recent times,
much less one that is viewed as
a potential rising star who could rival
the likes of Benni McCarthy and Steven
Pienaar as one of the country’s greatest
sport exports.
But Lebo Mothiba has been making
waves in France’s Ligue 1, which sits only
behind Spain, Italy, England and Germany
among the world’s elite leagues, and for the
22-year-old, this is just the beginning.
Mothiba recently joined Racing
Strasbourg from Lille, the club who had
scouted him from the Diambars Football
Academy in Johannesburg in 2014.
His four years in France have seen a
remarkable rise for a player who left South
Africa as a wide-eyed teenager, fearful of
how he would be received in Europe, but
determined to grab his opportunity for
fame and fortune.
Now fluent in French and banging in
the goals for club and country, he is settled
in his new home and more eager than ever
86 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
BY NICK SAID
to progress to an even higher level in the
coming years.
For a young man from Tembisa, a
township in Gauteng, South Africa, he is
living a life he barely dared dream of when
growing up and turning out for his father’s
side.
“I played for my dad’s team, it was
called Mighty Bucks. I was there for
years,” Mothiba tells FORBES AFRICA in
Strasbourg.
“When I turned nine, I went for trials
at Mamelodi Sundowns and I ended up
playing for the Under-11 side.
“I am from a footballing family,
everybody plays football except my Mum.
My sister played for Mamelodi Sundowns
Ladies, my brother played locally in
Tembisa and my dad, who has since passed
on, also used to play. Football is in my
blood.”
Now a hulking forward with a deft
touch in front of the goal, Mothiba actually
started as a center-back and his early role-
models were defenders.
“I was a center-back at Sundowns, I
played there for two years up to Under-13.
But that’s when Sundowns stopped their
academy. I moved on to Kempton Park
and that’s when the coach changed me to
a striker.
“Because I was a center-back, I used to
look up to defenders, especially this one
guy from Nigeria, Taribo West. In Tembisa,
some of my friends even started calling me
‘West’ or ‘Taribo West’, he was my role-
model.”
His fortunes changed when he was
scouted for the now-defunct Diambars
Academy that had started in Johannesburg,
Photo by Frederick Florin via Getty Images
set up by former France internationals
Bernard Lama and Patrick Vieira.
“I was at Kempton Park and in 2010,
the academy came to South Africa
from Senegal. The guys from Diambars
Senegal came to scout me playing at
Modderfontein. We won 16-1 and I was
playing striker. The owners of Diambars
obviously enjoyed the game because I was
one of the players they took.”
That led to a move to Lille at the age of
18, a top side in France who had hit hard
 IT IS A TEAM THAT TOOK
ME WHEN I WAS YOUNG
AND IT WAS HURTING ME
SEEING THE TEAM AT THE
BOTTOM OF THE LEAGUE.

times, both financially and on the pitch.

He was sent on loan to Valenciennes
in the division below, and it was there
that people started to take notice of this
powerful South African.
“It was good for me to go on loan and
showcase my talent, because at Lille it was
very, very diicult to take that step up to
the first team,” Mothiba says. “For me
to get more experience, and for my
confidence, I think it was time for me
to go.
“It was in Ligue 2, but it was very tough.
It is not easy at all. It is a tough league and
I went there to get game-time, to do my
best and I scored goals.”
Such was his form that Lille recalled
him early from the loan spell in January making him an instant hit
2018 to try and help them avoid relegation. with his new club’s fans.
In the end, it was Mothiba’s goals that kept Mothiba is the stand-out
the side in the top division. performer among compatriots
“It was a very tough six months for in Ligue 1, Bongani Zungi
me, because I went back to a club where (Amiens), Lebogang Phiri
everybody was stressing and everyone was (Guingamp) and Keagan
under pressure because of the potential of Dolly (Montpellier), and
relegation. says the competition is a
“But I went there to help them because good fit for the skillset of
it is my home. It is a team that took me most players from South
when I was young and it was hurting Africa.
me seeing the team at the bottom of the “If you are a South
league.” African player and you
His eye-catching performances caught know what your goal is,
the attention of Strasbourg, who paid a it is a good league. You
reported €4 million (approximately $4.6 can learn a lot, a totally
million) for his services in August, with diferent type of play.
cash-strapped Lille reluctant sellers, but South African players are
needing to bring money into the club. technically very good, but
He started with a bang, netting four here it is more aggressive
goals in his first three starts for Strasbourg and faster going forward,”
up until the international break in October, Mothiba says.

M
 MUD,
SWEAT
AND
TEARS
A recent soccer clinic in Soweto had former them from achieving their goals,” he says.
Liverpool F.C. player John Barnes coaching young girls The former Liverpool Football Club
player and English Football Hall of Fame
to become the future stars of Africa. inductee has been playing football for as
BY GYPSEENIA LION long as he can remember., so he only knows
too well the preoccupations of these young
minds.

I
t’s high noon but the skies are
overcast in Soweto on this Wednesday
afternoon in October. It is business
as usual in this urban Johannesburg
township but as we approach Meadowlands,
it starts to drizzle.
But rain or shine, at the Fiat Sports Centre
and the girls are wearing big smiles and
bright red outfits.
The well-maintained field is separated
into rectangles so the groups are smaller and
easier to manage. Each section has a coach,
balls and marking cones for the diferent
skill-building tasks planned for the day.
He moved to England at the age of 12,
and joined the professional ranks at 17 when
he signed for Watford in 1981. Barnes later
moved to Liverpool F.C. in his early 20s
where he played for a decade.
Today, in Soweto, he motivates the girls
on the field, goading them on to perform
Photos by Gypseenia Lion

here, a group of over 40 girls aged between
12 and 14 are oblivious to everything around
them. Their eyes are trained on the ball as
they make the most of the day out on the
field with visiting retired Jamaican-born
professional footballer John Barnes.
It’s a soccer coaching clinic with the star
Barnes pays close attention to the
teams, occasionally ofering advice to both
the coaches and players.
“It is about empowering young girls and
making them feel confident about expressing
themselves. It is about making them feel
confident that there are no barriers that stop
better than boys.
“You have to separate football when
you talk about it in South Africa, into men’s
football and women’s football. Men’s football
is really well-advanced, they have huge
support, lots of money, great players, but
women’s football is just starting out. It is

88 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018


pleasing to see that young girls are now given
an opportunity because young girls in Africa
are told that they do not play football but
they actually do,” says Barnes.
The girls receive coaching as part of the
Goal global community initiative by Standard
Chartered Bank. In South Africa, the
program was launched in Tshwane in April
2015 and has since reached over 6,000 girls.
The target for 2018 is just over 3,000 girls
between Tshwane and Soweto.
In partnership with Altus Sport, an NGO
developing youth and sport, the 2018 Soweto
program includes this special interaction
with Barnes.
Former Banyana Banyana player,
Thando Dlamini, started coaching at the
clinic this year. She says some of the girls
lack discipline, and stresses how support
from family members and the community
can go a long way to help.
“You hardly see any of the parents coming
to support the girls. I think if they came to
the games and watch the girls, they will
realize it is not about the misconceptions.
The behavior has changed in some of the
girls I worked with. Soccer teaches you
discipline,” says Dlamini.
The star of the day at the soccer clinic,
Mosima Magome, a Grade 8 student, agrees.
She says she has been feeling more confident
since starting soccer.
“People would always tease me because
I am the shortest in class,” she says. The
teenager looks up to global icon, Lionel
Messi, because “he never quits, even when
he misses a goal”.
Commenting on the general lack of
interest in skills-building programs, Altus
Sport’s Operations Manager Samantha
Pennells says local professional sportsmen
should give back to the community as well.
“You got a guy from Liverpool, like John
Barnes. He is here in the community; it is not
his community but he is here giving advice,
giving tips. It was not just about sport, it was
about life,” she says.
South African football veteran Steve
Sekano, a guest at the soccer clinic, and
Barnes share jokes on the sidelines.
The former Moroka Swallows Football
Club midfielder runs a foundation within
the community that aims to get the youth
involved in sport. With hopes that sport will
keep them out of trouble, Sekano advocates
the need for more facilities in the area. He
says that as a former professional, it is his
duty to give back.
“People ask me why soccer is not the
same as when you guys played. I say it is the
same. But when you talk about soccer today,
you talk about money. Because our players
are earning a lot of money today. Those days,
we were not earning a lot of money, we were
committed. But our players need to up their
game; our game must grow,” says Sekano.
For Geraldine Matchaba, Head of
Corporate Afairs, Brand & Marketing, South
Africa and Southern Africa, at Standard
Chartered Bank, the corporate world too
has a responsibility to prioritize community-
FORBES AFRICA
TOWNSHIP SOCCER
IT IS ABOUT EMPOWERING
YOUNG GIRLS AND
MAKING THEM FEEL
CONFIDENT.”
– JOHN BARNES
based issues. “Those are people who are your
future employees, they are your clients and
they are future leaders. You have to play a
role. It is what we are doing with the Goal
program,” she says.
Thoko Phakati, Sports Field Manager,
is in charge of operations at the Fiat Sports
Centre. The space that used to be a dumping
site is now accessible to the community free
of charge.
“We believe they also deserve a chance,
why is it that only places like the Wanderers
Stadium are supposed to look beautiful?
So we are doing as much as we can here
to give kids a chance. We have people like
Steve Sekano who grew up here and became
successful but if he were to tell you his story,
you will find that he also had challenges
growing up,” she says.
Soweto truly is the home of South
African football, and the young girls here
prove they too can chase a ball for 90
minutes. There is a long conversation to
be had about policies that prioritize men
over women in sport, but in the meantime,
programs such as Goal and footballers like
Barnes continue to make sure that new stars
are born on the muddy fields of Soweto.
NOVEMBER 2018 FORBES AFRICA | 89
FORBES AFRICA
PASSING THROUGH
OFFERING THE
AMERICAN DREAM
Gar Lippincott and Daniel Ryan of Atlantic American
Partners were in South Africa recently looking for high-
net-worth individuals wanting to invest in the US.
I
t’s a warm spring day in September,
and Gar Lippincott and Daniel Ryan
have just arrived in South Africa. It is
Lippincott’s first time in the country,
and he is jet-lagged.
A little over two months ago, he was
booked to fly here from the United States (US)
but was turned back at immigration.
“At Atlanta airport, the lady looked at
Daniel’s visa and let him through and she
looked at my visa and she said ‘I am afraid
you can’t get on the plane because you have
to have a blank page on your passport’. I said
‘I have three blank pages’ and she said ‘no,
it’s supposed to be the one that says visa on
it’. She said it’s the rules in South Africa so I
had to sadly go back home… now when I was
coming, I was told that’s not an issue anymore
so I am happy they have made traveling into
the country easier,” says Lippincott.
With a brand-new passport, he’s here with
Ryan looking for people who want to invest in
the US in exchange for a green card.
Lippincott, the Managing Partner of
Atlantic American Partners, says he has
always been keen on South Africa for its
growth opportunities and prospects.
“From what I understand, the things that
are causing short-term decline in the economy
in South Africa are set up to provide long-term
growth and hopefully people will understand
this,” he says. Ryan, the company’s Managing
Director of Emerging Markets – Africa,
agrees: “I lived in Malawi for 12 years and
South Africa is still considered the shining one
throughout the continent. Even with all the
problems, everyone still wants to come here
because of the opportunities.”
According to an AfrAsia Bank report,
South Africa comes second to Mauritius in
90 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
BY ANCILLAR MANGENA
boasting the highest number of high-net-
worth individuals.
These are the kind of people Ryan and
Lippincott target through their work at
Atlantic American Partners. The company
has real estate investors and professional
private equity fund managers that manage
money for banks, insurance companies,
and pension funds. In addition, they help
people get US green cards and ultimately US
citizenship through the US government’s
EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program.
“Basically we look for people who want to
move to the United States and we help them
do so legally by investing and the nice thing is,
with our program, they are also able to get a
nice return on investment,” he says.
According to Lippincott, for a $500,000
Daniel Ryan
Gar Lippincott
investment that creates 10 jobs for American
workers, you could get a green card in about
two years and be a US citizen in about six or
seven years. “Twenty seven countries have an
investor visa program but with most of them,
it’s essentially a fee you pay, or you need to be
actively engaged in the day-to-day operation of
a business. For example, you invest $1.5 million
in Australia, but you need to hire employees
and generate a certain amount of revenue. One
of the biggest advantages with our program is
you actually invest the $500,000 into a fund.
We act as a trustee of that money and within
five to seven years, they get that money back
with a bit of return on investment and you are a
permanent citizen in the US.”
Atlantic American Partners invests the
money in real estate developments like hotels,
apartments and student accommodation.
“What’s nice about the program is it
doesn’t only cover the investor; it covers the
spouse and children under 21. Our biggest
family was a Hungarian family with seven
children so they got nine green cards for
$500,000,” says Lippincott.
The company says it has had positive
response in South Africa. “Two months ago,
we were here and we had scheduled six
presentations for 100 people and we ended up
speaking to 450 people. Most were business
people, people worried about the economy,
people worried about the political future of
South Africa and people concerned about the
Photos by Gypseenia Lion
education future of their children,” says Ryan.
According to Lippincott, despite the news
of the clampdown on immigration, the US
economy is booming and will perish without
immigration. In the era of Donald Trump and
his anti-immigrant views, that’s heartening
news indeed.
Advertorial BY ABN

GLITTER
AND
GLORY
Southern Africa’s inalists
announced at the 2018 All Africa
Business Leaders Awards in
Johannesburg in September.

O
n a glorious Thursday
evening in Septem-
ber in Johannesburg,
game-changers of
Southern Africa’s busi-
ness and corporate world gathered
together in the stately suburb of Rose-
bank for the announcement for the
southern Africa finalists at the 2018
All Africa Business Leaders Awards in
partnership with CNBC Africa.
The guests were welcomed in style
with a red carpet and a purple gin bar,
and the awards were announced over Emcees: Fifi Peters (CNBC Africa) ; Alexander Leibner (ABN Event Productions)
a sumptuous three-course dinner.
A rigorous selection process by a
team of judges led by Sam Bhembe,
the Non-Executive Director of the
ABN Group, went into deciding the
finalists, as they painstakingly sifted
through and evaluated hundreds of
applications in various categories for
the top awards.
Watched by guests dressed in
traditional attire as they bid farewell
to heritage month in South Africa, the
finalists (listed below) were announced
by CNBC Africa anchor Fifi Peters and
ABN’s Head of Event Productions,
Roberta Naicker, Managing Director (ABN Group)
Alexander Leibner.
BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR
•Mr Alex Okosi, Executive Vice President
& Managing Director, Viacom International
Media Networks Africa (South Africa)
•Mr Peter Mountford, CEO of Super Group
(South Africa)
•Mr Norbert Sasse, Group CEO, GrowthPoint
Properties Ltd (South Africa)
•Dr Thomson Mpinganjira, Group CEO, FDH
Bank Ltd (Malawi)
BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR
•Dr Divine Simbi-Ndhlukula, Founder and
Managing Director, SECURICO Security
Services (Zimbabwe)
•Ms Nomkhita Nqweni, ABSA Chief Exec-
utive: Wealth, Investment Management and
Insurance (South Africa)
•Ms Magda Wierzycka, Group CEO, Sygnia
Group (South Africa)
•Ms Catherine Lesetedi-Letegele, Group
CEO, Botswana Insurance Holding Limited
(Botswana)
(Zimbabwe)
•Dr Thomson Mpinganjira, Group CEO,
FDH Bank (Malawi)
INDUSTRIALIST OF THE YEAR (PRE-
SENTED BY IDC)
•Mr Quinton Uren, Managing Director,
Jendamark Automation Pty Ltd (South
Africa)
•Mr Andre de Ruyter, CEO, Nampak
(South Africa)
•Ms Nana Sabelo, CEO and Executive
Chairperson, Thata uBeke Manufacturing
Pty Ltd (South Africa)
•Ms Nneile Nkholise, Founder, Likoebe
Innovation Consultants (South Africa)
INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR
•Mr James Paterson, Co-Founder and CEO,
Aerobotics (South Africa)
•Mr Grant Gibbs, Executive Director, Hippo
Roller (South Africa)
•Mr Thembalihle Baloyi, Founder and Execu-
tive Director, Discovery Insure (South Africa)
•Mr Courtney Bentley, CEO, Vizibiliti Insight
Africa (South Africa)
PHILANTHROPIST OF THE YEAR
•Sir Donald Gordon, Founder, Liberty Hold-
ings (South Africa)
The AABLA™ in partnership with CNBC
Africa, honour remarkable leadership and
salute game-changers of business on the
continent for their continuing commitment
to excellence, developing best practices and
innovative strategies.
Finalists from all corners of the continent
will meet at the AABLA grand finale, when
the all-Africa winners will be crowned at an
exclusive gala dinner in Johannesburg, South
Africa, on November 29.
-By Melitta Ngalonkulu

YOUNG BUSINESS LEADER OF THE For more information, visit www.aablawards.com and follow the 8th All Africa
YEAR (PRESENTED BY LANCASTER Business Leaders Awards (AABLA™) in partnership with CNBC Africa on Twitter:
UNIVERSITY) @aablawards and #AABLA2018. The event is produced by ABN Event Productions.
•Mr Yusuf Randera-Rees, Co-Founder and
CEO, The Awethu Project (South Africa)
•Ms Vuyiswa Mutshekwane, CEO, South Af-
rican Institute of Black Property Practitioners
(South Africa)
•Ms Natalie Jabangwe, CEO, ECO Cash Zim-
babwe (Zimbabwe)

COMPANY OF THE YEAR (PRESENTED

BY HOLLARD)
•Sygnia Group (South Africa)
•Super Group (South Africa)
•Standard Bank Group (South Africa)
•Growthpoint Properties Ltd (South Africa)

ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR

•Mr Thembalihle Baloyi, Founder and Exec-
utive Director, Discovery Insure
(South Africa)
•Mr Collen Tapfumaneyi, Founder and Anthea Gardner (Cartesian Capital) ; Catherine Lesetedi-Letegele (Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited) ;
Group CEO, El Escrow Internacional Samantha Padayachee ( ABSA Wealth); Dr Snowy Khoza (Bigen Africa)

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO:

FORBES AFRICA
PERSONAL FINANCE
MONEY
King Price CEO Gideon Galloway, who built
an insurance company in South Africa
worth over $226 million in six years, talks
investments, industry trends and how
self-driving cars will change the entire car
insurance landscape.
WHY INSURANCE?
I have a passion for it, especially as the business model is massively
scalable if done correctly. Also, the industry was ripe for change. In
my opinion, it’s dominated by fat cats who don’t realize clients have
become more discerning. Car values depreciate every month, so
why don’t all insurers decrease car insurance premiums monthly?
All insurers pay out the insured value if something happens to a car
(under comprehensive insurance), so why charge more? I decided
to take the greed out of the equation and rather ofer insurance that
makes sense.
HOW DOES YOUR BUSINESS MODEL WORK?
The insurance industry is incredibly cut-throat. We realized early
on we needed to carve a niche-market approach for ourselves, based
on what consumers really want, which is more cash in their pockets.
So, we hit the market with our decreasing premium model. Our
competitors didn’t expect us to last longer than three months. More
than six years later, we are not just surviving, but thriving.
WHAT ARE THE EMERGING TRENDS IN
THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY?
We’re keeping our eye on a number of trends… Wearable tech,
advances in mobile tech, self-service and on-demand insurance,
ever-smarter fraud tools, telematics, cyber security… Looking
further into the future, the number of individuals who own cars
will decline sharply. And, self-driving cars will change the entire car
insurance landscape.
WHAT’S THE CRAZIEST INSURANCE CLAIM YOU
HAVE COME ACROSS?
The craziest one, by far, has to be the Evel Knievel [an American
stunt performer] scam, as we call it. A Jaguar owner was struggling
94 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
to sell his car, so he hired a rogue stuntman to write it of for him.
He just gave him the keys, popped a helmet on his head, and told
him to roll it. Which was a great plan until the point where the
stuntman lost control, crashed into a concrete fence, was impaled
through the chest, and died on the scene…
WHAT IS YOUR INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY?
I back the jockey, not the horse. When a potential business
investment comes my way, I look at who’s going to run it. Is the
leadership sound? And the team? Is it a culture-driven venture?
What are the values that underpin the organization? If the values
don’t align with ours, it’s an immediate no-go.
WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRIZED INVESTMENT?
King Price. To make my vision a reality, I used all my investments
and the income from all the companies I’d built over the years. I
invested every cent and lost a lot in the process. All my savings were
gone, and I had two kids and a wife to take care of, but I never heard
God telling me to stop, and so I didn’t.
YOUR MOST REGRETTABLE FINANCIAL DECISION AND
LESSONS LEARNED?
The decision: not doing proper background checks on potential
partners. The lesson: It’s quick and easy to give money away but it’s
infinitely more diicult to get it back, even when the long arm of the
law gets involved.
YOUR BIGGEST INVESTMENT BLUNDER?
That one time I invested in a gaming app that got 14 downloads…
Photo supplied
THE ONE THING YOU LOST YOU WISH WAS INSURED?
My six pack.
– Interviewed by Gypseenia Lion
FORBES AFRICA
SOMETIME IN AFRICA
AFRICAN WEDDING
The countless photo sessions in the park were followed by
I
t’s a long weekend in South Africa
and a childhood friend, Letlhogonolo
Kedijang, is getting married in
Zeerust, a dusty town in the country’s
mountainous North West province, 240
kilometers from Johannesburg.
After an early start and a four-hour road
trip, we finally arrive in rural Gopane, 47
kilometers from Zeerust. We are extremely
early and ravenous, and the place is
downright rural but these are no deterrents.
We have driven all the way to witness our
friend’s nuptials. But we can’t ignore the
rumbling in our tummies. The boys decide
to go to a local Buy-and-Braai, a butchery
where the meat is cooked on the fire as you
wait and watch. I stay back at Gopane and
document the groom’s preparations with
my camera. For a start, there are no modern
bathtubs or showers here – you use a bucket
filled with water to wash up.
Preened and ready, it’s time to hop into
one of the cars that make up the convoy
to the bride’s home. We are late and I am
told our destination is just around the
corner, when it’s actually behind one of the
mountains. The cars are speeding and I am
jittery, wishing there are speed-cameras or
96 | FORBES AFRICA NOVEMBER 2018
TALES FROM AN
feasting and dancing until dawn by the mountains.
A glimpse of a wedding in rural South Africa.
BY MOTLABANA MONNAKGOTLA
speed humps to slow them down. The scenes
whiz by – dry land, sheep, chicken and
grazing cows. There’s no oncoming traic for
miles on end.
Finally we arrive. A mountain away, what
awaits us is singing, dancing and ululation.
The groom leads the way as he walks uphill
on the gravel road to the bride’s home to be
accepted by her family.
I photograph their every move; he is
accepted and she is taken. They look lovely in
outfits that are a fusion between traditional
and western; a trend I have been noting at
most African weddings, not just in the cities,
but in the countryside too.
Another convoy – a larger one this time
– leaves for the local park, presumably a
botanical garden, for the wedding photos.
Both sides of the family and their extended
families are here. This is a staple in black
South African culture – photos with the
newlyweds amid flora and foliage.
After endless photographs with more
than a hundred guests at the park, the couple
leave in a white BMW convertible to the
bridal home for the ceremony and grand
lunch. I can finally rest and hand my time-
worn camera to a friend eager to take over.
All the formalities are done, and the
newlyweds are dancing away. More
neighbors join, the ululating and singing get
louder, and the band takes over. The party
has just begun.
This is when we decide to stay on and not
drive back to Johannesburg. We continue to
dance on the gravel, and the young couple
open a circle for guests to challenge them
at the dancing, a practice popular in black
culture. The sun has set and the moon is out,
and so are we.
It’s Monday morning, the birds are
chirping, and the gents are snoring. We
wash our faces and head back home. Before
leaving, we are gifted a bottle of whiskey as a
token of appreciation. We save it for later.
We make our first stop-over at a
supermarket for a breakfast of chicken
Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla
and bread. We open the boot of the car to
double as a table. Locals can tell we are from
Johannesburg. We scorch the road again to
music, until four hours later, we see a sign
that says ‘welcome to Gauteng’. After all
the fun and frolic at a traditional African
wedding, home beckons and duty calls in
the modern commercial capital that
is Johannesburg.
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