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Trang 4THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
EDITORIAL
The mobilisation of hundreds of thousands
of young people on streets across the
con-tinent demanding economic and political
rights challenges traditional
opposition-ists as much as incumbent regimes In
each case, the demonstrators in Algiers,
Bamenda, Harare, Kampala, Khartoum
and Kinshasa are taking on systems of
vested interests and dysfunctional politics
that are holding them back They are
calling for sweeping change, not just
different party colours in the presidency
Even in South Africa and Nigeria or
countries where politics seems quiescent
or dominated by competition between
ideologically identical parties, these new
movements send important messages
First is that the economic downturn has
exposed the jobless growth of Africa’s
boom years The demographic reality of
the world’s youngest continent means this
issue will dominate African politics for the
next three decades Although most
policy-makers talk of structural reform, very few
have a strategy and can implement it
Second, when regimes try to reform after
years of stasis, they are at their weakest
point They have neither the legitimacy nor
the resources to change the policy course
The protesters’ grievances run the gamut
Innovation is key to the
organisation-al power of the new groups Activists inAlgeria are using WhatsApp groups of foot-ball fans to mobilise support It worked
On the evening of 3 March, hundreds ofthousands marched through the streets tocall on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika torefrain from standing for a fifth mandate inApril’s elections In Sudan and Zimbabwe,the governments have tried to shut down ser-vices like WhatsApp, so activists use virtualprivate networks to share information andsend messages to the outside world
All this has prompted easy comparisonswith the rebellions that swept across NorthAfrica in 2011 The protest movements inEgypt, Libya and Tunisia started that way,
so the argument goes, but ended in a newautocracy, bloody chaos or frustration anddisappointment
There are parallels between today and
2011 but more importantly there are sons Above all, demonstrate in peace,
les-is the message circulating relentlesslyamong activists in Algeria and Sudan.Many hope the form of the demonstrationsthemselves, heterogenous with a strong,sometimes majority, participation by wom-
en, can shape the political transitions Thismay prove the hardest task: for a popularmovement to take on the responsibilitiesand limitations of political power withoutbetraying its supporters
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THE AFRICA REPORT
is published by JEUNE AFRIQUE MEDIA GROUP
03 EDITORIAL
06 MAILBAG
08 COFFEE WITH THE AFRICA
REPORT / Bob Collymore
10 THE QUESTION
12 Q2 / April
14 Q2 / May
18 Q2 / June
63 EAST AFRICA FOCUS
Policymakers are not yet looking atthe many concerns of business andordinary citizens in order to avoidthe pitfalls that have hobbled otherintegration projects
86 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL AFRICANS
The Africa Report’s
inaugural ranking of the top Africans who control the levers of power across politics, business and the arts:
from billionaire barons
to unpredictable peacemakers and soft-power superstars
122 INSIDE BAYELSA
New projects are takingroot in the Nigerianstate after years ofdespoliation
146 LOGISTICS DOSSIER
Ethiopia has highhopes for exports, andhas made improvinglogistics a priority
156 ART & LIFE
African designers are
in the limelight whenBlack Hollywood starschoose their labels forred carpet ceremonies
FEATURES
22 PROFILE / Ramaphosa’s destiny
Ahead of 8 May’s general elections The Africa Report talks to close contacts
of the president over the years to build a picture of the man who says he can
get South Africa out of its current mess
36 INVESTIGATION / Nigeria’s billion-dollar oil scandal
An investigation in Nigeria has turned into the country’s biggest corporate
bribery case, with nine executives from Eni and Shell now on trial in Milan
48 WIDE ANGLE / The youth wave
Sudan street protests, Bobi Wine, #FeesMustFall and #NotTooYoungToRun –
a demographic tide is pushing back against outdated politicians, so how long
before the bulwark crumbles?
56 DEBATE / Is Magufuli’s economic nationalism working?
The threat of a $190bn tax bill became a $300m payment The Africa
Report looks into whether the Tanzanian government’s barnstorming style
will revolutionise the economy or scare away investors
‘an enigma’
Trang 7address the root cause
of the failing education
system, as technology
alone won’t fix our public
schools [‘Yemi Osinbajo:
Selling our crown
jewels isn’t the solution’,
TAR106 Dec./Jan 2019]
What ails our
educa-tional system ranges
from poverty in early
childhood to underfunded
districts and poorly
designed incentives for
an overburdened faculty,
all of which feeds the
unequal access to quality
education for the teeming
population of
school-age children Recruiting
more qualified teachers
into service requires
more funding than the
sector currently gets The
proposed reform of the
school curriculum will
level the playing field of
access, but level fields do
not necessarily translate
to improved player skills,
which is the entire point
of education
Maryam Bello,
Ibadan, Nigeria
DOUBTFUL DOUBLING FOR MAURITIUS
Mauritius is keen todouble the size of itsfinancial sector in 12years, but how will it findthe growth strategies
to achieve its dream intoday’s global economicturmoil? [‘Mauritius:
Offshore on the radar’,TAR105 Nov 2018]
Various forecasts against
a backdrop of new USgovernment measures
to impose tariffs on steeland aluminium haveresulted in Turkey’scurrency significantly
losing its value Fourcountries – Egypt, Jordan,Argentina and Barbados –have suffered from highdebt and deficits WillMauritius be successful
in its expansion of itsfinancial sector with newinternational investmentswhen the general globaleconomic outlook seemsnegative?
Kokil Shah,Kenya
HELL BREAKS LOOSE
IN ZIMBABWE
It surely never rains inZimbabwe PresidentEmmerson Mnangagwa’s
attempts to turn theeconomy around are yet
to bear fruit [‘Zimbabwe
2019 Country Report’,TAR106 Dec./Jan 2019].Fuel shortages haveloomed, doctors aregoing on strike, teachersare going to work twice
a week and there has been
a sharp increase in theprices of basic goods andservices New uncorruptblood is needed, humanrights laws need to
be respected and in anutshell, a new govern-ment is needed
Jeff K Chakanyuka,
Zimbabwe
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NIGERIA’S OBY RAISES CRUCIAL QUESTIONS
Oby not only has the educational qualification, she also has enough professional experience to
be president [‘Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili: The old order has delivered misery’, TAR106 Dec./Jan 2019] It is sad that Oby was not seen as a major contender Instead, Nigerians were focused on two men who have been in power before and have shown that they have nothing
to offer Is it because Nigerians cannot yet wrap their heads around a female president?
Lucia Edafioka, Feminist and brandcommunications manager, Nigeria
Blunt-speaking and
r i g h t s , O b i a g e l i launched a groundbreaking run
al and political career Standing for Nigeria (ACPN), she is shaking up band of young volunteer helpers.
Oby, as she is widely known
in Nigeria, should not be What she lacks in establishment own enthusiasm and that of her ers of the #BringBackOurGirls
under-The old order has delivered misery
The Nigerian presidential candidate talks toThe Africa Report about the education crisis
and the need for the politics
of ideas rather than personality
that the government of Goodluck from Chibok in Borno State by co-founder of the campaign, used First Lady Michelle Obama was pictured on social media bran- major reason why Jonathan lost the 2015 election.
An accountant by training, with amaster’sin publicadministration worked on development projects
for much of her career She
as head of its Budget Monitoring later served as minister of mines Bank as vice-president for Africa.
Oby is a fiercely independent campaigner At the launch-
2013, she warned its members that Party (PDP) out of power But she with whom she clashed in govern- ment She tellsThe Africa Report
that Atiku did “everything to was in government.
un-Obiageli
‘Oby’
Ezekwesili
Presidential candidate, Allied Congress Party of Nigeria
“I would do a much better job than [Atiku] because government is not monolithic”
Trang 8PLUG INTO THE WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING DIGITAL MARKET
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Trang 9By NICHOLAS NORBROOK in Nairobi
“I highly recommend this lifestyle,”
says Bob Collymore, sitting on the
veranda of his imposing house in
the affluent Nairobi suburbs “This
morning I woke up and had the 8:15am
call Then I caught up with some
emails, then I have you and another
media engagement after […] I don’t
actually need to go to the office.”
With the gentle chirrup of birdsong
and the jazz radio playing in the large
sitting room behind, it is hard to
dis-agree, though the less well-organised
might see their productivity suffer
“And it occurred to me,” continues
Collymore, “that we all get into this
funnel, to commute and get into the
office by 8-9am Whereas, I could
easily do the interviews here, go into
the office by midday and miss the
traffic.”
Nairobi is blessed with an
abun-dance of cars, which can render the
smallest commute unbearable So it
is no surprise to hear an executive
plan around it But Collymore is not
being boastful about his terrific life;
he has a different problem to steer
BOB
COLLYMORE
PLATFORM BUILDER
The Africa Report sits down with the retiring boss of
Safaricom, Kenya’s dominant telecoms player and creator
of the widely popular M-Pesa mobile-money platform
around Treatment for acute myeloidleukaemia has stripped his immunesystem of its former strength “I’mstarting over from scratch,” he says
Until it returns, he is forced to limithis interaction with people
Collymore is a ‘silver linings’ guyrather than a ‘dweller’ One of thosesilver linings is the ability to put moretime into his music
“I do have a saxophone addiction,yes It’s gotten worse in recent times
The saxophone shop was right acrossthe way from the hospital in London,
so I bought myself a new Conn-Selmersaxophone And I’m very diligent Imanage to get in seven or eight hours
a week.”
That does not mean he is any less intouch with the office The launch ofSafaricom’s mobile overdraft facility,for example, has been at the forefront
of his days And he has had to fendoff a recent polemic in Kenyan publiclife surrounding Safaricom’s dominantposition
It is one of the reasons he is sosanguine about a merger betweentwo rivals, Airtel Kenya and TelkomKenya “Telcom operators need toget a certain critical mass to work,”
he says “So this will create a playerwith 33% market share That makessense For the market it makes sense,too, to have a stronger player as com-petition to Safaricom.”
But that is not where he believes thereal competition will come from Forall the kudos Safaricom won world-wide for its mobile payments platformM-Pesa, “you can pay for things withyour Fitbit now,” says Collymore.And in the future, the real chal-lengers to telephone companies likeSafaricom will come from ‘big tech’:Amazon, Google, Facebook, as well
as Chinese challengers like Tencent.WhatsApp has launched a paymentstrial in India involving tens of millions
of participants If WhatsApp getsinto payments and comes to Kenya,what will Safaricom do? “We don’tget complacent about these things,”says Collymore “For sure, we believe
we need to evolve, and quickly Thething that we have today was designed
11 years ago.”
That evolution is being helped
along by a strategic partnership withVodacom, the South Africa-basedtelecoms company, in particular withits data capabilities And Safaricom islooking for new revenue drivers “Theshareholders are certainly lookingfor this,” says Collymore “And wethink that you can bolt a few thingstogether – e-commerce, payments anddata analytics Most people are usingdata to gauge whether you are a creditrisk or not But look at the Chinese,they are not looking at whether you
Collymore is not boasting about his terrific life; he has a different problem
Trang 10N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
connect the smallholder to
specif-ic off-takers All of this is in theSafaricom ecosystem
Like all good musicians and chiefexecutives, Collymore understandsthe importance of timing, for a com-pany and for a career He looks at theway his predecessor Michael Josephhewed Safaricom out of the stubbornpotential of the market His own tenure– which comes to an end in August
2019 – has been about consolidationand profitable pivots to M-Pesa anddata: investing $100 in the companywhen he began would have seen thatmoney grow nearly tenfold
And he is clear that the company
needs a successor with yet anotherset of skills, as the chapter of the
‘ubiquitous platform’ begins “I havenever been a good mergers and ac-quisitions person, but we will needsomeone who can spot a deal andgrab it,” concludes Collymore “[Weneed] someone who understandsthe financial sector a lot more, if
we are to occupy the fintech space,and someone who is not going to bescared of going into other markets.”Collymore says he is leaving withfew regrets: a small number of missedopportunities and a regretted com-ment or two about the quality ofKenyan food, or about whetherKenyans trusted Safaricom morethan the church His greatest tri-umph? The team he has assem-bled “Finish your tea,” he says
“Let me just go get an injectionpumped into me, and I will
be back.”
have money or not – they are looking
at whether you are a good guy or not
They look at intent If I know that
your intent is good, then I can rent
you my apartment.”
That gives companies that sit on
piles of information an advantage “We
have access to a pool of data, and not
just our own but publicly available data,
which can help us to start to profile
people much better and to monetise
that by how we develop our own ucts for you and individualise it,” saysCollymore “But then also, how do wemove into other markets which are notour legacy markets, voice and SMS
prod-And not many operators can say thatbecause they are just voice and SMS.”
E-commerce is certainly an obviouschoice – with a trusted brand, a pay-ments platform and new logisticspartner Sendy, Safaricom is stealing
a march on other retailers seekingonline customers
But the strategy, like big tech’s, is
to be the platform, says Collymore,
“whether it was for the banking dustry, the healthcare industry, theagricultural industry And we have oursights on the education sector Look,
in-at Amazon, it doesn’t just sell books
Google is putting balloons up in theair, it is not just a search engine.”
Take, for example, DigiFarm,Safaricom’s new agricultural initi-ative The company will be able togive loans to a smallholder, sourcecheap inputs from iProcure – anagricultural start-up Safaricominvested in – deliver the latest
agronomic expertise by
phone, and then
Investing $100 at the start of Collymore’s reign would deliver tenfold returns today
JEAN-MARC
PAUFOR
TAR
Trang 11YES The National Cathedral serves an aesthetic andsuperfluous purpose It does not directly reflect
the nation’s founding goals It is a piece of architecture
that is just going to change the skyline In a country which
has a majority Christian religious orientation, there are
already mega-auditoria that seat, in some cases, three
times the proposed capacity of
the cathedral These auditoria
have hosted and still have
capac-ity to host events of a national
nature To date, there has been
no explanation for the cost of
re-placement of structures that will
be demolished for this edifice,
which will cost tens of millions
of dollars at least While the
mega-pastors are running around
with statesmen to raise funds, no
Ghanaian even knows the cost of
the whole project, and the
gov-ernment itself is not disclosing
its interests For a monument
to a religion that has truth and
transparency as its core virtues,
this cathedral’s very foundations
show a contradictory attitude
Ghana has done very little to
protect its heritage, and yet revels
in the imposition of a foreign religion, whose main
propo-nents shackled our forefathers and condemned our ways
as barbaric So while the national museum steadily breaks
down in ruins just five kilometres away, a monument that
celebrates our mental slavery rises in its wake
a country with an estimated 70% Christian population,the National Cathedral would serve as a sacred space for
governance of the nation, hoststate and religious functions,serve as a convening centre forinterfaith dialogue to improvethe cohesive relationship be-tween government and religiousleaders and create a visible andorganic unity of the differentChristian denominations in thecountry Our commitment to so-cial justice in encouraging socialintegration requires initiatives tobuilding the needed various in-frastructures at all levels – local,regional and national – so thatour nation can develop fasterthan it is currently Building thecathedral and tackling the othersocio-economic challenges inthe country are not mutuallyexclusive Monuments like theNational Cathedral, in addition
to its tourism potential and socio-economic revitalisation
of the city, will create jobs, revitalise the landscape ofAccra, serve as a catalyst for technology and skills transferinto our country, and will play an important cultural role
in cultivating pride for our heritage and past
Are national cathedrals
a waste of resources?
Ghana’s government-backed multimillion-dollar project has received backlash for being
a misplaced priority in the face
of harsh economic conditions
It appears the project does not have universal appeal in Ghana, even among the Christian community It is more a matter of political mobi- lisation for short-end electoral purposes rather than Christian ends State support is not univer- sally agreed, since many court cases are ongoing regarding the presidential donation of prime government land Besides, all so-called national cathedrals are denomination-based or -owned.
Colin Essamuah,WhatsApp
No!! These resources in question are
meant for the wellbeing of the citizens and
the development of the nation Religious
beliefs are entrenched in Ghanaian
society and form part of the national
identity Yes, a national cathedral may
not be in the interests of the entire
popu-lation, but it captures most of the citizen’s
religious affiliation, which is Christianity.
Randolf B Hackman,Email
It is a vanity project It’s management will
be chaotic and
at the taxpayers’ expense It
is the height
of misplaced priorities.
Kobi Annan,Twitter
Trang 12THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
The Africa Report’s exclusive guide to the quarter ahead features
key events from the worlds of politics, business and culture Find
out more about how to plan your April, May & June, whether it is
to find out who is planning for life after Bouteflika (see page 13), what happens next in the fallout from Steinhoff International’s
accounting irregularities (see page 14) or understanding the
battleground fights in South Africa’s election (see page 16).
Trang 13Congolese artist Samba’s piece(pictured) sold for £31,250($42,000) in an October 2018auction at Sotheby’s, whichnetted £2,274,625 in total.
POWER PLAYERS World Bank leadership contest
After president Jim Yong Kim’s surprise resignation, the race
is on to name a replacement Nominations ended in March and a vote is due before the Spring World Bank/IMFmeetings in Washington Early talk was about breaking the
mid-US stranglehold on the presidency
INVESTMENT Oil interest
Despite low prices, several African countries are seeking
investment in oil exploration in the months ahead
PAUL ABUOR
Kenyan MP calls the government to account over opaque debts
as the government seeks to roll over big loans in April
DAVID MALPASS
The US Treasuryofficial – a critic
of multilateralismand former BearStearns boffin –
is US PresidentDonald Trump’spick
1 GABON The 12th
licensing round is
set to close in April 2019.
2 GHANA Its first formal
licensing round should
be complete in May It has
reportedly got the attention of
16 oil companies, including majors.
3 REPUBLIC OF CONGO Licence round
phase II is due to close in June 2019.
4 ANGOLA The Marginal Fields Bid Round will be launched
at the Africa Oil & Power conference in Luanda in June 2019.
NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA
The former financeminister of Nigeriahas said that shewould run forthe World Bankpresidency
if nominated
RAGHURAM RAJAN
The formerReserve Bank
of India governorcould be a strongcandidate forthe Asian grouping
of countries
‘We want to know how much debt
Kenya is paying in pending bills
and we want this done this year’
2
1 3 4
Trang 14THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
The powerful clique behind President Abdelaziz Bouteflika may
have waited too long to resolve their disputes about who should
take over from the ailing 82-year-old president They backed
Bouteflika to run again in the planned 18 April elections, leading
to hundreds of thousands of protesters – young and old – taking
to the streets in late February and early March to send a message
scrawled on handwritten posters and chanted by throngs of
protesters that ‘enough is enough’ The economy, which is largely
dependent on oil and gas projects, is hurting
Nearly everything had seemed on course for a non-event election
where Bouteflika would win a fifth five-year term: the opposition is
weak and divided, the regime holds a tight grip on the military and
security services and Algeria’s young people were seen as
disaf-fected and perennially frustrated by the country’s gerontocracy
Those around Bouteflika are now scrambling for a strategy
As The Africa Report went to press, the street had gotten
wheelchair-bound Bouteflika to agree to a national conference on
reforms and promise to step down before the end of the next term
In the days and weeks ahead, the protesters are seeking to press
their advantage now that they have gotten the regime to make
con-cessions But questions remain as to how this generational change
in the wind will eventually take shape The Arab Spring examples
of neighbouring countries show the pitfalls and possibilities
Will the opposition be able to rally around a candidate in time for
the vote, if it will be free and fair? If Bouteflika steps down before
the vote or his party fractures beyond repair, will oppositionists be
able to exert enough pressure to push through generational change
in the armed forces, many of whose leaders earned their pedigrees
in the country’s war of liberation from France and the crushing of
the Front Islamique du Salut group in the 1990s?
The street speaks
ALGERIA ELECTIONS
MO IBRAHIM FOUNDATION
The Mo Ibrahim Governance Weekend
at the Sofitel hotel in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on5-7 April will play host to a new edition of TheAfrica Report Debates, with the question: “Thenew tech era: job killer or job creator?”
APPOINTMENT
SYDNEY MBHELE
The new chief executive of brand
at Sanlam takes up his post on 1 April.Sanlam’s focus has been on its 2018acquisition of Moroccan firm SAHAM.Mbehele brings experience from rivalinsurance firm Liberty to the table
KEN OFORI-ATTA
Ghana’s finance minister decribes what
is needed when the country’s programme
with the IMF ends in April
‘A combination
of economic discipline and vibrancy will ensure that we will not have to be rescued’
$100mTech-focused Andela raised a large sum
in January, and Africa-focused investors will
be discussing that deal and others at the AfricanVenture Capital Association in Nairobi 1-5 April
Thousands of protestors have
marched in Algiers and other
cities across the country
Trang 15Q 2 / MAY
SAULOS CHILIMA
Malawi’s former vice-president is running against hisone-time ally, President Peter Mutharika, in May Corruptionand the economy are high on the political agenda
ALIKO DANGOTE
His $9bn Nigeria oil refinery is due tobegin test production in May 2019 Theinvestment is set to more than doubleDangote’s annual revenue and allowlarge investments outside of Nigeria
JACOB ZUMA
South Africa’s former president will
be back in court in May on corruption
charges relating to a multibillion-dollar
arms deal in the 1990s He faces charges
of fraud, racketeering and money laundering
‘Whether we have accomplished fully what we had set up to accomplish? The answer is no Corruption is worse […] It’s politics
of patronage and appeasement.’
Awaiting the auditors
The reckoning for Steinhoff International, an Africa- and Europe-focused retailer backed by South African aire Christo Wiese, depends in part on the audited results for its group and subsidiaries in 2017 and 2018, due to
billion-be released in April and May 2019 Under the leadership of chief executive Markus Jooste, Steinhoff’s share pricecrumbled when accounting irregularities were discovered in December 2017 Auditing firm PwC is carrying out theinvestigation into Steinhoff’s recent operations, which will reveal the extent of the company’s problems
Since the 2017 crisis and writing down an estimated $12bn in assets, the company has been limping along as itconducts the restructuring of some subsidiary operations and preparing for court cases seeking billions of dollars
in damages due to investor losses The Amsterdam Court of Appeal – Steinhoff International is headquartered inthe Netherlands – will hold a crucial hearing on 23 May to determine if it will go ahead with an investigation intothe company Steinhoff’s difficulties are also playing out in South African politics, where the opposition DemocraticAlliance has been calling for the speedy launch of criminal investigations once the audited results become public.Authorities in the Netherlands, Germany and South Africa could take years to complete their probes
Restructuring specialist Louis du Preez has been leading Steinhoff since November 2018 with the goal of
saving the company from collapse Plans for new stores – Steinhoff owns Mattress Firm in the US, Conforama
in France and the Pep and Ackermans brands in Africa – have largely been put on hold until the company is
on sounder footing Steinhoff’s unaudited results for the last quarter of 2018 showed 3% total revenue growthfrom existing stores, with a 5% jump in Africa and a 4% drop in the US
Trang 17SOUTH AFRICA Poll pressure
In May’s general election, President Cyril Ramaphosa desperately wants
a strong turnout in favour of the governing African National Congress (ANC)
so that he can sweep out corrupt officials linked to former president JacobZuma and clean up ailing state-run enterprises like Eskom and SouthAfrican Airways (see page 154)
Support for the ANC has been waning in recent years It took 61.95%
of the vote in 2016’s municipal elections, and an Ipsos opinion poll estimatedits support in November 2018 at 61% Another Ipsos poll released in
February 2019 found that 59% of adult South Africans do not believe thegovernment is handling the economy well, and only 29% believe the country
is moving ‘in the right direction’
But the two main opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA)and the Economic Freedom Fighters, do not seem to be making headway
on the pocketbook issues that voters have been worried about the most.Here are three key provinces to watch:
WESTERN CAPE
Poll watchers arenot yet sure how muchsupport former CapeTown mayor Patricia
de Lille – who foundedthe Good political partylast year – will pullaway from the DA afterher falling out withthe party leadership
The ANC lost control
of the Joburg mayor’soffice in 2016, sothe vote in Gautengwill show if theopposition can makestronger inroads
KWAZULU-NATAL
Zuma has beenlobbying hard behindthe scenes for hishome province to splitthe vote, votingfor his ANC allies
in the provincial voteand against the ANC
on the national level.The province isthe biggest vote poolfor the ANC
Phase II
The second phase of Kenya’s standard gauge
railway, being built by China Communications
Construction Company to link Nairobi to
Naivasha, is due to be finished in May or June
WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY
MOHAMED AL-GHEITI
& MAHMOUD ABU ZEID
World Press Freedom day will be
celebrated in Addis Ababa in May Last
year, Egypt ranked among the top three
countries for imprisoned journalists
Al-Gheiti got 12 months in January 2019 for
interviewing a homosexual and Abu Zeid
got a five-year term in 2018 for taking
photos at the Rabaa massacre in 2013
MERCY NJUEH
The Kenyan LGBTQ+ activist hopes the High
Court will strike down a colonial-era law
on 24 May that she says conflicts with the
protections of the 2010 constitution
‘It means having the law
affirming our existence
and validating that we
– like all Kenyans –
are protected under
the law.’
$1bn
Ivory Coast plans to sell at least $1bn in
eurobonds by May 2019 in order to finance the
construction of new infrastructure projects
Trang 18THE A330neo.
The A330neo shares many of the sameinnovations as the groundbreakingA350 XWB, delivering a 25% saving infuel consumption compared to others
in the category Both aircraft alsobenefit from a common type rating,which means pilot training costs aresignificantly lower too And on top
of that, they can be fitted with ourbeautifully designed Airspace cabins,setting a new benchmark in passengercomfort and wellbeing
Innovation We make it fly
FLY
Trang 19Q 2 / JUNE
Japan will host its first G20 summit, which
assembles the biggest economies in the world
South African diplomats will be present
to represent the continent, and topics to
be discussed include agriculture, health, green
energy, trade and the digital economy
JOSEPH NJOROGE
Kenya’s energy principal secretary announces
a transmission line for June 2019
ISMAIL MOMONIAT
The National Treasury deputy director-general
said in December that the planned introduction
of a carbon tax in South Africa would
force companies to think differently about their
environmental impacts
‘We will (…) eliminate
need for importing
electricity from Uganda’
US firm Anadarko is due to make an investment
decision by June 2019 on two natural gas
plants in Mozambique’s Offshore Area 1 with
a capacity to produce 12.88 MTPA The plants
make up the key piece of infrastructure
to the country’s planned gas boom
Let’s meet in Malabo
The African Development Bank (AfDB) president AkinwumiAdesina has about another year left before he could be up forre-election as head of the continental financial institution He cameinto office in 2015 promising to transform the AfDB, but at the lastgeneral meeting, the bank’s governors said they wanted to see moreevidence of reforms and the efficient use of resources before theywould agree to Adesina’s request for a general capital increase toallow the financing of more projects
The AfDB is preparing for its annual general meeting in theEquatorial Guinean city of Malabo on 11-14 June as the continent’sgrowth engine continues to recover from a low in 2016 The AfDBpredicts that growth will reach 4% in 2019, up from 3.5% in 2018.Those numbers hide regional variations, with the oil producers andmineral exporters of West and Central Africa performing relativelypoorly when compared to the economies of Senegal and Ethiopia.Economic giants Nigeria and South Africa have been struggling
to cope with lower commodity prices and other economic strains,and the new administrations in both countries will be lookingfor ways out of their current troubles So Malabo makes a fittingbackdrop for discussions about how natural resource-dependenteconomies can diversify and attract more investment – somethingthe government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has beentalking about for quite some time
With an annual infrastructure financing gap estimated at between
$68bn-$108bn, attendees at the Malabo conference will be debatinghow African governments can raise more internal revenue, how
to implement the planned continental free trade area and how toimprove the mobility of the continent’s population in pursuit ofbetter economic outcomes
Trang 21SOUTH AFRICA
National Arts Fest
Art in nearly all
of its forms will
be centre stage
in what is billed as Africa’s largest arts festival 27 June
to 7 July Amongst the singers, actors and painters, politically engaged South African photographer and multimedia artist Berni Searle will
be in the spotlight.
AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS Cairo cup
After high drama about which countries will host the next two tournaments,
African football fans are preparing to visit the land of the pharaohs for
matches between 21 June and 19 July As The Africa Report went to press,
the qualifying matches had not yet been completed But there were already
some early favourites Egypt, which came in second in the 2017 tournament,
is expected to put in a strong showing Fans of the home team, which
automatically qualifies for the final tournament, will be cheering on Mohamed
Salah, who scored a goal in each qualifying match
CAMEROON
Last year’s winners are
expected to put in
a good showing in Egypt
The team will need
a good performance
out of winger Christian
Bassogog, who was
to qualify for thefinal tournament withthe highest number
of points
NIGERIA
Shanghai Shenhua’sOdion Ighalo was in fineform in the qualifiers,scoring six goals in fourmatches But the sidewas in a pool of relativelightweights, so theSuper Eagles will have
to prove their mettle
in the next rounds
Indian telecoms company Airtel Africaplans to raise additional funds of about
$1.5bn by June in order to invest moreand to help pay its debts It raised $200m
in early 2019 from the Qatar InvestmentAuthority and $1.25bn in late 2018 fromWarburg Pincus, Temasek, SingaporeTelecommunications and SoftBank Plansare underway for an initial public offering
Trang 2222 PROFILE
Ramaphosa’s destiny
Does the formula that is Cyril
Ramaphosa add up for South
Africa? Contacts of the president
help to build a picture of the man
who says he can get the country
out of its current mess
36 INVESTIGATION How Dan Etete’s billion- dollar deal ended up in court
An investigation in Nigeria has turned into the country’s biggest corporate bribery case, with nine executives from Eni and Royal Dutch Shell now on trial in Milan
48 WIDE ANGLE The youth wave
Sudan street protests, Bobi Wine,
#FeesMustFall: A demographic tide is pushing back against outdated politicians, so how long before the bulwark crumbles?
56 DEBATE Is Magufuli’s economic nationalism working?
The threat of a $190bn tax bill became a $300m payment.The Africa Report looks into whether
the Tanzanian government’s barnstorming style will scare away investors
Trang 23Ramaphosa is working on
his image as ‘an enigma’
Trang 24THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
Ramaphosa’s
destiny
Does the formula that is Cyril
Ramaphosa add up for South
Africa? Ahead of 8 May’s general
to close contacts of the president over the years to build a picture
of the man who says he can get the country out of its current mess
By CRYSTAL ORDERSON in Cape Town and Johannesburg
Trang 25FFor 90 minutes on 7 February, Cyril Ramaphosa
held parliament in his hand as he set out the
ambitions for his presidency In a sombre grey
suit and tie, fitting his soubriquet as ‘South
Africa’s CEO’, Ramaphosa reeled out his agenda
for the coming elections: inclusive growth,
jobs, better schools and training, stepping up
the fight against corruption and strengthening
the state to meet the people’s needs
“It was 100% Cyril,” said a veteran African
National Congress (ANC) cadre in Cape Town’s
parliament square afterwards “Thoughtful,
well-crafted, something for everyone.” Then
he paused: “But can he deliver on any of this?
His house is divided The looters are not in
jail Growth is worse than stagnant and we’re
losing more jobs.” So why the euphoria after
Ramaphosa finished speaking? “Because we
all want to believe in him He’s won the ANC
over 55% of the vote already Job done.”
Ramaphosa has set the ANC on course for
a victory that would suit him It has to be over
55% of the vote to reverse the party’s decline
during Jacob Zuma’s era, but not a landslide
– which could encourage complacency To
lead the ANC now – 25 years after its victory
in South Africa’s first free elections – requires
an extraordinary set of skills
That Ramaphosa – the student activist,the militant unionist, the political organiser,constitutional negotiator and then corporatetitan – has those skills is evident Less ob-vious are his people skills Many who haveworked closely with Ramaphosa say they donot know the man
Proudly announcing “I’m an enigma,”Ramaphosa revels in this psychological inac-cessibility, rare among such ubiquitous publicfigures Outgoing and gregarious, Ramaphosaworks a room with a natural gift for recallingfaces and personal stories Rising at 5am, hehas taken to power walking, with security intow, chatting animatedly to the early-morningworkers he meets en route
In the popular mind, that somehow sets his country-gentleman-style enthusiasmfor fly fishing, golf and expensive herds ofNguni and Ankole cattle Allies say it points
off-to Ramaphosa’s chameleon-like qualities,which have steered his career: from pushingHarry Oppenheimer to raise miners’ wages tobecoming a mine owner himself
Trang 26THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
Destiny is a recurrent theme in
Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa’s life
From his confident teenage prediction
to journalist Denis Beckett that he
would one day be president of a free
South Africa to his current position
in just that job, Ramaphosa’s path
has been accompanied by a strong
belief that he is on the right side
of history Even when recalling his
setbacks in politics and business,
Ramaphosa reflects that they often
worked out for the best
Born in Johannesburg on 17
November 1952, Ramaphosa arrived
at the end of an auspicious year There
was a general strike against the latest
depredations of the apartheid regime
The ANC had launched its ‘Defiance
Campaign’, protesting against the
repressive and discriminatory laws
that banned interracial marriages and
compelled black South Africans to
carry passes in towns and cities ANC
militants responded by burning the
hated passes at public rallies
In Soweto, where Ramaphosa grew
up on Mhlaba Drive, the militancygrew Aside from his studies and hisChristian beliefs the young Ramaphosaliked to sing and dance but politics soonbecame an all-consuming passion
His parents, Samuel, a police officer,and Erdmuth, tried to protect their sonfrom the regime’s brutalities He laterrecalled how a white soldier kickedhim into a ditch at the age of seven
The following year, police shot dead
69 protesters, wounding hundredsmore, at Sharpeville, not far from the
Ramaphosa family home Then theregime banned the ANC and the PanAfricanist Congress (PAC) Suddenly,the anti-apartheid struggle became an
international cause célèbre.
After finishing high school in Sibasa,
in present day Limpopo Province,Ramaphosa left home to enrol at theUniversity of the North, known asTurfloop, just as African studentsstepped up their campaign againstdiscrimination Ramaphosa, whowas studying law, threw himself intostudent politics
Natural leader
“He was the quiet type, not one toboast but someone students likedand looked up to,” businessman andauthor Letepe Maisela, who was at
Turfloop with Ramaphosa, tells The
Africa Report After the regime cracked
down on student politics, Ramaphosaused the Christian student movement
to organise protests against apartheid,says Maisela “He was a natural leaderand students listened to him.”
In 1974, Ramaphosa was detainedfor 11 months under the TerrorismAct “I think this time had a profoundimpact on Ramaphosa, [although]
he doesn’t talk much of the solitaryconfinement,” says Maisela
Ramaphosa spoke in parliament thisyear about his detention, responding
to accusations from Mosiuoa ‘Terror’Lekota, an activist at the time, that
he had sold out his comrades to theapartheid security police “My arrestwas quite dramatic and I was taken toPretoria Central police station […].They started to interrogate me, whichwas quite vicious I will not go intothat.” He said the police tried to forcehim to give evidence against his com-rades, including Lekota “And I refused.And they thought they would use mydad to put pressure on me to agree
to become a state witness I refused
I said I will not do it.”
of Mineworkers (see page 26)
‘I think this time [his 1974 detention]
had a profound impact
Trang 27In the most dramatic decade
in Africa since the
inde-pendence era – the 1990s –
Ramaphosa was at the
cen-tre of revolutionary change
in South Africa He started
the era as a socialist trade
unionist and ended it as a
leader among the country’s
new black business elite,
with plenty of peaks and
troughs in between
South Africa’s business
and political leaders were
now talking to the ANC
in Lusaka, and to Nelson
Mandela in jail in Western
Cape Ramaphosa had
be-come one of the ANC’s most
re-It looked a surreal elevationfor the 38-year-old unionorganiser
Popular with the leftand the unions, as well
as having the backing ofexiled Communist leaderJoe Slovo, Ramaphosa wascatapulted into the ANChierarchy at the party’sconference in South Africa
in July 1991
In his autobiography,Mandela gave this acco-lade: “Ramaphosa waselected secretary general,
evidence that the torch wasbeing passed from an oldergeneration to a youngerone Cyril was a worthysuccessor to a long line
of notable ANC leaders
He was probably the mostaccomplished negotiator in
the ANC.” The same ference elected Mandela aspresident and Thabo Mbeki
con-as his deputy
Snuki Zikalala, dent of the ANC Veterans’
presi-League, tells The Africa
Report that Ramaphosa’s
promotion was deserved: “Cyril was run-ning the engine room of theANC, delegates felt he washighly competent, a hardworker and the right man
well-to lead the ANC’s office.”
Fishing trips
Earlier, Ramaphosa hademerged as leader ofthe the ANC delegation
at the Convention for aDemocratic South Africa
in the ANC’
NELSON MANDELA
NEGOTIATOR
From national resistance to political power
When she first met Ramaphosa in the1970s it was clear to Patricia de Lille– the firebrand secretary general ofthe South African Chemical Workers’Union – that he had the toughness toresist repression and to build a po-litical movement in the unions Afterrelease from detention, Ramaphosajoined the Black People’s Convention(BPC), an organisation in the BlackConsciousness Movement under SteveBiko, and resumed legal studies Hewas arrested in 1976 and detainedfor six months in the notorious JohnVorster Square police headquartersafter the 16 June uprising in Sowetoagainst apartheid education policies
De Lille first met Ramaphosa at theCouncil of Unions of South Africa,where he was working as a legal
ORGANISER
Building the base
Trang 28THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
from 1990 to 1993 to
ne-gotiate the country’s
tran-sition Again, the path hit
several obstacles The
worst was the massacre
of 46 people at Boipatong
in June 1992
The two key
negotia-tors were Ramaphosa and
the National Party’s Roelf
Meyer “What annoyed me
was that Cyril and Roelf
would go away on fishing
trips and come back and
then have a position on a
particular matter,” argues
De Lille “This meant that
other smaller parties were
simply dismissed.”
While Ramaphosa was
negotiating the transition
and the choice of Mandela’s
deputy was being debated,
Ramaphosa was losing his
power base in the ANC
Zikalala says: “Cyril was
too young to take overfrom Mandela He had tolearn how the ANC works
Thabo was a senior leader,more experienced and had
a vision for the country.”
After winning the ANCelections, Mandela askedRamaphosa to chair thedrafting committee for thenew constitution After twoyears of hard-fought nego-tiations with apartheid-erapoliticians and MangosuthuButhelezi’s nationalistInkatha Freedom Party,Ramaphosa’s team pro-duced a world-class lib-eral constitution that wasadopted at a grand ceremo-
ny on 8 May 1996 Stung
by the pause in his rise topower, just four days laterRamaphosa resigned fromparliament and as ANCsecretary general
adviser Recognising his political
skills, in 1982 the union chiefs sent
him to organise mineworkers, who
were producing more than a fifth of
the country’s wealth
That brought Ramaphosa up against
the harshest realities of the apartheid
regime as he criss-crossed the country,
seeing the dangerous working
condi-tions in the mines and the squalor of
the single-sex hostels “Ramaphosa
and other organisers were frequently
chased away by the police, as most
companies had not granted them
or-ganising rights,” recalls De Lille
Move to the ANC
Mineworkers were reluctant to hand
over their hard-earned money as subs
to the mining unions The unions were
also divided politically By the time
the National Union of Mineworkers
was founded, in 1982, Ramaphosa
had switched allegiance from the BPC
to the ANC, with its stronger isation and international backing
organ-Harry Oppenheimer, chairman ofAnglo American, allowed unions toorganise, and Ramaphosa saw this
as an opportunity to build a socialistmass movement
Although some activists were appointed with Ramaphosa’s move tothe ANC, De Lille saw clear reasonsfor it: “He was very shrewd He willsmile with you, but he would be
dis-planning something else He wasstrategic and tactical.”
Internal differences within the PACand BPC also pushed Ramaphosa to-wards the ANC The next step was toorganise a national union federationwith the widest possible membership.Along with Jay Naidoo, Ramaphosalaunched the Confederation of SouthAfrican Trade Unions in November
1985, grouping together 33 unions
“It is important to draw peopleinto restructuring society so that thewealth is democratically controlledand shared by its people,” Ramaphosatold the workers Naidoo was the firstsecretary general of the federation,with Ramaphosa leading on its politicalstrategy It was aligned at home withthe United Democratic Front, formedtwo years earlier, and to the ANC atits base in Zambia By now, top ANCcadres in Lusaka were talking aboutcomrade Ramaphosa, a rising star
‘He was very shrewd.
He will smile with you, but would be planning something else’
PATRICIA DE LILLE
Getting the job done:
South Africa’s constitution
Trang 29From a standing start in the
mid-1990s to a personal fortune of an
estimated R6bn ($500m) this year,
Ramaphosa’s rise, along with that
of his coterie of business associates,
typifies the strengths and weaknesses
of the government’s Black Economic
Empowerment (BEE) schemes They
compelled white capital to hand over
some of its more lucrative holdings to
a self-selecting clique of commercial
cronies
Investors in Ramaphosa’s main
business vehicle, Shanduka, have
done well since its foundation in 2001,
although some analysts claim the
returns would have been higher had
he been less distracted by politics
Ramaphosa threw himself into the
corporate arena in 1996, wishing to
harness business to improve economic
and social conditions He sold his
majority stake in Shanduka in 2015 –
part of a lengthy process of divestment
to resolve conflicts of interest for the
then deputy president
At the beginning, he was headhunted
by Nthato Motlana, Mandela’s doctor,
to be deputy chairman of New Africa
Investments Limited (NAIL), which
was pioneering the government’s BEE
plan NAIL invested millions in the
National Empowerment Consortium,
an investment vehicle that used
work-ers’ pension funds to finance mergers
and acquisitions
Paltry pensions and fat cats
NAIL bought assets as diverse as
casi-nos and media empires, but activists
criticised it for using worker pensions
to benefit a new breed of capitalists
Three years later, NAIL broke up
amid some acrimony Ramaphosa was
frustrated that his ambition to invest
in a big mining company had failed
He returned to the industry as a
part-ner of Glencore, the Swiss-based
com-modity trader, whose South African
chief executive Ivan Glasenberg was
diversifying the company Glencorepicked Ramaphosa’s Shanduka as itsBEE partner on a coal export project
in 2005 They teamed up again asinvestors in the Optimum project tosupply coal to the state power au-thority That ended badly when thegovernment blocked permits for themine, forcing Glencore to sell it tothe Gupta family, business allies ofPresident Jacob Zuma
By 2012, Ramaphosa had moved faraway from the principles that motivat-
ed his early political engagement InAugust 2012, police shot dead 34 strik-ing workers at Lonmin’s platinum mine
at Marikana and wounded 70 more Itlater emerged that as a non-executivedirector of Lonmin, Ramaphosa hadsent an ambiguous email referring tothe worker dispute in which 10 had al-ready died as “dastardly criminal” andsaying it would have to be addressed
by “concomitant action”
Leaders of the Association ofMineworkers and Construction Union(AMCU), vying with the NationalUnion of Mineworkers for support
at Marikana, lambasted Ramaphosafor doing too little to get the Lonminboard to make concessions or to re-strain the police AMCU accused him
of acting for the greater good of hiscompany’s share price rather than thegreater good of the people
When Ramaphosa's tions became public, his response – “Itwas terrible […] I take full respon-sibility of my role in it” – suggestscontrition but also a heightened earfor the political nuances of the cri-sis It was also the clearest sign thatRamaphosa was looking to headback to the centre stage of politics
JULIUS MALEMA
Trang 31A mix of daring and
desper-ation propelled Ramaphosa
back to top-table politics in
2012 Just over five years
later, he was president
Plotting for Ramaphosa’s
second coming – against
a venal but well-protected
party regime – had looked
the riskiest of ventures
All of his fêted talents as
activist, organiser,
negoti-ator, lawyer, businessman
and diplomat went into
Ramaphosa’s herculean
re-entry project First, he
had to take the number two
slot in a government about
which he had the deepest
reservations and whose
president was facing
accu-sations of grand corruption
An acolyte of then
pres-ident Jacob Zuma tells The
Africa Report that his camp
was looking for a candidate
to appease investors: “Cyril
did not have any grassroots
support, so he was given theposition He never had towork for it.” That’s not quitetrue Ramaphosa, who be-came ANC deputy president
1912 That cut both waysfor Ramaphosa’s electioncampaign He had taken
a long sabbatical from theparty and politics Then
he had breezed back in,determined to fix the brokenparty and to win the presi-dency of the ANC against astrong insider candidate, theex-wife of the sitting presi-dent Photographs show atearful Ramaphosa, head inhands, moments after his
narrow victory in the partyelections in December 2017
The full story of howRamaphosa secured his win-ningmarginoverNkosazanaDlamini-Zuma is problem-atic A long-time ANC ac-
tivist tells TheAfricaReport
that Ramaphosa was set tolose the vote Some activistsorganised a meeting be-tween billionaire business-man Robert Gumede andRamaphosa This followed
reports that Gumede’s ally,David Mabuza, premier ofMpumalanga province, waswavering
Zuma’s supporters werethreatening Mabuza oncharges of grand corruptionand political murder – all
of which he denies – unless
he backed Dlamini-Zuma.Gumedehadalong-standinggripe against Dlamini-Zumafor cancelling one of hiscompany’s biggest contracts
at the Ministry of HomeAffairs
“Cyril’s instinct was tostay away from dealingwith these two guys,” theactivist says “But one ofhis supporters told him toget real if he really wantedthe presidency He could nothave won it without Mabuza[…] that was the bitter truth.”Equally, Ramaphosa wassaid to be uncomfortablewhen he and the ANC’s oth-
er top five officials calledZuma to press him to resign
as state president
Still more arduous is theway ahead: to win a substan-tial mandate for the ANC
in the May 2019 elections,then push through reform
of the country’s creakingpublic sector and embattledstate institutions as well as
a wide-ranging land-reformprogramme, in a way that willcreate jobs and bring in thepromised $100bn of invest-ment (see page 32) There
is also the need for toughinvestigations, prosecutions,holding to account, arguesformer Cape Town mayor
De Lille: “The buck stoppedwith Zuma and his cabinet,including Ramaphosa Theyadvise him and they musttake responsibilityfor thefailures.”
The future beckons:
Ramaphosa wins the
presidency of the ANC
‘We are going
to root out corruption, and that is a promise
I can make’
CYRIL RAMAPHOSA
Trang 33Community activist, lawyer, trade
unionist, negotiator of the
constitu-tion, chairman of the board and now
president: Cyril Ramaphosa threw
his many personas into his State of
the Nation address in February His
primary mission is to convince voters
that his government cares about them
and can fix the economy after what he
had described as “nine wasted years”
under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma
Whether South Africans believe his
promises will determine the outcome
of the national election on 8 May He
wants a strong popular mandate to roll
out wide-reaching reforms that shake
up the government and economy
Comprehensive and business-like
rather than barnstorming, Ramaphosa’s
February speech rallied the ANC ranks
in parliament and left the opposition
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)
and Democratic Alliance (DA) looking
flat-footed A few days before his
set piece in parliament, Ramaphosa
addressed the Mining Indaba downthe road in Cape Town, trying to winbig-ticket investment Ramaphosa’sbalancing act is to get support fromradical grassroots activists whilecourting investment from corporates
Ramaphosa has to cover most of
the points between the radical leftand big capital Although it held ontopower with diminishing voter sup-port, the ANC fractured in the Zumayears Some disenchanted militantsformed new factions or parties, othersquit politics The tripartite alliance,which bound the ANC to the Congress
of South African Trade Unions(Cosatu, co-founded by Ramaphosa
in the 1980s) and the South AfricanCommunist Party (SACP), is muchweakened by defections and feuds
Neither is the ANC’s election chine in great shape Tens of thousands
ma-of volunteers from the party’s youthleague quit in the Zuma era To win
convincingly in May, Ramaphosamust ensure that the ANC gets atleast 55% of the vote First, he has
to stitch back together the triple ance Both the communists and Cosatugave Ramaphosa conditional support
alli-in 2017, helpalli-ing him walli-in the ANCleadership against Zuma’s preferredcandidate and ex-wife, NkosazanaDlamini-Zuma
Now they want policy concessionssuch as a commitment not to privatisefailing state-owned entities such
as Eskom, South African Airwaysand Denel
Ramaphosa is keeping a discreetdistance from such debates Somehow,Ramaphosa, a businessman with assetsworth an estimated $500m, has tokeep the unions and the communists
on side ahead of the elections.Trickier still for Ramaphosa iswinning over ANC members whodid not vote for him – almost halfthe party – and remain loyal to Zuma
A consummate chess player, Zuma
Trang 34THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
is fighting against prosecution and
political oblivion
Zuma has formed what amounts to
a party within the ANC, pulling in his
die-hard loyalists Ace Magashule, a
former premier of the Free State, was
caught on camera plotting with Zuma
to oust Ramaphosa Magashule is
ANC secretary general, and this gives
him power over the party’s election
campaign and influence in its choice
of parliamentary candidates
For now, Zuma’s allies hold tightly
to their ministerial posts,
director-ships of parastatals, as well as access
to state contracts Instead of
confront-ing them politically, Ramaphosa is
waiting for the judicial commissions
and multiple anti-corruption
inves-tigations to weaken the group With
a backlog of as many as a hundred
cases of high-level corruption, the
authorities could push ahead with
a number of prosecutions before
the elections But few are expecting
action against Zuma and allies inthe short term
South Africans have two votes in thecoming elections: one for the nationalgovernment and one for provincialgovernment Facing threats of investi-gation and prosecution, Zuma’s alliesare shoring up their bases to try to wincontrol of provincial governments, aswell as the local party branches andyouth and women’s leagues
But they want to undermine theANC vote at national level by cov-ertly supporting other parties Some
in Zuma’s camp say that they willmove to oust Ramaphosa at a specialnational party conference should theANC vote fall below 50%
By embracing calls for the riation of private land holdings withoutcompensation, nationalisation of theReserve Bank and staunch opposition
exprop-to restructuring state-owned panies, Zuma’s faction is wooing JuliusMalema and the EFF That is a seriouschallenge on Ramaphosa’s left flank
com-That means Ramaphosa has to
calibrate policy carefully Any movetowards radical restructuring of statecompanies would prompt protests fromthe Zuma faction and the EFF, as well
as trade unions But without changes
to creaking government structures andimprovements to the poor standards
of service, voters may have little faiththat a Ramaphosa-led ANC can turnthings around
For so many of the ANC’s supporters
in the townships and the countryside,the most pressing issues are jobs andlocal services Despite setting out avision in February of a resurgent coun-try, Ramaphosa is struggling to shiftthe dial on the economy, against thebackdrop of a ballooning budget deficitand mounting private and state debt.Although Ramaphosa’s campaign
to win $100bn of new investmentover the next three years has yieldedpledges of about a fifth of the target,the economy is marking time Investorsare holding back until they see morepolicy changes on mining, taxation,state enterprises and labour laws.Unemployment hovers around 30%.One bright spot for Ramaphosa isthe weakness of the biggest oppositionparty, the centre-right DA It thrived
in the Zuma era, but as it changedfrom a white liberal party to a pre-dominantly black and pro-businessparty, the DA under Mmusi Maimane’sleadership has struggled to assert itsnew identity And with Ramaphosa — asuper-successful businessman — at thehelm of the ANC, many black votersare returning to the governing party
‘For so many, the most pressing issues are jobs and local services’
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
is hoping for a resounding victory in May
Trang 35L eading Côte d'Ivoire to emergence
is now, more than ever, a priority.
Having developed infrastructure
and transport and made numerous
h e a l t h a n d e d u c a t i o n s e c t o r
reforms, Côte d'Ivoire is focusing
on an ambitious local processing
project as it enters a new phase of
industrialisation.
Africa’s eighth largest
industrial power
Building on its past successes, Côte
d'Ivoire is now the eighth largest industrial
power in Africa, on a par with Cameroon.
The industrial sector contributes 27% of
Côte d'Ivoire's GDP and just over 40% of
the country's exports each year However,
its impact on employment remains low,
since it hires a mere 11% of the Ivorian
workforce, compared to 49% in agriculture
and 39% in services Its contribution is also
minimal in terms of business creation.
While it grew by 14% in 2018, all sectors
combined, it continues to peak at around
1% in the industrial and manufacturing
sectors With a view to accelerating the
pace, the Ivorian government has made
the country's industrial development one of their priorities, drawing on its currently available assets: significant energy potential, a young and eager- to-learn workforce, and a regulatory and institutional framework favourable
to foreign direct investment (FDI), not
to mention an abundance of available diverse raw materials.
Essential agribusiness
Côte d'Ivoire's imminent industrial future lies in the processing of its natural resources As President Alassane Ouattara says, “Why aspire to being an industrialised country if we cannot create added value for the products we export ourselves?” The already indispensable agribusiness sector alone accounts for three quarters of the manufacturing sector This follows on the heels of cocoa processing, which was started in the early years of the new Ivorian republic and now accounts for a significant share of the country's economy In 2018, out of the
2 million tons of beans produced during the season, 580,000 tons underwent first phase processing locally, representing
29% of the volumes exported This figure – benefiting from the establishment of
13 new processing plants, located in the industrial areas of Abidjan and San Pedro – is on the rise but still far from the 50% target, to be achieved in the next two years, set by the NDP.
Cashew nut competitiveness
Cocoa is not the only natural resource that the government of Côte d’Ivoire wants to process locally Cashew nuts are also a major focus
of attention and the Cashew Value Chain Competitiveness Project (PPCA), established
in 2018 with a budget of $200 million over five years,is designed to help small producers process their cashew nuts themselves This
is a major issue for the country, as cashew nuts are the third largest export product and contribute significantly to employment and economic development in the north of the country The objective is to process 50%
of the 800,000 tons of nuts harvested each year by 2020 This is already happening in the cotton sector and almost all palm oil and rubber volumes undergo some form of local processing before being exported.
ChocoIvoire company Cocoa processing plant in San Pedro
Trang 36Destination Côte d'Ivoire
However, Côte d'Ivoire's industrialisation
does not only apply to agriculture The
country also aspires to developing a real
tourism industry, which will promote wealth
and rebalance the various territories Côte
d'Ivoire still has a lot to accomplish, but the
country’s many assets will play in its favour
in becoming a sought-after destination.
For the business tourism sector, this is
already happening As one of 2018’s Top
Ten African Cities with the fastest-growing
hotel industry, Abidjan will be home to a
brand new exhibition centre, to be built
near the airport The Sublime Côte d'Ivoire
plan, published at the end of 2018, focuses
mainly on the leisure sector and provides
for a global investment of 3,200 billion
CFA francs to increase tourist numbers to 5
million visitors in 2025, compared to fewer
than 3.5 million at present In addition to
attracting major international chains to the
economic capital, this strategy aims above
all to invest outside Abidjan, particularly on
the coast, which has yet to be developed
to any significant extent.
The advantages of diversity
Now a regional energy powerhouse due
to the massive Soubré dam, operational since the end of 2017, Côte d'Ivoire has the necessary power resources to support the momentum of its manufacturing sector, in the wake of the digital economy, which has had knock-on effects on other sectors in the country Planning in advance, Côte d'Ivoire
is equipping its main urban centres with modern industrial parks, all well connected with the rest of the country In the economic capital of Abidjan, for example, four such areas are expected to be approved Several similar installations are also planned throughout the country, from Bouaké to San Pedro, via Korhogo, Bondoukou, Séguéla
30 %
Côte d’Ivoire’s industrialisationrate by 2020, according to the NDP,compared to the current27%
Côte d’Ivoire’s ranking as
an African tourist destination
“The aim of the 2016-2020 NDP
is to achieve Côte d'Ivoire’s emergence with a solid industrial base.”
of Africa's future industrial powers.
Trang 37By HONORÉ BANDA in Abuja and PATRICK SMITH in Yenagoa
On a biting cold day in Milan in January,Ibrahim Ahmed, a Nigerian investigator, andColonel Alessandro Ferri of Italy’s financialpolice, hustle into the city’s imposing, marble-clad palace of justice Ahmed is in Milan toexplain to prosecutors Fabio de Pasquale and
An investigation in Nigeria has turned
into the country’s biggest corporate
bribery case Nine executives from Eni
and Royal Dutch Shell, and Nigerian
officials, face charges in Milan over how
they won control of a rich oil block
Trang 38THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
Sergio Spadaro what Nigeria’s Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
discov-ered when it started to investigate the award
of one of the richest oil blocks in Africa to an
obscure company called Malabu Oil & Gas in
April 1998, which had been incorporated just
five days earlier
After chatting to local police, Ahmed is
shown into the court A tall, slender figure in
a dark suit, he expertly guides De Pasqualethrough the sheaves of documents about thedisputes over ownership of Malabu and theoil block OPL 245 The story takes in morethan 20 years of deal making and politics inNigeria It started in the era of military rule;now Italy’s Eni and Royal Dutch Shell facecharges of corruption in the race to securerights to the contested oil block
Trang 39In Milan, De Pasquale asks Ahmed whattriggered the investigation “The initial di-rectors of Malabu – Mohammed Sani Abachaand Pecos Energy – were complaining thattheir name was removed from the register
of company directors.” After Abacha’s plaint to the Corporate Affairs Commission,A.G Abubakar, the special assistant to thedirector of compliance, wrote a memo: “Iconfirm from database that Mohammed Sani[Abacha] had 10 million shares at the creation
com-of the company Other shareholders saidmodifications were not authorised.” A yearlater, Abubakar was shot twice and his carwas set on fire in an attack that resembled anexecution killing An estimated 9bn barrels
of oil were at stake
The EFCC discovered, Ahmed continues,
“a new filing by Ademola, a legal
practition-er, changing the directors of Malabu.” Othersuspicious points about Malabu emerged asAhmed investigated: “Since the registration
of Malabu [up] to 2010, they don’t have a bankaccount The only asset Malabu has are OPL 245and 214, and they are not doing any business.”
Breach of Nigerian law
Ahmed explains that this had all rung alarmbells – Mohammed Abacha was the son of themilitary leader General Sani Abacha, who waspoisoned in June 1998 His receipt of equity
in an oil block awarded by the oil ministerDan Etete would have been a clear breach ofNigerian law And oil minister Etete’s stake
in the company that was initially awardedthe block also would have been illegal and aconflict of interest
Now the list of charges against the quent owners of OPL 245 – Shell and Eni – isexpanding and crossing jurisdictions Alongside
subse-the Italian case, subse-the Dutch authorities are alsopreparing charges against companies andexecutives Britain, which has a poor record
of prosecuting corporate corruption cases,may yet start proceedings given the substantialBritish shareholding in Shell Already, theNigerian government is suing the US bankJ.P.Morgan in the civil courts in London fornegligence in transferring $801m of Nigerianstate funds to Malabu
And the US authorities, which claim theright to prosecute any corruption case whoseproceeds are denominated in US dollars, mayyet join in The most consequential case againstthe companies would be in Nigeria, where there
is a demand by the EFCC to cancel the deal.Financial experts claim the Nigerian treas-ury could lose more than $5bn because of thepoorly negotiated fiscal terms of the OPL
245 deal That is on top of the $1.1bn that theNigerian state has already lost due to corruptpayments, according to the Italian prosecutors
On the line are the reputations of two ofthe world’s biggest oil companies Shouldthe companies lose, their top officials could
be gaoled, their share prices could crash and
it may mean the death throes of a businessmodel used in the oil and mining industries.That model is the dependence on secretivefixers and traders, lobbyists and spin doctorswho help cut deals with political gangsters andmilitary strongmen but keep the companiesout of the courts
In most big corporate corruption cases inthe US and Britain, companies go for pleabargains to avoid prosecution In Milan, there
is no immediate prospect of plea deals Thecompanies are up against De Pasquale (seebox), one of Italy’s toughest prosecutors, andlocked into a case that could take years to settle
The ups and downs in Nigeria’s billion-dollar OPL 245 saga
April Oil minister
Dan Etete awards
the OPL 245 oil
in what was said
to be a poisoning
May Olusegun Obasanjo inaugu- rated as civilian president
Royal Dutch Shell agrees to buy 40% of the OPL
245 block from Malabu; the gov- ernment revokes the licence and Malabu mounts
a legal challenge
Government awards OPL 245
to Shell under a production-sharing agreement for which Shell offers to pay a
$210m bonus
Government reaches deal with Malabu restoring its ownership of OPL 245 for a
$210m signature bonus Shell mounts a legal challenge
Dan Etete is victed of money laundering in a French court The conviction is later overturned
Trang 40THE AFRICA REPORT/ N° 107 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2019
For journalists covering the trial, all the
gory details of the companies’ operations
revealed through hacked emails, wire-tapped
phone conversations and secret memos are
played out in court The drama unveils the
intersection of public life and private business
in Nigeria It is a rare glimpse behind the
curtains at the combustible mixture of money,
power, friendships and vendettas that frame
the country’s history
The golden rule of doing deals in Nigeria
is to do them quickly and quietly The deal on
trial in Milan – the fight over OPL 245 – was
neither That oil minister Etete was able to
award a licence to produce billions of barrels
of oil without scrutiny says much about the
Abacha regime which he served It was what
happened next that started the problems for
the would-be owners of this bonanza oil block
Three months later, Abacha was dead, found
frothing at the mouth at his quarters in the
early hours after a particularly energetic party
Within a year, Olusegun Obasanjo, a retiredgeneral detained under Abacha, was electedpresident Urged on by Western governmentsnervous about terrorist financing and moneylaundering, Obasanjo launched a set of anti-graft agencies, including the EFCC He alsostarted sporadic investigations into Abacha’sgovernment and cancelled a few oil deals, butEtete held on to Malabu and his prize asset
Tapes of conversations
As Abacha’s oil minister, Etete had cultivated
a fearsome image – keeping a lion in the tensive grounds of his Abuja mansion Moresqueamish visitors would try to avoid feedingtime when Etete’s servants would bring in twolive goats for the lion to chase and devour.But holding on to OPL 245 was not a donedeal In a submission to the national assem-bly in Abuja, Etete said he had been asked
ex-to dinner by vice-president Atiku Abubakar,whom he said had asked him for a stake
$215m
Fixer fee for Emeka Obi
(frozen by the courts)
ROYAL DUTCH
SHELL
ENI
*$520m in cash weighs five tonnes
Dan Etete
ABUBAKAR ALIYU
and top Nigerian officials
$210m
Signature bonus
$210m bonus for the block The government pays Malabu $1.1bn
Nigeria’s house
of representatives cancels the OPL
245 deal; Swiss and British authorities freeze payments linked to it
Italy and Nigeria charge Shell and Eni executives with corruption;
Nigeria also charges its for- mer Attorney General with money laundering
May The criminal trial of Shell and Eni executives begins in Milan
Feb London High Court rules that Nigeria’s case against JPMorgan for facilitating corrupt payments can proceed
March The Dutch government pre- pares criminal charges against Shell over its acquisition of a stake in OPL 245