gateway to africa, issue 3, september 2012
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Does the massacre at Marikana cast a shadow over South Africa’s image as an investment hub?; Logistics hampers SA trade ambitions; The true cost of Chinese importsTRANSCRIPT
Business | Entrepreneurship | Innovation | Investment | Lifestyle
Does the massacre at Marikana cast a shadow over South Africa’s image as an investment hub?
Issue 03 \ September 2012Controlled Distribution UK & RSA
SAFE HAVEN?
Logistics hampers SA trade ambitionsThe true cost of Chinese imports
African equities defy gravityAvanti’s stellar ambitions
4 \ Contents \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
CONTENTS
P18 - Democratic Dividend
As countries in Africa look to build their democratic institutions, the need for higher technology identity documents has boosted the business of one South African company, Face Technologies, although a tangle in Kenya has brought it back down to earth
P20 - Forever Waiting
Logistics remains a major barrier for companies looking to move goods from South Africa into the rest of the continent. While local and international development bodies are trying to bring down the waiting time at borders and improve processes, tricky logistics are undermining South Africa’s position as a major centre of investment for Africa.
P24 - Competing with China
China’s role in African investment and development has been a source of huge optimism for local governments and businesses, but the power and reach of the country’s companies means that some South African exporters, in particular, have lost out, according to a new study.
P25 - Bull Run
Despite the headwinds battering South Africa’s economy, the stock market has remained surprisingly buoyant - as have several of its sub-Saharan African peers.
Features
P12 - Peter Guest, Independent Analyst
Reverting to defensive ‘Afro-pessimism’ after tragic events may be a dangerous strategy.
P10 - David Smith, Chairman, British African Business Alliance
Africa is not just an opportunity for big British business.
Comment
P28 - Destination: Nairobi
IBM is the latest company to put money behind the Kenyan capital’s thriving tech scene.
P30 - Final Word: Stellar Ambitions
Betting big on the African technology boom, Avanti Communications has launched its first satellite for the continent.
P6 - News and Analysis
Recent developments from South Africa and around the continent.
Regulars
Find us on LinkedIn and Facebook
Contact us on [email protected]
Read more on gatewaytoafrica.com
Follow us on Twitter @gatewaytoafrica
Photo Credit: Avanti
Photo Credit: World Economic Forum
September 2012 \ Contents \ 5www.GatewayToAfrica.com
P14 - Safe Haven
A massacre of 34 miners at the Marikana platinum mine has highlighted major issues in the country’s industrial relations and reignited political tensions, leading some investors to question just how safe South Africa is. With inequality a major concern and the economy shaking, is South Africa really the investment hub for the continent?
Cover Story
Photo: Peter GuestPhoto: Graeme Williams, Media Club South Africa
Editor: Heather WalkerPublisher: Gordon Glyn-JonesArt Director: Morgan SpicerSub-Editor: Paul Christopher DanielsResearcher: Nicole HolgateContributors: Washington Gikunju, David Smith, Pete GuestIllustrator: Bianca BirdDirectors: P Atherton, J Durrant, N Durrant and R Phillips
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NEWS IN BRIEFNEWS AND ANALYSIS
image credit goes here
Barclays to merge Africa units
Global financial services company Barclays has announced that it is in talks to combine its Africa operations with its South Africa-based investment banking subsidiary Absa. The company has been increasingly sharing infrastructure between the two units as it follows a “One Africa” strategy, it said. Antony Jenkins, who as head of Barclays Retail had responsibility for both units, was confirmed in August as CEO of the entire group.
Retailers miss estimates
Leading retailers Massmart and Shoprite missed analysts’ estimates as they reported full-year results in August, as inflation, unemployment and falling confidence hit sales. Both saw profits rise as they look for opportunities in new growth markets.
MTN hit by competition
Telecoms group MTN’s first-half earnings missed analyst estimates as competition in key markets, including Nigeria and South Africa, weighed on its results. Its subscriber base rose by 7 per cent to a total of 176 million.
IBM opens Africa lab
Technology company IBM has opened a new research facility in Nairobi, its first in Africa.The lab will conduct research into opportunities and challenges specific to the continent, the company said.
FirstRand to enter Ghana
South African banking group FirstRand has made a $91 million bid for Merchant Bank Ghana, as it it tries to expand its footprint in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana’s economy has been growing rapidly since it began pumping oil in 2010, with its gross domestic product expanding by more than 11 percent in 2011. Merchant Bank is a relatively small player, offering personal and corporate lending through 22 branches in Ghana.
Standard Bank profits rise
Pan-African banking group Standard Bank posted a 9 per cent rise in its first half profit despite a weakening external environment. However, CEO Jacko Maree warned that the second half could be even more difficult as conditions worsen.
Implats warns of risks
Platinum miner Implats said that the industry faces “significant risks” as labour disputes and weak markets put pressure on miners. Releasing its annual results, the company said the previous year had been “extremely challenging”.
Photo Credit: Chris Kirchhoff/Media Club South Africa
September 2012 \ News \ 7www.GatewayToAfrica.com
Labour action shakes mining industry
SA confidence recovers
122 millionAfrica’s demographic boom will see the continent add 122 million people to its workforce between 2010 and 2020, according to McKinsey.
Africa in numbers
52South Africa has fallen two places in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competiveness Index 2012-2013, to 52nd out of 144 countries.
Africa in numbers
EMBATTLED PLATINUM miner Lonmin has signed a “peace deal” with some striking miners, weeks after the start of a labour dispute which turned violent, resulting in the deaths of 44 people, 34 of whom were killed by police.
However, the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (ACMU), whose turf war with the more established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has been the source of considerable unrest in the industry, has refused to sign the agreement, according to the Reuters news agency.
Less than 5 per cent of workers were in attendance on September 5, before the deal was reportedly signed, the company said. News agencies reported that protests were still taking place outside the mine as talks went on. Rock drillers have been demanding wage increases of nearly 100 per cent, taking their monthly base to 12,500 rand, which analysts noted would be nearly impossible to achieve in an industry that has seen demand seriously reduced by economic slowdowns in key export markets.
Other wildcat strikes have been taking place across the platinum industry, and spread at the end of August to the gold sector, where 12,000 workers at Gold Fields’ KDC mine staged a wildcat strike. Peter Turner, the head of the company’s
Africa region, said at the time that the illegal action was the result of internal struggles within the labour movement.
The gold industry has been less badly hit by the global economic downturn, and the largest miners negotiate their wages collectively through the Chamber of Mines. Their current deal has nine months left to run. However, analysts warn that this may not be enough to protect them from contagion.
“The scene has now been set for a protracted struggle between the ACMU and the NUM for dominance and the contagion of labour unrest to other mining operations is a primary risk for the sector,” Duncan Money, Africa analyst at the consulting firm Maplecroft, told Gateway to Africa. “Dissatisfaction with the NUM, along with the two-year pay deals signed in the gold and coal sectors in August 2011, is likely to prompt a general increase in industrial action.”
Money warned that, should the combination of political and union pressure prompt the private sector to capitulate - or be seen to - there could be further action as labour movements take heart from the success of more extreme tactics.
“If militant action is seen to win significant improvements in pay and conditions in the mining sector, this will encourage similar tactics in other sectors,” he said. “However, the conditions which have allowed the ACMU to gain ground are absent in other sectors. For instance, in manufacturing, the recent rapid growth of the dominant union in the sector, NUMSA, limits the space for a rival union to establish itself and suggests that workers in the sector are supportive of the union.”
THE SOUTH Africa Business Confidence Index rebounded in August, having hit 12-year lows the previous month, despite the negative impact on sentiment of the labour disputes and shootings of miners at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine.
While those events dominated the local business environment, they did not detract from overall confidence, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which maintains the index, said.
“The improvement in business confidence during the month of August 2012, despite the events in the mining industry, is evidence of the resilience of South African businesses in a challenging environment,” SACCI said in a press release.
“The diversity of the South African economy renders it less vulnerable to specific events in any sector, for instance mining. SACCI therefore remains concerned that while the sector remains under severe operational and competitive pressures, mines are also burdened by the militant labour behavior that undermines the sector’s investment appeal.”
In an earlier interview with Gateway to Africa, SACCI’s CEO, Neren Rao, said that as tragic as the events at Marikana were, they did not represent a new dynamic in labour relations. He praised the immediate response from the government, and said that he believed the fallout could be limited with strong leadership.
“It’s an issue that’s been contained, dealt with, and I hope that it will continue to be dealt with in an efficient manner. If it isn’t, then I expect people to ask questions, both domestically and internationally,” he said.
Photo Credit: Graeme Williams/Media Club South Africa
8 \ News \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
A FUNERAL has been held in Addis Ababa for Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, who died in August.
Meles had been receiving treatment overseas for an unspecified illness for several months. He is replaced by his deputy prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn. The government has said that there will be no immediate change to policy and strategy, and that no date would be set for elections.
Meles governed Ethiopia for two decades and won plaudits for his successes in promoting economic growth in the country. However, his suppression of free speech and non-government organisations were widely criticised.
Under his leadership, the country saw many years of strong GDP growth. Since 2004, the country’s economy has expanded at more than 5 per cent each year, and is in the early stages of a multi-billion dollar infrastructure programme, which will see thousands of kilometres of railway and several new power stations constructed.
THE NIGERIAN government has announced the executives who will lead its new sovereign wealth fund as it attempts to drive through enormous reforms to its petroleum sector and wider economy.
Uche Orji, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, has been appointed as the fund’s CEO. The chief investment officer position is to be re-advertised, the finance ministry said in a statement, after an offer to the original appointee was withdrawn following a due diligence procedure.
The board includes several heavy-hitters, including the well-respected Ecobank CEO Arnold Ekpe.
“We have started putting together a quality team to ensure that we realise the objectives that inspired the establishment of the SWF,” Nigeria’s coordinating minister for the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement. “I am sure the team realises what is at stake and is ready to do the necessary work so that the country can start enjoying the benefits as soon as possible”.
The sovereign wealth fund - which remains politically contentious–has yet to be fully approved by Nigeria’s powerful state governors - is an attempt by the current government to better manage the country’s oil billions and invest for longer term economic benefit. The current fund - the Excess Crude Account - is largely depleted, with the money having been spent on expensive subsidies for the import of refined petroleum products.
Despite being the largest exporter of crude oil in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria imports most of its refined products, with a huge amount spent on subsidising the diesel that powers many of the country’s businesses. An attempt to reduce the subsidies in January led to widespread protests. Although the measures are economically unsustainable, their removal would leave many Nigerians unable to afford enough fuel to meet their basic daily requirements.
The sovereign wealth fund, which will have a far longer–term mandate, is an attempt to escape the cycle of over-spending by the Nigerian government and to use the hydrocarbon revenues to build infrastructure and other public goods.
Nigeria picks fund team for oil wealth
Ethiopian prime minister dies
THE GOVERNMENT of South Africa has signed a new memorandum of understanding with Botswana with the aim of promoting further trade and investment between the two countries.
A delegation, including president Jacob Zuma and minister of trade and industry Rob Davies visited Gaberone at the end of August, to discuss opportunities to cooperate on infrastructure and industrialisation.
South Africa has increasingly looked for opportunities to expand its trade and investment into its home region to replace falling demand in its traditional trading partners in Europe and North America.
“Enhancing close economic cooperation between Botswana and South Africa is a priority,” Zuma said in an address in Botswana. “We believe that the time for Africa has come to utilise its resources for the benefit of itself.”
Botswana, SA, sign trade deal
Photo Credits: World Economic Forum
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10 \ Views \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
A MAJOR component is missing in the African investment market - that is effective communication. Many parties are working diligently, but in small circles, limiting both their opportunities and their potential. More importantly this excludes potential external investors who are still afraid of the “Dark Continent”.
Beyond the mega-deals funded by major infrastructure investment funds, there are a host of opportunities that are hard to identify, qualify and make. These are in the micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprise sector and viewed by investors as both risky and arduous.
Basic economic evaluation indicates that the powerhouses of the UK, US and European economies are their SME sectors. In the UK these account for around 99 per cent of companies, 49 per cent of private sector turnover and 59 per cent of private sector employment. Yet in Africa, even in South Africa, there are the big companies and the multitudinous micro-businesses and very little in between. Yet this is the sector that can create more jobs, most quickly, delivering value, spreading wealth and generating political and social well-being.
One cannot look to the multi-nationals alone, nor can you expect micro-businesses, with micro-finance costing 40 per cent or more, to grow quickly enough to make a real difference.
So, to fund the missing middle you
COMMENT:
DAVID SMITH
FUNDING AFRICA’S POWERHOUSE
David Smith is the chairman of the British African Business Alliance, a privately owned association of UK and African business managers.
need investors who are experienced, wise, available and strong enough to work with enthusiastic and entrepreneurial businesses who are genuine start-ups.
The wealthy people of Africa and its Diaspora, having created a level of comfort for themselves and their families, are in that position and now wish to see that money put to work to raise the quality of life of their compatriots. However, that is the point at which benevolence often ends. What kicks in is a colder, more hard-nosed attitude, common to all investors and that concerns the “Who? Why? and How?” of investment. Who are you? Why do you need this money? How are you going to use it and provide a return for my risk?
However, what they need is to employ proven business models that are adaptable to African markets and offer local people the chance to engage with the new technology, working practices, and commerciality that suits their culture.
For UK businesses it is important that stages of engagement are manageable. The business leaders in the African Diaspora in the UK need to find a way to explore and develop relationships with British businesses. Many African entrepreneurs are generalists, so any business can be attractive and when they are looking to employ people in Africa, while the sector must be relevant, the agenda is opened by the questions of what will be profitable,
effective and worthwhile for me, rather than ‘my business must be in this sector’.
British African Business Alliance creates links between African business leaders in the UK and provides an interface to many business networks through its Alliance. For us every deal counts as we seek to create wealth, accelerate the development of commercial and social infrastructure and to make Africa a more attractive destination for British business.
British African welcomes contributors to this process; we engage through our hub in London with the diaspora across the UK and beyond that through existing business networks and direct contacts into Africa. We work with diaspora business groups, extending affiliate membership to them.
Our vision is one of cohesion that extends the advantage of the UK’s concentration of African business talent way beyond the sum of its individual parts.
we deliver. no bull.Registerd tax practitioner PR-8C200C1
12 \ Views \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
COMMENT:
PETER GUEST
OFF MESSAGE
IN 1914, the English wit P.G. Wodehouse wrote: “It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
Almost a century later, this maxim is one that seems to have been adopted in the embattled circles of those charged - or who charge themselves - with promoting Africa as an investment destination. When the political risks inherent in working in frontier markets are manifest, they adopt the approach of refusing to countenance critical discussion - those who understand the ‘Africa message’ will stay onside, while acknowledging the difficulties will only feed those who believe that the continent’s lot is continual strife.
As much as we like to believe that investment moves on purely rational lines, it also works to a large extent on narratives. Decisions are sometimes made based on a preconceived idea of where events fit into the established narrative of a country, rather than on a nuanced understanding of political or economic contexts.
Within hours of the reports from Marikana, the questions were being asked - how long is it before this spreads? Is this the point when the fragile coalition of labour and politics terminally fractures? There was some surprise amongst South
African businesspeople I spoke to in the immediate aftermath at just how quickly the image of resurgent South Africa, painstakingly constructed around the 2010 World Cup, was torn down.
This is not unique to South Africa. It is evident in the response to Kenya’s violent protests in Mombasa, stoking fears of ethnic divisions that remain from that country’s post-election violence in 2007 and 2008; in how the building insurgency in Nigeria’s fractious Middle Belt by the Islamist group Boko Haram that is, in some quarters, pinned to the board of global terrorism. The name Congo alone has become redolent with fear and risk, indelibly inked with the ‘Heart of Darkness’ label that colours even hardened Africa investors’ view of opportunities in the Democratic Republic and its neighbours.
How the notional ‘Africa’ - the aggregated landmass of 54 countries - is perceived has changed significantly in just the past few years. We have come a long way from the Economist declaring the ‘Hopeless Continent’ at the turn of the century. While sometimes reductive, the number and volume of reports in the media and professional services industry that highlight the opportunities in Africa is growing, and the instinctive reaction of investors - in Europe at least - is less one of horror and more of curiosity.
The narrative has changed. However it is still fairly broad and often unsophisticated - its roots are not yet deep. The memories of being asked - when talking about investments in Ghana - of the impact of violence in Sudan have not fully receded.
In this context, the polarisation of the ‘afro-positive’ and ‘afro-negative’ debate is dangerous. The former’s instinct to dismiss fears, however ill-founded, around the risks of regional events, means that the rational, reasonable debates that happen around global politics are not happening at exactly the moment when they need to be front-and-centre.
What happened at Marikana was a tragedy. Failing to confront it and to have the kind of honest discussions with businesses and investors internationally could let the event fall back onto a narrative that has South Africa - and the rest of Africa - going backwards. Investment will shy away, jobs will not be created, and the narrative could become self-sustaining.
Peter Guest is a journalist, analyst and author of ‘Africa’s Century: Making Money on the New Frontier’, published by Endeavour Press.
14 \ Cover Feature \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
September 2012 \ Cover Feature \ 15www.GatewayToAfrica.com
problems of a societal structure that has failed to see economic opportunities be distributed. “Our results show that a South African
child not only has to work harder to overcome the disadvantages at birth due to circumstances, but having done so, finds that these reemerge when seeking employment as an adult,” Sandeep Mahajan, World Bank Task Team Leader for the South Africa Economic Update series, said back in July. He called the cross-generational lack of opportunities in South Africa a “vicious, self-perpetuating cycle of inequality.”
The mining industry is perhaps the most vulnerable in this environment, attracting as it does relatively large numbers of low-skilled workers, but being heavily exposed to global macroeconomic conditions.
Pervasive inequality is also a drag on economic growth. A lack of opportunities is perpetuated by a failure to deliver education and healthcare to those in lower income brackets, who are then less prepared for the workforce, increasing the burden on the state.
In March, the rating agency Standard & Poors lowered the outlook on its rating of South Africa’s sovereign debt, warning that: “Fundamental structural economic and social problems continue, such as very high unemployment and a structural current-account deficit that makes the economy dependent on external financing.”
SAFE HAVEN?
AS PRESS reports of the shootings of 34 miners at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine hit the wires, and videos circulated and recirculated across the internet, the carefully constructed image of brand South Africa was shaken.
South Africa, ever keen to maintain its international reputation as a first world country within a developing continent, with wholly separate considerations of political and institutional risk, instead presented a vision of a nation where the government, labour and the private sector work in opposition to one another with violent consequences.
Mines minister Susan Shabangu may have tried to reassure investors that South Africa’s institutions are capable of maintaining order, but months after a resurgence in the rhetoric of nationalisation had spooked investors, events at Marikana are likely to cast a long shadow over the country’s efforts to accelerate foreign direct investment and to portray itself as a safe investment hub for the rest of the continent.
One executive at a group with operations across emerging and frontier markets told Gateway to Africa, exasperated, that suddenly investors were calling to discuss the subject of political risk in South Africa. Others report that they find themselves being asked by their superiors whether South Africa is going to fall apart, or, as one put it: “become Zimbabwe”.“Regardless of whether nationalisation re-emerges as a key political issue, investor confidence will be seriously shaken by the shootings,” Duncan Money, an Africa
COVER STORY:
The massacre of 34 miners at Marikana casts a shadow over South Africa’s image as the continent’s investment hub and has international investors worried about the direction of its politics.
“Regardless of whether nationalisation re-emerges as a key political issue, investor confidence will be seriously
shaken by the shootings.”
- Duncan Money, Africa analyst, Maplecroft
analyst at the consulting firm Maplecroft told Gateway to Africa.
“The incident has badly damaged the image of macroeconomic stability and competence carefully built up by finance minister Pravin Gordhan and reinforces the perception that South Africa is a risky destination for investment. The threat of wider industrial action in the mining sector and the prospect of rising labour costs will be a particular deterrence to the large foreign direct investment inflows associated with mining projects, which are the most common destination for FDI inflows.”Domestically, some in the business
community are trying to downplay the significance of the event.
“I don’t think should cause anyone to head for the hills from an investment point of view. It is a symptom of issues that were already in the economy,” Neren Rau, CEO of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Gateway to Africa. “It’s brought to the surface issues that were there. It’s not new issues that have come out because of Marikana. It’s added an event and a face to issues that have already been in our economy - some more latent, but they were there. Citizens were aware of them, and I would imagine international investors were aware of them.”
Those issues - of inequality and unemployment - had been the source of real concern before Marikana.
Less than two months ago, the World Bank warned that the inequalities that had been locked into South African society were becoming a danger to its economic growth and stability. The unrest at Marikana was driven in the immediate run-up by a combination of turf fighting within the labour movements, by the faltering financial state of the platinum industry in the face of a global downturn and - most probably - by a mishandling of the situation by the security forces. However, it had at its root the far longer term
By Staff Reporter
16 \ Cover Feature \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
leader in achieving social and economic development, this inability to break the cycles of inequity that have remained well beyond the end of apartheid undermines its credibility.
Contagion into other sectors of the South African economy is clearly concerning many investors, but whether, in the context of a greater volume and
“It’s splitting the country up. There’s a huge constituency of the country that believes that the government should be more radical than it’s being,” one investor, who declined to be named, said. “But you’ve got the economy run extremely effectively by [Pravin Gordhan], who is very very good, but the pace of social change and economic change experienced by people on the ground is not enough. People are getting very impatient, and that’s a huge worry. If you start to get more nationalist, perhaps xenophobic, differences emerging there, then I think it’s going to affect people’s confidence and ability to invest.”
As the investigations into Marikana continue, there will be intense focus on the application of the rule of law. The country’s criminal and commercial courts are of enormous importance to businesspeople, who must rely on them if they are to see South Africa as a safe place to invest and to headquarter their African operations. The use of an old, and much-hated, apartheid-era law to charge 270 strikers with the murder of their colleagues, despite video evidence and an early admission by the police of causing the deaths, is not just morally dubious, but is a worrying sign of institutional confusion. Withdrawing the charges after international opprobrium did little to reduce the sense that the government is reeling.
“Analysts will be watching closely to assess the potential contagion of labour disputes to other platinum mining operations, such as we have begun to see at Royal Bafokeng Platinum, as well as the wider mining sector, as we may be seeing at Gold Fields Limited,” Alex Benkenstein, a senior researcher specialising in natural resources at the South African Institute of International Affairs, told Gateway to Africa.
“More importantly, they will be monitoring the ability of South Africa’s legal, justice, and public security systems as well as the country’s political leadership to provide an effective institutional response to the crisis. The resurgence of Julius Malema, and the potential political repercussions of Marikana for the ANC’s national elective conference in Mangaung in December 2012 are also likely to be central issues for foreign and domestic analysts.”
As a country aspiring not only to be a trading partner to African nations, but an exemplar and
Africa At WorkAFRICA IS expected to add 122 million people to its workforce between 2010 and 2020, according to a new report from the McKinsey Global Instituted. However, the challenge of supplying stable, productive jobs for that large and aspirational young population is one that is transfixing policymakers across the continent.According to McKinsey’s
statistics, just 28 per cent of Africa’s labour force today has stable, wage-paying jobs. With many Africans still working in subsistence agriculture and informal self-employment, governments need to find ways to bring in the private investment and create structures that will enable widespread job creation, McKinsey noted. While economic growth is strong across the continent, it is not enough, the consultancy said. Some major contributors to GDP growth, such as the natural resources industry, are not large employers. In fact, just 1 per cent of Africa’s workforce is employed in the sector.The report, “Africa at Work”
said that between 54 and 72 million jobs could be created between now and 2020, with the majority of the employment coming in the manufacturing, agriculture and retail and hospitality sectors.
Photo Credits: Graeme Williams/Media Club South Africa
September 2012 \ Cover Feature \ 17www.GatewayToAfrica.com
1 per cent1 per cent of Africa’s total workforce is employed in the natural resources sector
Africa in numbers
122 million122 million people could be added to Africa’s workforce over this decade
Africa in numbers
72 million72 million stable, wage-paying jobs could be created by 2020
Africa in numbers
frequency of debates around resource nationalism and the role of natural resource companies in creating wealth more broadly in countries than they previously have, that contagion spreads to other countries in Africa remains to be seen. Mining companies have been more open in recent years to investing in frontier markets, with Mozambique in particular attracting international
investors. “At the time of Zimbabwe’s economic
collapse many South Africans complained that international analysts still tended to paint African countries with the same brush,” Benkenstein said. “We may see some contagion of negative sentiment to the region. Marikana has certainly highlighted the potential cost of socio-political risks and the importance of
ensuring that all stakeholders have a stake in the success of the mining sector.
“However there is great optimism about the potential of the mineral sector in many African states, including South Africa’s regional neighbours such as Botswana and Mozambique. Marikana is unlikely to be a significant drag on the exploitation of major new mineral deposits in the region, but it has undeniably shaped the global debate on mining and socio-economic development, and may yet have significant domestic political ramifications.”
For Rau at SACCI, the hope is that some of those political ramifications will ultimately be positive, by providing the space to demonstrate that South Africa’s leadership and judiciary are effective.
“I believe that the negative perspectives around this event and the negative perceptions of South Africa that have emerged can be countered by a strong leadership response,” he said.
“We’re seeing more and more of that, that our society is becoming less tolerant of what they see as inappropriate leadership actions or decisions,” he added. “It’s good that civil activism is introduced into our system, because in the past we’ve had society being really too accepting of inappropriate behaviours and lack of decisiveness and so on, but we really want those demonstrations to be conducted in a peaceful manner and a constructive manner, and a non-violent manner.”
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FEATURE:
A South African company, Face Technologies, has built a good business out of helping African governments prepare for elections. However, a recent tussle in Kenya has reminded them of the difficulties of politics in frontier markets.
FACE TECHNOLOGIES, a South African IT company, felt incredibly close to winning a $395 million electronic voter registration contract tendered by the Kenyan government when it made it to the final shortlist of four firms out of 29 contenders for the deal.
Having been involved in similar big ticket information technology projects in more than a dozen African countries and Asia; Face Technologies felt that it had the track record and clout needed to bag the lucrative contract, Ian Minty, the company’s CEO, told Gateway to Africa.
The company was founded in 1993 as a state-owned enterprise, just as South Africa prepared to hold its first democratic election in 1994. That process required millions of South Africans who held no national ID documents to be quickly registered, giving Face Technologies a foothold in the biometric identification market on the continent. The South African government sold its stake in 2010, and the company is now wholly private.
As the autocratic regimes of many African countries in the 1990s gave way to democratic environments, the company has benefited from the drive towards greater participation and transparency, delivering l electronic registration and smart card solutions in countries such as Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Namibia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia; in addition to India and Sri Lanka outside Africa.
By Washington Gikunju
DEMOCRATICDIVIDEND
“Face Technologies sees many new opportunities in the biometrics environment and we are pursuing them,” said Mr Minty, when asked whether the firm had other deals in the pipeline. “The Africa experience and knowledge that we have built up over the years is used for the benefit of our new projects.”
The company has wide experience of the continent’s IT challenges and has been successful in developing a pan-African footprint. Yet as controversy emerged over the tendering process just a few days to announcement of the bid winner, the company may have started feeling that things were not going according to plan in Kenya - a reminder that sometimes technology is not the only constraint in frontier markets.
The South African firm was in the race for the tender against 4G Identity Solutions of India, Symphony of Kenya and Ontrack Innovations of Israel.
“Face Technologies was extremely proud when we were shortlisted as we believe in our quality African proven solution that we submitted in the tender,” said Ian Minty, chief executive of the South African firm in a recent interview with GTA. “We believed that based on our extensive Africa experience we would deliver within the provided time schedule.”
However, allegations of corruption among top officials of the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and divisions within the tendering team led to bitter public exchanges that eventually caused the
cancellation of the process.After nearly a month of feuding, the
electoral body announced in early August that it would revert to a manual register to enlist voters for the upcoming general election, which is scheduled for March next year.
But with Kenya having nearly erupted in chaos in 2007 after a disputed presidential election that was blamed on a faulty voters’ register, the IEBC announcement caused instant public outrage.
A report by South Africa judge Johann Kriegler, who investigated the botched election, recommended an overhaul of the manual electoral register and its replacement with an electronic one.
It took the intervention of Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, to pass a cabinet resolution which directed that IEBC had to use an electronic register.
Initial reports indicated that the government had settled for a deal that would see a Canadian firm that was involved in piloting the electronic voter registration process in a 2010 constitutional referendum awarded the contract.
The IEBC, which is an independent constitutional body, has however opposed the government’s intention to single source for the registration kits, again raising the possibility that Face Technologies and other bidders who were pre-qualified for the contract may still be signed up for the tender.
Asked whether he considered it a lost opportunity given the government’s apparent inclination to single-source for the contract to a Canadian firm, Mr Minty said that “the process is still underway.”
The Kenyan biometric voter registration deal is just one of the numerous multi-million dollar opportunities that IT companies stand to gain in Africa, as both the government and private businesses embrace technology in their daily operations.
“Show me any logistical challenge in Africa, and I will show you a huge opportunity for technology companies; be it traffic management, streamlining government records, water supply or housing,” says Muriuki Mureithi, the CEO of IT consulting firm, Summit Strategies.
As a player in the industry for more than a decade, Mr Mureithi has seen some of Kenya’s budding tech companies grow into multinational firms that struggle to handle the big number of clients that queue for their services.
An example is Seven Seas Technologies, which provides IT solutions for government and financial, telecom, real estate and service industries, and has
September 2012 \ Feature \ 19www.GatewayToAfrica.com
operations in East, West and Southern Africa.
“The opportunity is huge, probably the biggest shortage is that of expertise and financial resources needed to deliver some of these projects,” said Mr Mureithi.
Kenya’s ICT sector is estimated to have grown by an average of 20 per cent every year in the past decade, accounting for a quarter of the $40 billion economy.
With four undersea broadband internet cables docking at the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa, Mr Mureithi says the country already has the physical infrastructure needed to migrate all government services online.
He picks out a smart traffic management system and digitisation of the citizens’ records as some of the urgently needed IT projects in Kenya.
Previous efforts to switch to electronic passports, national ID cards and driving licenses have all stalled amid claims of corruption in the awarding of the multi-million dollar projects.
“There is an urgent need for clear public private partnership laws to help fast-track some of these projects because neither the government nor the private sector can do them alone,” says Mr Mureithi.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
20 \ Business Life \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
BUSINESS LIFE:
FOREVER WAITING
As South Africa looks to become the entry point into Africa for international companies, the ongoing delays and difficulties in moving goods around its immediate region are creating barriers for trade and logistics.
IT IS a common sight at border posts across the continent - long lines of trucks spilling off the road and into crowded car parks. Whole industries have sprung up servicing the drivers at important crossings, such as that at Chirundu on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, with hawkers, bars and prostitutes in long supply.
Chirundu is a vital crossing on the long road from Central Africa to the Cape, a trucking route from the mines of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the ports of South Africa, and vice versa. It sits on a corridor that crosses from Dar Es Salaam, Lusaka, Harare, Johannesburg and Durban, crossing into South Africa at Beitbridge.
These are vital transit points for logistics across the continent - and equally, they have been massive bottlenecks for transporters of goods across the region.
As Donald Stockhall, who heads the
regional transport business at logistics specialists Concargo, told Gateway to Africa: “The challenges that one faces when transporting cargo by road into the SADC region are lengthy delays at the borders, inefficient and unreliable service quality, third world infrastructure, corruption and poor road conditions.
“Whilst there has been positive movement in the easing of trade barriers between the SADC countries, the costs of operating vehicles on these routes remains high.”
A 2009 World Bank study showed that a truck heading north through Chirundu waited for an average of 39 hours, with a wait time of 14 hours southbound. At Beitbridge, the standing time was 34 hours northbound and 11 hours southbound. In total, the bank estimated, a third of the transit time for goods along this corridor was spent waiting at border crossings, adding costs of more than $100 million per year.
The international development community has taken an intense interest in improving the processes at these border posts as a mechanism for improving the integration between African economies. The Durban-Dar Es Salaam corridor is key in moving goods from the region’s most industrialised economy - South Africa - into and through the free trade and political unions of the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market of East and Southern
By Staff Reporter
September 2012 \ Business Life \ 21www.GatewayToAfrica.com
Africa and the Southern African Customs Union. It is also the main route of supply into landlocked Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Chirundu, as one of the busiest pinch points on the route, became the centre of an effort to try to reform border crossings and improve efficiency, creating a “One Stop” border post.
“Chirundu is still talked about as the example of developing border posts to facilitate trade. Of course, a border post is just one node along these corridors, but it’s one that is focused on, I suppose because it’s one of the easiest to articulate, and therefore it’s perhaps one of the easiest for the donors to design interventions on,” Will Petty, senior customs consultant at Crown Agents, which has participated in trade facilitation initiatives in Africa, told Gateway to Africa.
Significant improvements have been made in terms of timings, Petty said, and lessons have been learned that can be applied to other parts of the continent.
“Those lessons are around the order in which you do things,” he explained. “The infrastructure, in terms of changing what the buildings look like and changing the road layout, that’s obviously a key component, but the soft stuff, in terms of looking at what the procedures should be, looking at the legal frameworks, looking at the institutional frameworks - those are all as important as the infrastructure.
“There is beginning to be a bit of a step change, in that the soft issues are being prioritised as much as the infrastructure.”
These initiatives need to be seen in the context of a continent-wide push to improve intra-African trade. Historically, the configuration of Africa’s infrastructure and African countries’ trade relationships have been geared towards exports to Europe, Asia and North America. Creating African internal markets not only gives countries new destinations for their exports, it insulates them to some extent against deterioration in external conditions.
Fixing the tangled border regulations and aligning national agencies to work together is a major challenge in this initiative.
“Changes are being made, but it’s quite a big project just to change the behaviour of one agency, let alone all of the agencies across Africa. And the projects which you deliver tend to be at a national level, because it is within a single
22 \ Business Life \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
legislative framework and a single set of stakeholders.
When it comes to doing things that encompass different jurisdictions and different stakeholders in different countries, the problem becomes more complex, Petty said.
“Perhaps the biggest challenges that cause the biggest costs and delays are about harmonisation, and I think that’s where it gets really difficult to define projects and programmes that really solve those harmonisation problems. I think there’s a pretty good understanding of what those programmes are, but implementing those programmes is a different issue. It’s one thing to implement something within the EU, where there’s quite a formalised structure, and broadly people are headed in the same direction, but apply that to countries in Africa, where you’ve got different drivers... the
changes that are going to address cross-border problems and harmonisation problems, they’re always going to be much, much harder to do.”
For South African businesses this lack of harmonisation is a major challenge. The country wants to position itself as a central hub for investment in Africa’s productive industries and as a logistics hub. Its port and airport infrastructure may be more advanced than its neighbours and many of its other rival destinations, but the real physical challenges and costs of moving goods within its home region represent a serious barrier to investment.
In some cases, this is a function of the balance of trade.
“Certain countries are seriously impacted by an imbalance in economies of scale,” Stockhall said. “If one looks at Angola for instance, there are huge
volumes being transported into the country, but nothing coming. This scenario has a serious impact on the client’s ability to place his goods at market at a reasonable price. You can understand why Angola is such an expensive country.”
With road freight delays and inefficiencies adding as much as 25 per cent of the total cost of shipping, according to some estimates, logistics can seriously erode the economics of trading with the rest of the continent.
“There needs to be an improvement in basic infrastructure and services; a simplification of documentary processes,” Stockhall said. “A reduction of border delays will go a long way in reducing transport costs. There needs to be an ongoing drive to foster total regional economic integration in Southern Africa.”
Chirundu
North–South Corridor
Photo Credit: Chris Kirchhoff/Media Club South Africa
24 \ Business Life \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
COMPETING WITH CHINA
BUSINESS
IN A rare show of public support, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, the chairman of Etisalat Nigeria, expressed what many African businesspeople say more quietly about his Chinese suppliers: “They’ve done well for my margins,” he said at a conference in London last month. “They’ve crashed the price of telecoms equipment.”
The profusion of Chinese goods and capital in Africa has - with some reservation - been welcomed by governments and enterprises alike. However, the trade balance between the country and many of its African partners has caused some tensions, as Chinese goods flood local markets, with unprocessed resources heading in the opposite direction.
A new study from the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia claims that South Africa has been particularly hard hit by the influx of Chinese goods to the rest of the continent, where its manufacturers have been losing market share.
South Africa’s share of exports to its 10 largest trading partners on the continent has fallen - although the absolute amount
has grown - in many cases because Chinese goods are taking their place, Professor Rhys Jenkins, the study’s author, told Gateway to Africa. Jenkins estimated that that total cost to the South African manufacturing industry has been around $900 million in the past decade.
“The regional export market is important as far as South African exports are concerned. South Africa is exporting a lot of manufactured products to those markets, as opposed to semi-manufactured products to Europe of the US,” Jenkins said.
As a prolonged downturn in Europe and North America continues to dampen demand for South African manufactured goods, the importance of accessing the high growth markets in its region is growing. However, China’s increasing presence in key markets has shaved an average of around 10 per cent off export growth to its 10 largest trading partners, Jenkins’ study showed.
The manufacturing sector in South Africa has been struggling as its traditional export markets struggle. The sector shed 67,000 jobs in the first quarter, followed by 44,000 in the second, adding to an unemployment problem that the country has been unable to shake off - one which is increasing tensions between labour movements and the government.
Trade between China and Africa hit new highs in 2011, despite uncertainty in the rest of the global economy. Two-way trade volume reached $166.3 billion, according to official figures - a 31 per cent increase on 2010 - continuing a trend
China’s trade with Africa has been a defining feature in the continent’s modern development, but a new study has shown that for South African manufacturers, the costs may have outweighed the benefits.
$166.3 billionTwo-way trade between China and Africa
$93.1 billion $71.3 billion
China imports from Africa China exports to Africa
By Staff Reporter
September 2012 \ Business Life \ 25www.GatewayToAfrica.com
that has been extant for the more than a decade. At the turn of the Millennium, China’s trade with Africa was $11 billion. Today, according to data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, as much as 14 per cent of China’s outward investment goes to Africa.
China’s interest in Africa has long been the subject of alarmist headlines and academic papers, but it is very real, and expanding. In July, African heads of government gathered in Beijing for the fifth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac).
Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, opened the summit with a promise of $20 billion in fresh loans to African
countries, offering finance for the development of infrastructure, agriculture and manufacturing enterprises. This was double the $10 billion in lending announced at the last Focac, in 2009, and was another statement of intent in Beijing’s relationship with the continent.
Separately, the China-Africa Development Fund, committed $2 billion to a portfolio of 60 projects in 30 countries in Africa – including a cement factory in Ethiopia and a power plant in Ghana – and a further $1 billon for the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
However, there were murmurs of discontent that broke through the
overwhelming positivity of the show put on by Beijing. Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president, telling the summit that the current trade balance was unsustainable.
“There are some efforts that the [Department of Trade and Industry] is making in South Africa to try to get better access to China for manufactured goods into the Chinese markets,” Jenkins said. “There are 10 products that the Chinese said that they will give consideration to. It is an issue which is very much on the agenda... There is a concern for getting better access, but of course that’s still, compared to the manufacturing prowess of China, the scale to which they could expand exports is quite limited.”
BULL RUNINVESTING
Despite a host of negative indicators, South African equities have hit record levels and stayed there, as international investors ignore the noise in the hunt for investable assets. Across the continent, the story seems to be the same.
By Staff Reporter
WHEN SOUTH African police opened fire on striking miners at Lonmin’s Marikana mine, killing 34, it confirmed many of the fears of international observers - that the politics of labour in the country were set to spill over into wider unrest.
With firebrand politician and deposed ANC youth leader Julius Malema quick to capitalise on the tension and restart calls for nationalisation that had started to drift away from the public consciousness, preconceptions of the risks to business in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest economy looked set to be verified.
The South African economy has been rattled repeatedly in recent months. In July, the central bank revised down its growth estimates from 2.9 per cent to 2.7
per cent, while the World Bank lowered its forecasts from 3.1 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Manufacturers and the export sector have been shedding jobs at an alarming rate, and business confidence is at a 12-year low.
Releasing its report in July, the World Bank said that inequality in the labour market and the wider economy were a threat to stability, and that the country was locked in a “vicious, self-perpetuating cycle of inequality”.
With the spectre of violent labour disputes stalking the country’s politics, and the ongoing chaos in the eurozone holding back any export-driven recovery, there are few signs that these conditions are going to improve in the near term.
However, the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange has been riding high. The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index breached 35,000 for the first time in its history in August and has stayed there despite the ongoing turmoil in South African politics.
Some analysts suggest that South Africa, despite all of its concerns, is emerging as a kind of safe haven for investors who are looking for alternatives to battered European markets.
“I think a lot of it is emerging market proxy buying,” Warwick Lucas, equity analyst at Imara S.P. Reid, told Gateway to Africa. “In other words, someone says whether we buy a retailer here or in Mexico or Brazil, it doesn’t matter - a emerging market retailer is nevertheless an emerging market retailer - and then bundle it all together.”
Developed markets have been susceptible to rapid changes in risk appetite, as investors look for signals that the European Central Bank and policymakers in Europe’s major economies will be able to structure some new package to start to bring the eurozone’s heavily indebted economies back towards sustainability. The possibility of sovereign default in major countries, including Italy and Spain, has not entirely receded.
At the same time, the USA has been displaying mixed signals, with some suggesting that the economic recovery there may be on the verge of derailing. Many in the market are anticipating a further injection of capital into the financial system by the Federal Reserve - so-called ‘quantitative easing’ (QE), which would see the central bank printing dollars in a bid to try to free
26 \ Business Life \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
up liquidity for banks to lend to the real economy. With an election looming, and the economy a key battleground for candidates, the political pressure to promote measures that appear to be reinforcing a recovery will grow.
Another round of QE would most likely lead to a rally in riskier assets, including emerging market equities. Even in its absence, South Africa, which has a relatively deep and technically sophisticated stock market and some companies with international standards of corporate governance, seems to be benefitting from a global lack of confidence. For investors, the country looks comparatively attractive, despite its position as an emerging market and its weakening fundamentals.
As Lucas said: “The broader problem globally is a lack of quality investment avenues. A case in point, the third largest bond market in the world happens to be Italian. Four years ago, that was investable. It’s not now.”
In that context, the more developed emerging markets are looking a lot less risky, according to Lucas.
“After the financial crisis I had hoped that mentality would take hold, and you would start seeing a different way in which developed world fund managers would look at emerging markets... to some degree that’s happened, but probably not enough,” he said.
“If you’d said to me 10-12 years ago, when you’d had the Asian crisis, that us guys in the emerging markets are seen as higher quality than OECD, we’d have laughed our heads off. And yet here we are. [Developed] markets have been shot to pieces.”
However, foreign investors, moving with the vagaries of politics in Europe and without a full understanding of the political dynamics of emerging markets, are susceptible to knee-jerk reactions, meaning that markets can reverse dramatically.
“You can certainly see it,” Lucas said. “It’s all well and good when you’ve got that herd behaviour driving things up, but it also makes for murderous turnaround if it does go south. And a good example of that with the shooting [at Marikana] was the retailers, which was one of our
most heavily foreign-owned sectors, got slaughtered.”
Platinum stocks - Lonmin in particular - were hammered in the aftermath, as more industrial action loomed at other facilities. Implats warned that the industry faced severe risks. But even so, the effect on the overall index was limited.
By the end of August, the index was pushing for 36,000, as more hints that the US’ Fed might go back into the markets pushed up commodity prices, boosting the prospects for South Africa’s mining sector.
Other African indices have benefitted from the global shifts towards emerging markets, although, with thinner markets they are more vulnerable to external shocks. The Nairobi Stock Exchange, which had a torrid 2011, has rebounded strongly this year. The NSE all-share index has risen more than 22 per cent across the first half of the year. Elsewhere on the continent, the Ugandan Stock Exchange has seen a more than 25 per cent increase, while Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria and Tanzania have all seen increases of more than 10 per cent.
South AfricaMarket Cap ($m): 825,275 Year to Date: Change, 12.06%
NigeriaMarket Cap ($m): 45,869 Year to Date: Change, 11.85%
KenyaMarket Cap ($m): 13,095 Year to Date: Change, 22.54%
TanzaniaMarket Cap ($m): 1,650 Year to Date: Change, 10.87%
NamibiaMarket Cap ($m): 1,197Year to Date: Change, 11.92%
MalawiMarket Cap ($m): 905Year to Date: Change, 10.98%
UgandaMarket Cap ($m): 724Year to Date: Change, 27.81%
Sub-Saharan African stock markets by market capitalisation and growth
lavoka
28 \ Business Life \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
NAIROBI
NAIROBI’S NGONG Road is a far cry from Silicon Valley’s highways, but the brands clustering along the route are increasingly of global stature. IBM, the international technology company, is the latest to open a new research and innovation laboratory in the city - and working on the tangle of traffic is one of the company’s first challenges.
One major focus of the lab will be “How can you use technology to make more effective decisions”, Nick Redshaw, the company’s general manager for North and Central Africa, told Gateway to Africa. This includes systems for aggregating
Mt. Kenya
Mount Kenya
Meru
Garissa
Mombasa
Malindi
Machakos
NairobiNakuru
Kisumu
Eldoret
WajirMarsabit
MoyaleLodwar
Kenya EconomyCurrency: Shilling (approx. 0.09 ZAR)Population: 41.6 millionGDP based on PPP: $70.85 billionGDP growth 2012 (2011): 5% (4.5%)Head of Government: Mwai KibakiFinance Minister: Njeru GithaeCentral Bank Governor: Njuguna Ndung’u
Kenyan BusinessLanguage: Swahili, EnglishWorld Bank Doing Business rank: 109World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness rank: 106Investment agency: Kenya Investment Authority (www.investmentkenya.com)Public sector opening hours: Mon-Fri 0900-1700Private sector opening hours: Mon-Fri 0900-1700Legal system: Kenyan / Common Law
Getting ThereAirlines: South African Airlines, British Airways, Ethiopia Airlines, Kenya Airways, KLM, Emirates, Qatar Airways, MonarchVisas: South African citizens can enter without a visa for up to one month; UK citizens can obtain visas on entryHotels: approx. £125-155 per night (based on 6-night stay in September)
DESTINATION
data from the city’s CCTV cameras and from cellphones to try to ease traffic pinch points.
IBM has been involved in East Africa for decades, and created its first regional office in Nairobi in 2009, supplying services to the financial services and telecoms sector. The $9 billion acquisition of Zain Africa by Indian group Bharti Airtel also saw one of IBM’s big clients enter the market, and the company duly won a multi-country outsourcing deal on the continent.
Cognoscent of the potential of its growing reputation as a technology hub, the Kenyan government is driving a ‘Vision 2030’ plan to build up its knowledge industry, and public sector support was a key factor in deciding to place the Africa research lab in Nairobi, Redshaw said. “It continues to be an attractive investment destination,” he said. “Kenya seems to be one of the more advanced innovation hubs that we see in Africa.” (SR)
The Kenyan capital is fast emerging as a centre of innovation and entrepreneurship in information technology, with IBM the latest global giant to set up shop in the city.
Photo Credit: IBM
Business Travel
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30 \ Final Word \ September 2012 www.GatewayToAfrica.com
STELLAR AMBITIONS
FINAL WORD:
REFLECTING ON the a “perfect launch” of his latest satellite, HYLAS 2 David Williams, Avanti Communications’ CEO,
Despite a host of negative indicators, South African equities have hit record levels and stayed there, as international investors ignore the noise in the hunt for investable assets. Across the continent, the story seems to be the same.
has a lot to be relieved about. While the cost and complexity of launching satellites has decreased over the years, the capital cost of the business is all up front, and errors could be disastrous.
“It’s a bit like a mining operation,” he said. “You spend a few years prospecting and getting a license to operate, and then you spend a few hundred million pounds building it, and then when it’s turned on it starts producing cash.”
The device was launched on August 2 from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guyana. With its satellite in
position to cover Turkey, the Middle East and Eastern and Southern Africa, the company is in place to become part of the communications revolution across the continent.
On the heels of a telecoms explosion that saw mobile phones move from being expensive luxuries to near total ubiquity in Africa, infrastructure providers are gearing up for the roll out of data services. African consumers and businesses are taking advantage of the falling cost of smartphones and computer equipment, and as demand rises for ICT services, which makes for a fairly easy equation for Avanti, which supplies data services to internet service providers, corporates, telecoms companies and governments.
To fill up HYLAS 2’s capacity would require 500,000 broadband users, or an equivalent number of corporate or telecoms customers.
“The question is, can I find half a million broadband customers in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Botswana? I think the answer is a pretty simple yes,” Williams said.
For Williams, who first started out financing the satellite business in the late 90s, the journey is not over yet. The company has bought another - HYLAS 3 - which is under construction, with a view to covering the fast growing markets of West Africa. (SR)
Photo Credit: Avanti
Africa’s Premier International Oil & Gas Event Sub-Saharan & Maghreb-North Africa Plus Exhibiton
www.petro21.com
29th October - 2nd November 2012The Pavilion Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
Confirmed SpeakersJacques Marraud des Grottes, Senior Vice President, Africa, Total, Immanuel Mulunga, Petroleum Commissioner, Ministry of Mines and Energy Namibia, Dr Abullahi Haider, Senior Adviser to the Ministry, Ministry of Water, Energy, Petroleum & Mineral Resources, Transitional Federal Government, Republic of Somalia, Hon Hussein Abdi Dualeh, Minister, Ministry of Mining, Energy & Water Resources, Somaliland, Carlos Aguilera, VP Business Development, Africa & Latin America, Chevron Corporation, Dr Nick Cooper, CEO, Ophir Energy plc, Keith Hill, President & CEO, Africa Oil Corporation, Matt Wilks, Country Manager, Tanzania, BG Group, Wade Cherwayko, Chairman & CEO, Mart Resources, Joseph Pili Pili Mawezi, Secretary General of Hydrocarbons, Ministere des Hydrocarbures, DRC, Dr Duncan Clarke, Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners, Yi Zhang, Chief Executive, Addax Petroleum, Ebbie Haan, Managing Director, Sasol Petroleum International, Tim O’ Hanlon, Vice President, Africa Business, Tullow Oil, Galib Virani, Associate Director, Afren, Karl Thompson, Chief Executive, African Petroleum Corporation, Dr Kase Lawal, Chairman & CEO, Camac Energy, Adewale Tinubu, GEO, Oando, Senior Executive, Eni E&P Division, Mthozami Xiphu, CEO, Petroleum Agency SA, Frederik Dekker, Managing Director, Wessex Exploration, Peter Hill, Chief Executive, Global Petroleum, Xiao Zongwei, Managing Director, CNOOC Africa, David Ginger, Director Exploration & New Ventures, Cairn India, Phil Loader, Senior Vice President, Exploration, Mubadala Oil & Gas, Jeff Waterous, Chairman, Deloitte JMW Energy Advisers, Jasper Peijs, Exploration Manager-Eastern Hemisphere, BP plc, Oumar Torbo Djarma, Couseiller Technique, Ministre de l’Energie et du Pétrole, Chad, Ken Kuroda, Sr. Vice President & GM, Energy Business, Mitsubishi, Dr Ketsela Tadesse, Director, Petroleum Licensing, Ministry of Mines & Energy, Ethiopia, Dave Jennette, Exploration Director, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Apache Corp, Fredrik Ohrn, President & CEO, Svenska Petroleum Exploration, Mark Llamas, Managing Director, First Energy Capital, Steve Ilett, Exploration Director, Impact Oil & Gas, Paul Welch, CEO, Chariot Oil & Gas, Christopher Pitman, CEO, Surestream Petroleum, Barry Rushworth, CEO & Director, Pancontinental Oil & Gas, Mark Weller, COO, Madagascar Oil, Lindsay Elliott, Exploration New Ventures, Beach Energy, Steve Noske, Managing Director, WHL Energy, Robin Vela, Chief Executive, SacOil, Peter Wakeling, Managing Director, Bahari Resources, Rob Tims, Managing Director, Standard Chartered Bank, Hon Mohadji Fouad, Vice President, L’Union des Comoros, Eddy Belle, Chief Executive Officer, PetroSeychelles Frank Patterson, Vice President, International Exploration, Anadarko Petroleum, Shi Jicheng, General Manager, BGP East Africa, Nishant Dighe, President Africa, Panoro Energy, Phil Frank, Exploration Director, Sterling Energy, John Downey, Director, International Exploration & New Ventures, Dana Petroleum, Tony Atherton, Head of Exploration, Europe, Africa, Middle East, CIS, Talisman Energy, Campbell Airlie, Technical Director, Seven Energy, Raymond Kargbo, Head, Petroleum Directorale, Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate, Scott Aitken, Chief Executive, Atlantic Energy, Chris Faulkner, Chief Executive, Breitling Oil & Gas, Robert McBean, Executive Chairman, Wentworth Resources, Jeffery Schrull, Managing Director, Rialto Energy, Sudhir Kamath, Managing Director, Suntera Energy, Halfani Halfani, Director of Exploration & Production, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, Ernest Rubondo, Petroleum Commision, Uganda, Narendra Verma, Director Exploration, ONGC Videsh, Marcio Mello, CEO, HRT, Osten Olorunsola, Director, Department of Petroleum Resources, Nigeria, Elly Karuhanga, President, Chamber of Mines & Petroleum, Uganda, Pedro Augusto Bastos, E&P International Business Development Manager, Petrobras, Ahmed Salem Ould Tekrour, Director General of Petroleum, Ministry of Energy & Petroleum, Mauritania, Rufus Tarnue, VP, Technical Services, National Oil Company of Liberia, Hon Gabriel Nguema Lima, Minister, Ministry of Mines, & Industry & Energy, Equatorial Guinea, Thore Kristiansen, SVP, Development & Production, South America & Sub-Saharan Africa, Statoil, Sumayya Hassan-Athmani, CEO, National Oil Corporation of Kenya, Francisco Pulit, Sr. VP, Corporate Development, Pluspetrol, Ousseini Assane Boureima, Director of Exploration, Ministere des Mines et de l’Energie, Niger, Daniel Gnangni, Director General, Petroci, Ian Craig, Executive VP, Sub-Saharan Africa, Shell E&P Africa, Lagos, Nigeria, Arsenio Mabote, Chairman, The National Petroleum Institute Mocambique, Antoine Rostand, Managing Director, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Tewodros Ashenafi, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Southwest Energy (HK) Ltd, Lumen Sebastio, Senior Geologist, Sonangol, Angola, Derek Stewart, Senior Vice President, Exploration & New Ventures, Murphy Exploration & Production, Dr Lalaoharijaona Rasoambolanoro, Deputy General Manager, OMNIS Madagascar
Separately Bookable
14th Scramble For Africa: Strategy Briefing - 29th October 2012 Presentations By Dr Duncan Clarke, Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners
9th Africa Independents Forum - 30th October 201219th Africa Upstream Conference - 31st October - 2nd November 201247th PetroAfricanus Dinner In Africa - 29th October 2012
Tel: + 31 70 324 6154 Fax: + 31 70 324 1741
Vice ChairmanBabette van [email protected]
Sponsor & Exhibition
Registration & Marketing
Sponsors 2012
Key Sponsors
Titanium Platinum Gold SilverDiamond Bronze
Exclusive InternationalBroadcast Partner
Plus 900 Senior Level State & Corporate AttendeesFrom Across The Continent & Worldwide, Over 70 ExhibitionsDinners, Cocktails, Social Functions, NetworkingLead Sponsor 2012
africa oil week ad
Africa’s Premier International Oil & Gas Event Sub-Saharan & Maghreb-North Africa Plus Exhibiton
www.petro21.com
29th October - 2nd November 2012The Pavilion Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
Confirmed SpeakersJacques Marraud des Grottes, Senior Vice President, Africa, Total, Immanuel Mulunga, Petroleum Commissioner, Ministry of Mines and Energy Namibia, Dr Abullahi Haider, Senior Adviser to the Ministry, Ministry of Water, Energy, Petroleum & Mineral Resources, Transitional Federal Government, Republic of Somalia, Hon Hussein Abdi Dualeh, Minister, Ministry of Mining, Energy & Water Resources, Somaliland, Carlos Aguilera, VP Business Development, Africa & Latin America, Chevron Corporation, Dr Nick Cooper, CEO, Ophir Energy plc, Keith Hill, President & CEO, Africa Oil Corporation, Matt Wilks, Country Manager, Tanzania, BG Group, Wade Cherwayko, Chairman & CEO, Mart Resources, Joseph Pili Pili Mawezi, Secretary General of Hydrocarbons, Ministere des Hydrocarbures, DRC, Dr Duncan Clarke, Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners, Yi Zhang, Chief Executive, Addax Petroleum, Ebbie Haan, Managing Director, Sasol Petroleum International, Tim O’ Hanlon, Vice President, Africa Business, Tullow Oil, Galib Virani, Associate Director, Afren, Karl Thompson, Chief Executive, African Petroleum Corporation, Dr Kase Lawal, Chairman & CEO, Camac Energy, Adewale Tinubu, GEO, Oando, Senior Executive, Eni E&P Division, Mthozami Xiphu, CEO, Petroleum Agency SA, Frederik Dekker, Managing Director, Wessex Exploration, Peter Hill, Chief Executive, Global Petroleum, Xiao Zongwei, Managing Director, CNOOC Africa, David Ginger, Director Exploration & New Ventures, Cairn India, Phil Loader, Senior Vice President, Exploration, Mubadala Oil & Gas, Jeff Waterous, Chairman, Deloitte JMW Energy Advisers, Jasper Peijs, Exploration Manager-Eastern Hemisphere, BP plc, Oumar Torbo Djarma, Couseiller Technique, Ministre de l’Energie et du Pétrole, Chad, Ken Kuroda, Sr. Vice President & GM, Energy Business, Mitsubishi, Dr Ketsela Tadesse, Director, Petroleum Licensing, Ministry of Mines & Energy, Ethiopia, Dave Jennette, Exploration Director, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Apache Corp, Fredrik Ohrn, President & CEO, Svenska Petroleum Exploration, Mark Llamas, Managing Director, First Energy Capital, Steve Ilett, Exploration Director, Impact Oil & Gas, Paul Welch, CEO, Chariot Oil & Gas, Christopher Pitman, CEO, Surestream Petroleum, Barry Rushworth, CEO & Director, Pancontinental Oil & Gas, Mark Weller, COO, Madagascar Oil, Lindsay Elliott, Exploration New Ventures, Beach Energy, Steve Noske, Managing Director, WHL Energy, Robin Vela, Chief Executive, SacOil, Peter Wakeling, Managing Director, Bahari Resources, Rob Tims, Managing Director, Standard Chartered Bank, Hon Mohadji Fouad, Vice President, L’Union des Comoros, Eddy Belle, Chief Executive Officer, PetroSeychelles Frank Patterson, Vice President, International Exploration, Anadarko Petroleum, Shi Jicheng, General Manager, BGP East Africa, Nishant Dighe, President Africa, Panoro Energy, Phil Frank, Exploration Director, Sterling Energy, John Downey, Director, International Exploration & New Ventures, Dana Petroleum, Tony Atherton, Head of Exploration, Europe, Africa, Middle East, CIS, Talisman Energy, Campbell Airlie, Technical Director, Seven Energy, Raymond Kargbo, Head, Petroleum Directorale, Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate, Scott Aitken, Chief Executive, Atlantic Energy, Chris Faulkner, Chief Executive, Breitling Oil & Gas, Robert McBean, Executive Chairman, Wentworth Resources, Jeffery Schrull, Managing Director, Rialto Energy, Sudhir Kamath, Managing Director, Suntera Energy, Halfani Halfani, Director of Exploration & Production, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, Ernest Rubondo, Petroleum Commision, Uganda, Narendra Verma, Director Exploration, ONGC Videsh, Marcio Mello, CEO, HRT, Osten Olorunsola, Director, Department of Petroleum Resources, Nigeria, Elly Karuhanga, President, Chamber of Mines & Petroleum, Uganda, Pedro Augusto Bastos, E&P International Business Development Manager, Petrobras, Ahmed Salem Ould Tekrour, Director General of Petroleum, Ministry of Energy & Petroleum, Mauritania, Rufus Tarnue, VP, Technical Services, National Oil Company of Liberia, Hon Gabriel Nguema Lima, Minister, Ministry of Mines, & Industry & Energy, Equatorial Guinea, Thore Kristiansen, SVP, Development & Production, South America & Sub-Saharan Africa, Statoil, Sumayya Hassan-Athmani, CEO, National Oil Corporation of Kenya, Francisco Pulit, Sr. VP, Corporate Development, Pluspetrol, Ousseini Assane Boureima, Director of Exploration, Ministere des Mines et de l’Energie, Niger, Daniel Gnangni, Director General, Petroci, Ian Craig, Executive VP, Sub-Saharan Africa, Shell E&P Africa, Lagos, Nigeria, Arsenio Mabote, Chairman, The National Petroleum Institute Mocambique, Antoine Rostand, Managing Director, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Tewodros Ashenafi, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Southwest Energy (HK) Ltd, Lumen Sebastio, Senior Geologist, Sonangol, Angola, Derek Stewart, Senior Vice President, Exploration & New Ventures, Murphy Exploration & Production, Dr Lalaoharijaona Rasoambolanoro, Deputy General Manager, OMNIS Madagascar
Separately Bookable
14th Scramble For Africa: Strategy Briefing - 29th October 2012 Presentations By Dr Duncan Clarke, Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners
9th Africa Independents Forum - 30th October 201219th Africa Upstream Conference - 31st October - 2nd November 201247th PetroAfricanus Dinner In Africa - 29th October 2012
Tel: + 31 70 324 6154 Fax: + 31 70 324 1741
Vice ChairmanBabette van [email protected]
Sponsor & Exhibition
Registration & Marketing
Sponsors 2012
Key Sponsors
Titanium Platinum Gold SilverDiamond Bronze
Exclusive InternationalBroadcast Partner
Plus 900 Senior Level State & Corporate AttendeesFrom Across The Continent & Worldwide, Over 70 ExhibitionsDinners, Cocktails, Social Functions, NetworkingLead Sponsor 2012
sable
SABLEa professional edge
The best things in life come in twosYou may have the right to dual citizenship
Fancy a life and a home in Europe? Come find out what your options are.www.philipgamble.co.uk/seminarswww.passporttoportugal.com www.sable-group.com UK: 0800 039 3076SA: +27 (0) 21 657 1584
Book your place at one of our October seminars in Africa
EU citizenshipThe seminars will also include a presentation on our new Passport to Portugal service. Attendees will hear how they can get EU citizenship for themselves, their spouse and children through the purchase of an investment property in Portugal - without having to reside there permanently.
UK nationalityPresented by Philip Gamble, known for being the world’s leading expert on British nationality, these seminars will focus on several lesser-known, complex factors surrounding former British protectorates and colonies. These factors could mean that you have a right to British citizenship - even if you weren’t made aware of it before.
In October, we are running a series of free UK and EU nationality seminars throughout Southern & Eastern Africa.
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