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COLUMNISTS Thuli Madonsela on FW de Klerk Justice Malala on Ramaphosa The Finance Ghost on Tesla Natasha Marrian on Magashule Rob Rose on Saica’s bungle

NEWSMAKERS OF 2021

JACOB ZUMA

THE FACE OF AN INSURRECTION

Ann Cro y on inequality Deon Gouws on ESG investing Xhanti Payi on rate hikes

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Slash and 00 burn Who is living in the Saxonwold Shebeen? P11

The December coup: how not to start a new year P40

Afrimat: JSE ten-bagger inks its ‘best deal yet’ P50

How Mr Price reclaimed its mojo P52

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COLUMNISTS Thuli Madonsela on FW de Klerk

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Justice Malala on Ramaphosa The Finance Ghost on Tesla Natasha Marrian on Magashule Rob Rose on Saica’s bungle

NEWSMAKERS OF 2021

JACOB ZUMA

Ann Cro y on inequality Deon Gouws on ESG investing Xhanti Payi on rate hikes

THE FACE OF AN INSURRECTION

FM LIFE 63 Gift Guide

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

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editorials WHY IS MANTASHE SHILLING FOR SHELL?

E

ven by his own eccentric standards, mining minister Gwede Mantashe came across as unmoored from reality last week when he sought to paint the opponents of Shell’s blasting along the Wild Coast as aligned to “apartheid and colonialism of a special kind, masquerading as a great interest for environmental protection”.

It was a feeble attempt to recast his support for a technology that is increasingly being shunned by those with an eye on the welfare of generations to come as somehow admirable. Instead, it only underscored the extent to which Mantashe is an anachronism, someone who is weighed down by a self-serving ideology and who has overstayed his welcome in the government.

Why stop there, Mr Mantashe? By your logic, wouldn’t the architects of COP26’s clean energy agreements also be guilty of “colonialism” by seeking to torpedo investments in coal which otherwise could contribute to the country’s “development”?

Is his boss, President Cyril Ramaphosa, aware that in Mantashe’s world, anything goes in the search for money — in contrast to the assurances Ramaphosa gave in Glasgow. Perhaps the funders who agreed to provide R131bn to SA to fund its green energy transition need to reconsider, given Mantashe’s agnosticism on clean energy.

As arresting as his statement was, it’s not surprising. Mantashe, after all, has vigorously backed another looming environmental and fiscal catastrophe: the 20-year, R200bn-plus contract to Turkish group Karpowership for the supply of “emergency” power while Eskom gets its act together.

That he sees colonialist hobgoblins behind the bid to stop an environmental disaster on the Wild Coast is all the more ironic since it’s hardly a “white fight”. The black fishing communities of Dwesa-Cwebe, Port St Johns and Amadiba have now penned a scathing open letter to Mantashe in which they say the minister “insults us when he implies that the fight to protect our oceans from Editorial

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Editor: Rob Rose.

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

corporations like Shell is only the struggle of white environmentalists … he is trying to make it seem as though we cannot think for ourselves”.

Shell’s promised riches are also far from assured. Scientist Liz McDaid, the strategic lead of the Green Connection — a lobby group opposing Shell — points out that the World Bank’s research of 12 Sub-Saharan countries where oil and gas was discovered between 2002 and 2020 found that “government revenues were lower than predicted”, while “resources were overvalued”.

Mantashe says there’s no evidence that seismic surveys damage marine life, implying it is a feverish conspiracy created so that activists can keep doing tai chi and yoga on pristine beaches.

Yet, this is what a group of actual experts say: “Seismic surveying, which employs large arrays of air guns that produce highamplitude, low-frequency pulses … every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day and for months on end, over extensive areas of ocean, is fundamentally damaging to marine ecosystems.”

Their argument — that blasting causes irreparable harm — is the basis for a Randy Poplock second court challenge in Makhanda this week, to stop the survey.

What makes Mantashe’s spin more mysterious is that he has not been seized with the need for “development” enough to actually do anything to ensure SA has the power it needs, as he has spurned opportunities to push renewable power.

So why, now, is he defending Shell? Could it have something to do with the fact that the Thebe Investment Corp owns 28% of Shell’s downstream refining and marketing business in SA, and that when Thebe was founded back in 1992, it was an ANC investment company?

Surely, Mantashe’s impassioned defence of Shell’s commercial ambitions can’t be so venal? x Subeditors: Dave Landau (Chief), Magdel du Preez (Deputy), Dynette du Preez.

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he Competition Commission’s intervention to ensure the cost of PCR tests is kept to below R500 is welcome. Many countries have intervened to ensure that companies don’t exploit the unusual market circumstances created by Covid to make unreasonable profits. It would also appear to be more justifiable where there are just a few providers of an essential service, like PCR tests.

Yet this victory shouldn’t cause the commission to overreach into trying to control prices in areas where it has no place intervening. This would appear to be a real danger, given the commission’s new report, titled “Measuring Concentration and Participation in the SA Economy”.

In a document that flags everything from SA’s banks to airlines, the report seeks to justify meddling in industries that aren’t the root of SA’s ills. It seems to be a thinly veiled attempt to impose the state’s barely credible will on the private sector, with zero recognition that the problem is the public sector.

What SA needs is a commission that begins to probe how bungling municipalities, and their offshoots like Joburg’s City Power, are able to pass unreasonable increases only thanks to their unfair monopoly. Now that would make a difference. x

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BEHIND SAICA’S COMEDY OF ERRORS The FM spoke to a number of accountants who wrote the notoriously chaotic board exam on December 1. They sketched a terrifying picture of the body overseeing the process, which bodes ill for the profession

F

@robrose_za roser@fm.co.za

At this point, it’s hard to estimate the damage done to the careers of those who wrote the exam

rom about 7am on December 1, aspiring chartered accountants began to flood into the Gallagher Convention Centre to write what they hoped would be their final accounting board exam. It was the culmination of years of work and the final rite of passage to the coveted CA (SA) qualification.

At the convention centre that day, there were about 2,700 people set to write the eight-hour exam — part of a wider contingent of 4,935 people, in 24 centres across the world, who’d paid R6,022 apiece to the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) to write this exam.

In the end, it was a fiasco. The problem was, Saica didn’t want anyone to use their own laptops so it had hired thousands of laptops which were laid out in the exam hall.

“It was clear pretty quickly that it was going to be a disaster,” one of the candidates, who asked to remain anonymous, tells the FM. “Some of the laptops wouldn’t switch on, others were old and couldn’t access the Wi-Fi as we had to, and others didn’t have batteries.”

The exam was meant to start at 9am, but as the tech failures cascaded, it became clear this wasn’t going to happen. For one thing, Saica clearly hadn’t sketched out what would occur when 2,700 students tried to simultaneously log onto one Wi-Fi network — which promptly crashed.

“One of the invigilators then told us to rather try to use our phones as a hotspot to connect. The girl behind me then began to stress because she didn’t have a phone that could do that. Others didn’t have the data,” she said.

That, however, was only the beginning. While some of the candidates managed to access the exam program, they promptly got a “runtime error”, which meant delays of up to 15 minutes as they had to restart the computer.

As another accountant explains: “After the first two hours, the lady behind me just burst out crying. Then she packed up and walked out. I’ll be shocked if she comes back and does it again — hopefully she’ll find the courage.”

Eventually, by 11.30am the invigilators had managed to wrestle most of the laptops into service, and they decided to start the exam. The problem was, about 10% of the candidates still didn’t have working laptops at that stage.

“Even among those who were able to start, I saw people whose laptops stopped working midway through the exam, and they were then handed paper to write on. But since their laptops wouldn’t turn on, they weren’t able to go back and check what they’d already done,” she says.

In the end, an exam that was meant to finish at 5pm had

taken some people until nearly midnight to finish. Writing an exam that could dictate the trajectory of your career is stressful enough; when the institution overseeing that exam throws grenades at you in the dark, it’s that much worse.

Saica CEO Freeman Nomvalo tells the FM it would be fair to say his institution dropped the ball. “We were blindsided at the top by the decision to hire laptops — I wasn’t told about it, and nor were others in the chain of command,” he says. “What made it worse was that a few days before the exam, the staff who decided on this were told by the service provider that some of the laptops didn’t meet the requirements, and we weren’t told about that either.”

The issue now is how to repair that damage. One of Saica’s solutions is for all the candidates to redo the test in February, allowing them to claim the higher mark.

But understandably, those accountants who worked 15hour days for months to get to this point are wary of writing the exam again — if they’ve already passed.

The Senior Partners Forum, which represents SA’s largest accounting companies, has suggested to Saica that it should rather mark the first exam before any rewrite, so that those students who passed don’t have to redo it.

Saica may yet do this. Nomvalo tells the FM: “We have to respect the time spent by the candidates studying and then writing this exam, under stressful circumstances caused by Saica. So I’ve made a revised recommendation to Saica’s board, which will make a decision imminently.”

In a letter sent to Nomvalo last week, Dion Shango, PwC Africa CEO and chair of the Senior Partners Forum, said the debacle has created “anxiety and fear” among many candidates. As it is, many of the accounting firms are fuming over how this played out. Ruwayda Redfearn, who will take over as CEO of Deloitte Africa in June, described the debacle (with evident restraint) as “disappointing”.

Olivier Barbeau, managing partner of the Joburg office of Moore, doesn’t buy Saica’s explanation. “If they knew of the problems with the laptops and did nothing, that’s a big problem. And if they didn’t know, that’s just as much of a problem. The board exam is one of Saica’s top three priorities — how can you mess it up?” he asks.

Barbeau says that at this point, it’s hard to estimate the damage done to the careers of those who wrote the exam.

“It’ll take them longer to qualify, and there’ll always be this perception that you’re one of those CAs who shouldn’t have qualified, but did so because of that funny exam,” he says.

Though Saica has apologised, Nomvalo says the candidates’ trauma is real. “You’ve spent your life dreaming of becoming a CA, but at the last step, you get tripped up in this spectacular fashion by Saica — I really feel sorry for them,” he says.

Given that the accounting profession was already struggling to rebuild its credibility after the reputation-fraying scandals of Tongaat Hulett, VBS Mutual Bank and Steinhoff, this is the last thing anyone wanted.

Nomvalo concedes this point. “We had regained a bit of ground. The Edelman Trust Barometer, done earlier this year, showed that trust in the accounting profession had risen to 85%, from 81% three years ago. And trust in Saica had risen from 78% to 86%. So to regain trust, and then have something like this happen, doesn’t help,” he says. x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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state of play by Natasha Marrian ACE IS RUNNING OUT OF ROAD

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ce Magashule mimicking Jacob Zuma’s legal and political strategy has a distinct advantage. It makes the suspended ANC secretary-general predictable. And it can help South Africans to put a stop to the ANC’s further destruction of their country — by rejecting the party if Magashule is anywhere near its top leadership structures come 2022.

The election genie is firmly out of the bottle for the party: the realisation that there is political life after the ANC and that social grants will not disappear even after it is removed from power has firmly set in among the electorate. Life after the ANC is imaginable now — its support even in rural areas slipped dramatically in November’s elections, analysis of the results by the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research has shown. Importantly, ANC elective battles are no longer the sole preserve of its fatally flawed membership base; where in the past, at least before 2017, its 5,000-odd conference delegates thought only of their stomachs when selecting party leaders, they now have to think twice. A choice which riles the electorate can strip the party of power, fast.

It’s all in the realm of the possible now.

This is the reason then Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza ditched Jacob Zuma’s preferred candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in 2017 and threw his lot behind Cyril Ramaphosa — the writing was on the wall and anyone associated with Zuma would surely have accelerated the ANC’s electoral demise.

Now Magashule and his backers are quickly approaching his self-imposed five-year milestone to “reclaim” the ANC. Shortly after Ramaphosa was elected, Magashule, speaking at the ANC’s anniversary celebrations in KwaZulu-Natal, emphasised that it was only a matter of “five years, comrades” before his faction would “take back the ANC”.

@NatashaMarrian marriann@fm.co.za

Magashule has adopted Zuma’s strategy, using his court appearances to play the victim

good week Former Shoprite chair Christo Wiese has taken a R414m bet on the company by buying up a chunk of risky single stock futures. He bought 20,000 single stock futures contracts on the open market for a total value of R413.6m. Wiese remains a nonexecutive director after retiring as the company’s chair in 2020 after 40 years. This tops off quite a year for the retailer, which paid record dividends and created almost 4,000 jobs in 2021.

It’s a vote of faith in its future and a show of confidence in CEO Pieter Engelbrecht. x 6

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

That five-year period is almost up, with the ANC’s next elective conference set to take place in December 2022. But much has happened since Magashule made that promise. He is now facing corruption charges and is suspended from the ANC, far removed from his powerful position as secretary-general. He is fighting for his political life and his freedom.

Magashule is facing charges related to a dodgy R255m asbestos contract during his tenure as Free State premier. He has adopted Zuma’s strategy in dealing with the charges, using his court appearances to lie about the facts of the case and turn them into political theatre to attack his enemies and play the victim. Even legally, he is Zuma’s mini-me. He lodged an application with the Bloemfontein high court seeking a ruling that there is in fact no case against him. This, of course, is before the trial even begins.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has hit back in an affidavit, tackling Magashule’s propaganda that the case is a result of political meddling by his enemies. The NPA described this allegation as “entirely vague, respectfully romancing, and fanciful”. It says Magashule has not provided a shred of evidence to back up his allegations.

In an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika last month, Magashule said the Hawks had approached people to ask them to “lie about this person”, yet in his formal, substantive court application, he doesn’t raise this allegation at all.

But he is running out of political road too. Any hope he had of overturning his suspension from the party is dwindling fast; in September he was denied leave to appeal the high court ruling dismissing his legal challenge to his suspension.

If Magashule has not abandoned his hope of reclaiming the ANC, he is completely out of touch with reality. But even if he and his faction succeed, the electorate will see to it that their victory is pyrrhic. x

bad week Jurie Roux, CEO of SA Rugby, has to pay back R37m he embezzled from Stellenbosch University while he was chair of Maties rugby club. Roux lost an appeal this week against a ruling that he misappropriated the funds between 2002 and 2010 but with accountability being what it is in SA, the under-fire CEO won’t resign after the blow.

How will SA Rugby, which has protected him all these years, react? A decision on Roux’s fate is expected in January. Surely there’s no place to hide? He will have to be sacked. x

you said... letters Mantashe, Cele get away with murder

fm paper: reader response Gallo Images/Brenton Geach

I’ve been reading the FM for about 50 years. One of its best quips was when Dr Willie Van Niekerk was “promoted from administrator of [South West Africa] to the cabinet, where as an ex-gynaecologist he found himself in familiar surroundings”.

The Nats deserved that comment, but why is the press in general so scathing of the DA while letting Gwede Mantashe and Bheki Cele get way with murder?

Gwede is an obstacle, as Justice Malala points out (At Home & Abroad, December 2-8), to jobs and investment because of his obstructive attitude to BEE ownership in mining, his meddling with Karpowership and his dislike for renewables in general.

Cele did nothing to stop an insurrection that killed hundreds, destroyed businesses and jobs, and cost billions of rands.

They should be hammered. Why are they still there?

Two weeks ago the FM asked for readers’ feedback about our new paper as we chart a way forward.

Here are some of your responses: I have no complaints regarding the new paper. The matte finish and slightly thicker paper is an improvement. I can’t understand what reader ADH Leishman is going on about (Letters, December 2-8). There is only the slightest, pleasant odour to the printed paper. A Buchanan As a long-term FM reader, I fully welcome this current paper being used. It is easier to read in all lights. It is more professionallooking and will be durable. And the old paper became crumpled quickly and looked “poor”. This paper actually “smells good”! Ashley Lattimer

Paul McNaughton Stellenbosch

We’ve fallen for the Big Stall The decent people of this country have been, and still are being, led by the nose by a psychotic, maladjusted and sick government. It has mastered the use of an unseen weapon that’s hoodwinking an entire nation into believing all’s well and the bad things, like corruption, will be sorted out soon.

It’s called The Big Stall. And who better to lead by example than the wily King of Nkandla. Jacob Zuma’s been doing it for close on two decades. By means of ongoing appeals he was able to escape a proper hearing.

The Big Stall has even taken root among the prosecuting and law enforcing bodies. National Prosecuting Authority head Shamila Batohi has admitted in parliament that, given the number of cases joining the queue, we mustn’t expect a quick fix.

And that after being on the job for nearly four years. In that time not a single big fish has landed in the net, despite screeds of documented evidence at her disposal.

To put the seal on it, Batohi warns that further cases unearthed through the Zondo commission will add to the delay in bringing criminals to face charges. If the Zuma case is still pending after nearly two decades, what chance do current ones stand to see the light of day? The Big Stall on course.

Ironically, these facts can easily lend themselves to a conspiracy theory. Like, who says this wasn’t the plan all along?

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “new dawn” — and promises of investments aplenty leading to millions of jobs — was a sham.

The further promises that corruption would be addressed are empty words. Why then not start with Zuma?

It won’t happen, so we are left swallowing the lumps — fools that we are.

Cliff Buchler Claremont

I prefer the flimsy paper — this thicker paper is certainly not the paper for a quality magazine like the FM. Cyril Glaser Your new paper has the luxurious look and feel of a Woolworths catalogue. As for the smell, I would suggest your correspondent on the topic has been hanging around petrol stations for too long, as it has affected their sense of smell. In Afrikaans it is referred to a stinkneus. It is not a serious problem and will go away after just one day of petrol station avoidance. I had a sniff and found the letters page at least smells of wood.

My hat goes off to the FM for a quality publication in all respects. Mark Mentz For subscribers, the thicker paper is no good as the delivered, rolled magazine remains “rolled” even when the elastic band is removed. Andrew Honey Love the thicker paper; it’s tactile and weighty (matching the content). JC I do like the feel and look of the paper, but I agree with ADH Leishman that the smell of the print is quite strong. It is also irritating to the eyes.

It also matters what is the most environmental friendly option for producing the print version of the FM. Thanks for great content from your journalists week after week. Andreas

The new paper is pleasant to hold and suggests professionalism and gravitas.

Please don’t pay any attention to the “ooh, it smells funny” brigade. Janet Lopes Wow, when I opened my FM two weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised at the upgraded quality of the newsprint pages.

It felt so wonderful to hold quality newsprint in one’s hands and read quality opinion and general articles.

FM, I hope this is not a one-off experiment. Johnny Schwartz I’m a big fan of the new, thicker paper. It makes the FM feel like a better-quality product. Bruce Chelius My friends and I find the thick paper most uninviting to hold. Please use the traditional thin periodical paper. Alick Costa I love the thicker paper. Also, there is no “pong”. Maybe ADH Leishman has an ultra-sensitive proboscis. Robert Schroder The use of thicker paper has demoted your fine publication to the feel of a cheap magazine. Morris Getz I am a regular reader of your fabulous magazine and absolutely love the new feel. I hope the “pong” is here to stay.

Kirsten

I am most disappointed that the FM has resorted to this unsatisfactory change. I did not expect this high-quality magazine to adopt such an unsuitable solution to what is set out as a temporary problem.

The content is always top rate and I hope the print magazine itself will continue to be a prime reflector of that quality. Niel Howson My 5c worth is that the quality of paper selected for current editions is superb. It feels a lot more substantive and “at ease”.

Long may your other supply diminish and your new choice remain. Mike The previous thin paper is far more useful and conducive to a good read than the new paper, so I hope you revert. Chris Bruorton

The FM welcomes concise letters from readers. Letters must carry the name and address of the sender. They can be sent to The Editor, Financial Mail, PO Box 1744, Saxonwold 2132. E-mail fmmail@fm.co.za

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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at home & abroad by Justice Malala IT ’S BAD, BUT AT LEAST IT’S NOT ZUMA Ramaphosa’s lot might be fumbling, but it’s not the same as the thieving bunch we had in charge before

S

top right there. It is becoming fashionable to lump together the failing Cyril Ramaphosa administration with the corrupt Jacob Zuma one. As the bad news — from unemployment figures to the failure to prosecute corrupt politicians— assails us and we wring our hands in despair, it has become easy to just say: “They are all the same.”

Well, stop it right there.

If we continue to misdiagnose our problem this way, we will end up with the wrong solutions. Saying they are all the same means the precipice we stood on in the mid-2010s when Nhlanhla Nene and Pravin Gordhan were fired from the National Treasury is exactly what we face today. That is not true. The problem of a David Des van Rooyen in the safe with his two mint-new advisers given to him by the Gupta family is not at all what we face today, with an Enoch Godongwana in the finance minister’s chair.

We have problems, yes, but to solve them we have to find ways of doing things unlike the way South Africans managed to get Van Rooyen out of the door in double quick time.

Our conversation needs to always start with the fact that the two ANC factions are chalk and cheese. What unites them is that they are both members of the African National Congress, an organisation that has failed to live up to its noble ideals and the memory of its founders. It’s important to record that within the ANC, much as many do not want to see it, there is good and bad, light and dark — and that the forces of darkness are still dominant due to the unwillingness of the good people (like Ramaphosa) to force a division of the

@justicemalala

party and let the rotten apples find their own way.

During the Zuma administration the bad did not just have the upper hand. They were dominant. Feasting on the harvest delivered by the judicious and visionary economic work of the Thabo Mbeki administration, the Zuma crowd went to town and plunged this country into debt and stagnation with no care for the future.

Total capture of the state was their intent.

es ag Im tty Ge

Looting was their goal.

Every socalled policy to allegedly lift up the people was a sham. It was all a ploy to steal 8

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

Looting was their goal.

Every so-called policy to allegedly lift up the people was a sham. It was all a ploy to steal.

At its zenith, when the National Treasury was under threat and every head of a state-owned enterprise was being taken by Malusi Gigaba’s advisers to Saxonwold to be given instructions by the Guptas, there wasn’t even an attempt to hide this.

The current lot came in promising to clear the Augean stables. They have failed spectacularly.

Yet it is important to continue to underline the differences between

what we lived through under Zuma and what we are going through today.

The two things are not the same and should not be classified the same way, because we will fail then to fix the problems we face.

Shamila Batohi may be failing us, but she is not Shaun Abrahams, the former NPA head under whose watch there wasn’t even a whisper of prosecution of politically connected people.

Batohi is a disappointment because we have not seen the avalanche of prosecutions we expected or wanted to see, but she is in no way a prosecutor who lets a bribee walk while the briber languishes in jail.

André de 123RF Ruyter is failing to turn the Eskom ship around, but it would be wrong to equate him to the Eskom CEO who spent his evenings at the Gupta mansion in Saxonwold picking up wads of cash.

Gordhan is failing to live up to his promise to turn the stateowned enterprises around. Yet he is not, and will never be, the corrupt minister of pubs lic enterprises who fired age Im y t Get competent boards and CEOs while donating entities like Eskom to corrupt consultancies to loot, and bought suits with ill-gotten cash from you-know-where.

The Zuma administration was a criminal enterprise. The Ramaphosa administration is a bunch of some good, decent, upstanding yet spineless individuals trying to appease people within their party who wouldn’t have hesitated to overthrow them in July.

They have both failed us, but in different ways. x

protected space by Thuli Madonsela GRASPING THE DE KLERK MOMENT Much vitriol was expended over FW de Klerk’s final video — but used properly, this is a chance to deal with our demons

I

n Zulu we say: “Unlike water, people do not go in the same direction.” This means that people do not always hold the same views on a matter.

The passing of former president FW De Klerk is a quintessential example of this aphorism. This event evoked a multiplicity of reactions. His posthumous video message, in which he apologised for his role in apartheid and the hurt and damage it caused, elicited even more diametrically opposed views.

AFP/FW De Klerk Foundation

The primary reason the video was derided was because it was seen as too little, too late. Plenty of vitriol was expended rebutting the claim, shared by the late Ahmed Kathrada (among others), that De Klerk had contributed to the unlocking of democracy. Those rejecting this circulated another video in which Nelson Mandela contended that De Klerk only bowed to the inevitable, because economic sanc-

De Klerk closed the gate to denials of the impact of apartheid. This could present a major shift 10

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

tions and other anti-apartheid measures had forced his hand.

The whole thing reminded me of a song we used to sing at high school. It told the story of a few men passing through a veld. One of the men only saw grass; another only saw the stars; a doctor saw water and only thought of the diseases it carried; a warrior saw the valley as perfect for a great war; and a realtor saw the veld as ideal for developing a human settlement.

A few weeks ago, when my partner and I visited the Kruger Shalati Train in Kruger National Park, the moral lesson behind the song finally dawned on me. Which is that we see different things from the same situation, depending on our paradigm.

For those who don’t know, the Kruger Shalati is a five-star hotel in a magnificent train on a disused bridge near Skukuza camp.

Many would have seen it as simply a decommissioned bridge in the veld, but Jerry Mabena saw a perfect location to create an innovative hotel. And in the train wreck, Mabena saw recyclable material for his hotel. His vision included an opportunity for varied income pipelines and jobs for the locals, most of whom had never worked before.

This is apposite when it comes to De Klerk’s controversial message, since we were bound to perceive it differently, depending on our different paradigms.

Some people focused on how De Klerk had died without a full disclosure on apartheid atrocities, which

had robbed them of the truth. Others saw it as a surreptitious attempt to whitewash a soiled legacy. Another person said the video had only really succeeded in reopening wounds that were in the process of healing.

It is not my place to judge the correctness of each person’s perspective.

However, in that video, I saw a gift — one that could unlock our impasse regarding the impact of apartheid on the present. I saw the possibility for a reset, in terms of where we go from here on restitution and reconciliation.

In the message De Klerk admitted playing a role in designing and implementing apartheid. He said: “I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to black, brown and Indians in SA.” The way I saw it was based on my belief in mining the duality of adversity to build a better outcome. When faced with a fait accompli, there’s little point in getting stuck in a blame game.

Instead, we should ask: how do we pull forward and what can we leverage from the misfortune to do that?

What De Klerk did was important.

At a time when some deny that racial inequality must be tackled to allow society to heal from past injustices, De Klerk closed the gate to denials of the impact of apartheid. Properly used, this could present a shift moment, which allows SA to to accelerate its healing journey — encompassing political inclusion and the need for social, economic, cultural and psychological restitution.

Of course, whether we can harness this moment depends on what we intend to achieve, what we consider significant and what we choose to give attention to. You be the judge.

Madonsela is the Law Trust Chair in Social Justice at Stellenbosch University and founder of the Thuma Foundation

Digging up unusual, interesting tidbits in and around the business scene

PROPERTIES AND THE STATE

Payback time: VBS loaned Zuma R7.8m in 2016 to pay the government for upgrades at Nkandla Sunday Times/Sandile Ndlovu.

Who’s paying the bills?

It’s unclear who has been living in the Saxonwold ‘shebeen’ since the Guptas left — and what about the bond on Nkandla?

Justin Brown

ý Two symbols of state capture lie about 500km apart: an imposing compound in the wealthy Joburg suburb of Saxonwold and a decaying Nkandla homestead in rural KwaZulu-Natal.

Just who pays the bills for running the former Gupta residences in Joburg is unknown, and secrecy also hides the latest about former President Jacob Zuma’s VBS Mutual Bank loan, which was taken to pay for upgrades at Nkandla.

High walls obscure the properties in Saxonwold, once home to the Gupta clan, the alleged masterminds of state capture now in hiding in Dubai or elsewhere in the world. It’s hard to know who, if anyone, still lives in a place mocked as a speakeasy following a reference to it as a shebeen by regular visitor Brian Molefe when he was CEO of Eskom.

The house, and another Gupta property in Constantia, Cape Town, have restraint orders against them, obtained by Hermione Cronje before her resignation as head of the Investigating Directorate of the National Prosecuting Authority.

Park Village Auctions director Clive Lazarus tells the FM that business rescue practitioners have yet to sell the four properties in Saxonwold. Litigation by the Guptas has put on hold the sale of many properties held in the name of former Gupta companies.

“The Saxonwold shebeen has not been sold,” says Lazarus.

The properties 3 Saxonwold

Drive, 5 Saxonwold Drive and 7 Saxonwold Drive are held by Confident Concept, while Islandsite Investments owns 19 Erlswold Way, around the corner.

Chetali Gupta, Atul Gupta, Rajesh Gupta and Ajay Gupta were the shareholders in Confident Concept and Islandsite. In February 2018, the shareholders of both companies put them into business rescue. But Chetali Gupta, who is Atul Gupta’s wife, changed her mind and, in November 2018, applied to the high court to remove the business rescue practitioners. The battle between Chetali Gupta and the rescue practitioners went to the Constitutional Court, which in August rejected her application.

Smit Sewgoolam Inc director Bouwer van Niekerk, representing the business rescue practitioners of Confident Concept and Islandsite Investments, tells the FM that following the conclusion of the court case the business rescue practitioners of both companies will sell the properties.

Van Niekerk says he understands that people occupy the four Saxonwold properties. “We are not sure of the identity of the supposed occupiers,” he says. He says the occupiers of all four properties are covering the costs of running them.

Van Niekerk says the occupiers

are represented by attorney Sumenthren Pillay of SP Attorneys.

The FM sent Pillay questions by e-mail about the occupiers but he did not respond.

The FM visited the property at 5 Saxonwold Drive. The guards at the gate said people live there, but declined to say who. Neighbours said they were unsure if anyone lived on the property.

An affidavit filed in the battle for the removal of the business rescue practitioners reveals who might live there: it states that Chetali Gupta is a resident at 5 Saxonwold Drive. But one of the business rescue practitioners, Kurt Knoop, said in court papers that he did not have an address for Chetali Gupta in Dubai. Though she claimed to be a resident in Saxonwold, neither she nor her husband lived there.

Knoop wrote: “They appeared to be living in Dubai, where Mrs Gupta deposed her affidavits. However,

Chetali Gupta provided no address in Dubai.”

The FM e-mailed Chetali Gupta’s lawyer, Rudi Krause, asking whether his client lived at the Saxonwold properties and if he knew who else lived there. Krause is a director of the criminal law firm BDK Attorneys.

“I will take instructions and revert,” Krause said.

As for Zuma’s finances relating to Nkandla, VBS Mutual Bank loaned the former president R7.8m in September 2016 to pay the government for the upgrades. This followed former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s finding that some upgrades were not security related. In a report in March 2014, Madonsela found that Zuma unduly benefited from upgrades such as a swimming pool, cattle kraal and amphitheatre, which had cost taxpayers R250m.

According to a Sunday World

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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Reuters/Jon Cherry

ANOTHER WEEK

TANK DEFIES TORNADO An old army tank stands unscathed amid the rubble of devastating tornadoes that ripped through six states in the US at the weekend. The twisters spread death and destruction and were powerful enough to derail a freight train and send a family photo 209km. But this tank, outside an American Legion post in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, stood firm against the storm

AFRICA’S LARGEST ECONOMIES

BY THE NUMBERS

report in March this year, Zuma was meant to pay back the loan in R69,000 monthly instalments over 240 months, but he defaulted. He is now about R250,000 in arrears.

Louise Brugman, a spokesperson for VBS curator Anoosh Rooplal says Rooplal cannot comment about Zuma’s loan because of client confidentiality. Zuma’s spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi, tells the FM that the status of Zuma’s loan with VBS is confidential, and declined to comment further.

VBS began litigation against Zuma in 2019, after he had fallen into arrears, VBS began at the high court litigation in Pietermaragainst itzburg. BrugZuma in man confirms 2019, after that the case is he had fallen still before the into arrears court and says with the the presiding repayment judge has yet to of his bond rule. on upgrades VBS collecto his home tions manager Shaun Havenga submitted a certificate of indebtedness to the high court in Pietermaritzburg regarding the divorce proceedings involving Zuma and his wife Thobeka Madiba-Zuma.

That document, dated August 19 2020, showed that Zuma owed VBS R6.9m on July 31 that year.

Zuma’s bank statements from March 2018 to August 2020, also filed in his divorce proceedings, showed that VBS was debiting him a monthly amount of at least R66,417.05 on either the 15th or 16th of the month. VBS ran debit orders against Zuma’s Absa cheque account in March, April, May, June and July 2018.

The VBS debit orders came off in March, April, and May but bounced in June and July.

At the start of March 2018, that Zuma cheque account had a negative balance of over R330,000.

From August 2018 to August 2020, no VBS debit orders were run against the account. At the end of August 2020, the Absa cheque account had a positive balance of about R209,000. x

$432.3bn

is the size of Nigeria’s economy, making it the largest in Africa (in dollar terms)

10% of Nigeria’s GDP

is the contribution of its finance sector, up from just 1% in 2001. However, petroleum, its largest export, is still the main driver of its growth

$2,100

is its GDP per capita. Using this measure, Nigeria doesn’t feature in the top 10 in Africa

African countries with the highest GDP over time $bn 1990

2005

2020

1

SA

SA

Nigeria

432.3

2

Algeria

Nigeria

Egypt

363.1

3

Nigeria

Algeria

SA

301.9

4

Egypt

Egypt

Algeria

145.2

5

Morocco

Morocco

Morocco

112.8

6

Libya

Libya

Ethiopia

107.6

7

Sudan

Angola

Kenya

98.8

8

Cameroon

Tunisia

Ghana

72.4

December 16 - December 22, 2021

Source: World Bank, Statista

DINNER PARTY INTEL...

“That [the judiciary is] underperforming is correct. There are too many delays [and] the delays in the Constitutional Court are increasing.

So there’s obviously cause for concern, there’s obviously cause for … improvement.”

Edwin Cameron, retired Constitutional Court justice

TRENDING

End of the line for a journey of joy The collapse of SA’s railway network through theft, vandalism and sabotage is one of our great calamities

1. Earth’s black box If Earth ever crashes, future explorers (aliens, perhaps?) might find a black box to reveal the reasons for our demise.

Scientists at the University of Tasmania in Australia are building a steel vault as big as a bus that will contain an archive of data on weather pattens, human responses and missteps we may have taken with our climate.

The box will lie in a remote part of Australia and its creators say that should humanity be destroyed, it will leave evidence, much like an aircraft’s black box, of why this happened.

Earth might be destroyed, but the scientists say the box is indestructible.

2. Tesla playing games The US federal safety regulator has raised questions with Tesla about safety concerns with its cars. It is looking into why Tesla did not issue a recall last month when it updated software called Autopilot to improve a car’s ability to recognise stopped emergency vehicles such as police cars and fire engines.

It is also worried about a recent update that allows a driver to play video games on a frontseat screen.

Archie Henderson

ý The tragedy of our collapsed railway network is not only economic; it will also deprive thousands of the joy of travelling by train.

Now that train travel is no longer an exclusively white privilege, its demise is even sadder.

The collapse has been documented in an 8,000word report by FM contributing editor David Williams in April-May for the Brenthurst Foundation and was picked up by the Sunday press at the weekend. It’s grim reading: R364m lost to looting and sabotage, 66% of overhead cables on 3,000km of railways stolen that will cost about R500,000 a kilometre to restore, and more. And that’s just a fragment of the report.

The topics you have to be able to discuss this week

Stripped: R364m of rail infrastructure has been lost to looting and sabotage Freddy Mavunda

Williams is the ideal investigator/author for such a report. In his days as a journalist on the FM, especially as deputy editor, he often wrote about the railways. As the son of an SA Railways & Harbours electrician, he was also a child of the railroad whose alarm clock in a small redbrick railway house on cold Estcourt mornings was the noise of shunting trains. It didn’t put him off railways, just the opposite — and he loves the railroad still.

That love also makes him optimistic about fixing the broken network, but he admits it will takes billions — and also dedicated and experienced managers, like the ones he met in his research but of whom there are perhaps too few. “It’s not easy to run a railroad,” says Williams. “Prasa [the Passenger Rail Agency of SA] has net assets of about R120bn in locomotives, infrastructure and land. [All of that] needs good management.” x

3. False arm alarm An Italian man tried to get a Covid vaccine certificate without having to get the vaccine by using a false arm. He was caught out by a sharp-eyed nurse in the northern city of Biella.

Nurse Filippa Bua said she noticed the deception because his skin was “rubbery and cold” and the pigmentation lighter compared with his hands and face.

The 50-year-old man used a silicone mould covering his arm. He was reported to the police.

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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DIAMONDS & DOGS BY JAMIE CARR

HOT PROPERTY THE WOW HOUSE

Anglo American

SpaceX

Jingle Bells in a Things fall toast to Anglo apart, rapidly

You might also consider how you’d feel to find yourself stuck on Mars with Musk 14

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There’s nothing like finishing the year on a DIAMOND note that’s more festive than a Downing Street Christmas gathering, and this time it’s Mark Cutifani who’s sticking on the red fat suit and the large white beard and letting rip with a lusty “Ho! Ho! Ho!” If you’re an Anglo American shareholder, it doesn’t matter two hoots how naughty or nice you may have been, you’re still getting the same dividend and, judging by the performance-guidance the company has issued, it’s likely to be a whopper.

It’s talking about 35% growth over the next decade at a distinctly healthy 50% margin, driven by technology and innovation improvements, stronger operational performance and a number of growth projects coming on track. Its projects are focused on highquality, low-cost assets, such as its Peruvian copper project Quellaveco, which remains on time and on budget and is scheduled to be delivered in 2022 despite operational challenges caused by the pandemic.

Its discovery portfolio is sniffing out future-enabling metals and minerals such as copper, nickel and platinum group metals, which is a crowded space to play in because every other miner worth its salt is doing the same, but Cutifani points out that climate change is the defining challenge of our time and Anglo’s role is to support the transition to a low-carbon economy by producing many of the metals and minerals that make decarbonised energy and transport possible.

That may well be the most Gretafriendly statement ever uttered by a CEO of Anglo, but it doesn’t stop him from making a tidy profit. x

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Anybody queuing up to join Elon Musk on a DOG one-way trip to colonise Mars might do well to acquaint themselves with the concept of the RUD. This is the acronym for “rapid unplanned disassembly”, something that has become all too common when attempting to land SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket, and can be roughly translated as “hits the deck then blows up in a massive ball of flames”.

You might also pause to consider the feeling you’d get when you found yourself on the red planet and realised you were stuck there with Musk, but that’s another issue.

SpaceX has achieved incredible things since its first rocket blew up in 2006, particularly the dozens of successful launches of its Falcon 9 rocket, which is able to return to Earth for reuse. It has slashed the price of a launch and is now widely used by Nasa.

The company is planning to spend $20bn-$30bn on its Starlink Constellation, a network of satellites intended to offer global internet coverage, but all this is dependent on the Starship rather than the Falcon 9.

The Starship is the biggest rocket ever launched into orbit, with a payload of 100,000kg vs the Falcon’s 63,800kg. The problem is with the Starship’s Raptor engines, which are the first to run on methane, and pose more than a few engineering challenges.

Musk cancelled the Thanksgiving holiday for his staff, describing the situation as a disaster and saying there was a genuine risk of the company heading into bankruptcy next year if they can’t get it fixed sharpish. x

WHERE: Plettenberg Bay PRICE: R17m WHO: Seeff Set in Robberg Beach End Estate next to a nature reserve, this beach house has five bedrooms that flow to a central lounge and L-shaped balcony with ocean views. The triple-storey property has a lift to the first and second floors.

Extras include a staff suite and storerooms.

WHERE: Mooikloof Equestrian Estate, Pretoria PRICE: R14.9m WHO: Pam Golding Properties This French countryside-inspired home spans 1,300m² under roof on a 1ha stand and offers three spacious en suite bedrooms, each with walk-in cupboards, multiple living areas and a study.

Additional features include three stables, tack room, paddock and arena, vegetable garden and wine cellar.

MOTHER CITY BOURSE

Stock exchange by the sea A stock exchange in Cape Town is not exactly new.

The city had one before at the time of the SA War, when many Joburgers from the Transvaal fled Paul Kruger’s republic for the British colony John Young

ý Across the road from the Stock Exchange Hotel, in the Woodstock Exchange building, is Cape Town’s newest financial institution, the Cape Town Stock Exchange (CTSE).

That these two buildings have the word “exchange” in them may or may not have something to do with Cape Town once having had a stock exchange (when the SA War drove all the Uitlanders out of Joburg). But the more significant co-location is the Bandwidth Barn across the corridor from the rebranded 4AX stock exchange.

The tech incubator, run by the Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative, is a poster child for the Western Cape’s Silicon Cape ambitions. And the latest group of Joburgers to take up residence in the Cape are certainly tech-savvy.

All the new stock exchanges offer newer and faster technology.

But where there were three bourses with an X in the name, now there are two, and one of those, ZAR X, had its licence suspended in August for failing to meet “capital adequacy” requirements.

CTSE CEO Eugene Booysen says he wants South Africans to think differently about capital raising on stock markets. “This is why we’ve focused on the smaller things and changed up the system to make capital markets more inclusive,” he says. Because the technology is in-house and cloudbased, listing and trading are cheaper, faster and secure.

The welcome given to the CTSE

by Western Cape premier Alan Winde has been “superb”, says Booysen, who also praises the

CTSE: Its technology is in-house and cloud-based Jurgens Photography

investment agency Wesgro.

When Woodstock was a separate town, its municipal body, grandiloquently titled a “corporation”, aggressively offered rebates to attract industrial operations. This is why the area today is so full of mills, warehouses and breweries ripe for renovation and repurposing.

Cape Town in 2020 was ranked second in Africa for competitiveness as a financial centre, according to the global financial centres index. Mauritius was top. Many asset managers are now located in greater Cape Town, joining the insurance giants and financial services groups. According to Tracxn, there are 173 fintech startups in Cape Town, including Jumo and Yoco.

Says Booysen: “Our model closely aligns with the region’s digital drive, investment strategy and marketing.” It helps that the “bond investment community and decision-makers” are in Cape Town.

In terms of the CTSE’s own liquidity, Booysen is glad to have the “unequivocal” support of the biggest shareholder, Lebashe Investment Group. (Lebashe also owns Arena Holdings, which owns the FM.) A second investor will come on board later because rules dictate that no shareholder may

hold more than 49%.

The CTSE does not rely only on the stock exchange for income.

There’s also a registry business, whose clients include 10 JSE-listed companies. Services can include organising virtual AGMs, e-voting and certification. The third arm of the business, Capital Solutions, arranges debt security.

On the day the FM visited the CTSE, the first debt issue of more than R1bn was secured for Capital Harvest, an agriculture-focused financier.

Agriculture is a subject that interests Booysen. “Food security is a future megatrend,” he says. “It is the bedrock of the SA economy, with established networks and companies with 120-year histories.

It’s active in the debt and equities markets and they have built their underlying infrastructure on their own.”

What’s more, it is technology driven and capital intensive. “It has all the ingredients.”

Growth is the key for Booysen.

Which is why the CTSE is targeting companies in the R25m-R2bn market cap range.

“Those are the companies that are going to provide the growth in the next 20 years,” he says.

“We need to get capital into the hands of entrepreneurs, the mom-

and-pop businesses, so that these family businesses emerge into the bigger space. If we get that right, we grow SA Inc. This is where job creation is happening.”

Another area where Booysen sees huge growth potential is renewable energy. Having listed shares with an infrastructure focus to enable the purchase of shares in a wind farm at Tsitsikamma in the Eastern Cape in 2020, the CTSE announced a similar listing in early December.

Booysen is not sure about the location of the short-lived Cape Town bourse that harboured refugees in the SA War. He thinks there could even be some confusion with the name because a stock exchange in Barberton was once named the Kaap Goldfields Stock Exchange (or variations on that based on the Kaap River).

Although 4AX has become the CTSE and Joburg is a long way from Woodstock, the street address is familiar. In Joburg, 4AX had offices in Empire Road. The CTSE headquarters in Cape Town are at 68 Albert Road. That’s Queen Victoria’s Albert, otherwise known as Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Woodstockers know how to make Joburgers feel welcome, in an imperial way. x

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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DIGITAL

It’s hip to be …

Block?

Toby Shapshak

Jack Dorsey: Co-founded Square in 2009 Getty Images/Joe Raedle

ý Just days after his mic drop on Twitter, former CEO Jack Dorsey has spurred more online hype by renaming the other business he runs — from Square to Block.

Only in the tech world does a name change constitute news. In most other industries, after the renaming hype has died down, it is seldom referenced again. Not many people call Ninety One “formerly Investec”, do they?

But when Facebook tries to dodge bad publicity by rebranding as Meta Platforms, or Google creates a holding company called Alphabet, it remains in the news — for obvious reasons.

Square is different. It isn’t a social media company but the other white-hot kind of booming business: digital payments.

Dorsey co-founded it in 2009 as a way to disrupt the payments industry then (and now) dominated by credit cards.

Instead of requiring a bankissued point-of-sale terminal to process these cards, Square was literally a square plastic credit card reader that plugged into the headphone jack of an iPhone (initially, before it expanded to Android).

Small merchants in the US could use this smart add-on to accept payments through their smartphones. It was a stratagem that opened up a juicy new revenue opportunity for the Twitter cofounder’s fledgling business.

A decade later, now that most 16

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smartphones have dropped the headphone jack and the payments industry is rapidly outgrowing the once dominant credit card, Square wants to be more. It wants to capitalise on the huge blockchain opportunity that is opening up.

The blockchain, from which Block gets its new name, is a The recently powerful way of processing transresigned Twitter CEO actions — and has rebrands payments firm as been the driving his focus shifts to his new technology behind great passion: innumerable new c ryptocurrency services. Dorsey is a blockchain and cryptocurrency believer, and has been promotOctober and doubled ing these technologies for years. down with a further $170m The only description on his Twitter in February. profile is “#bitcoin”.

Of the name change, Dorsey “I don’t think there’s anything said: “We built the Square brand for more important in my lifetime to our seller business, which is where work on and I don’t think there’s it belongs. Block is a new name, anything more enabling for people but our purpose of economic around the world,” he told Fortune empowerment remains the same. magazine in June. Bitcoin, for him, No matter how we grow or “changes everything”. change, we will continue to build Though he brought in a cryptotools to help increase access to the focused team at Twitter, the idea economy.” reportedly didn’t gel with CFO Ned The holding company’s name Segal, who told The Wall Street change “acknowledges the compaJournal that bitcoin was too ny’s growth” while it “creates room volatile. “We [would] have to for further growth”, said Dorsey, change our investment policy and who resigned as Twitter CEO in choose to own assets that are November. more volatile,” Segal said.

Dorsey must be relieved to no Square, meanwhile, famously longer be CEO of the two firms, bought $50m in bitcoin last year in which he has been doing since

December 16 - December 22, 2021

2015 — albeit in a famously handsoff way. In 2019, after a cryptothemed trip to African innovation hotspots in West and East Africa, he said he wanted to spend six months a year here — a plan that was curtailed, seemingly, by angry investors and Covid lockdowns.

Square, now Block, has built up an interesting array of offerings. Its principal Square business will remain unchanged, as will its layby service Afterpay, payment service Cash App and the Tidal music streaming service it bought from Jay-Z. Its bitcoin crypto business, called TBD54566975, also keeps its “easy to pronounce” name.

But Square Crypto, which is “dedicated to advancing bitcoin”, will be renamed Spiral.

Square tweeted: “We’ve been

PATTERN RECOGNITION BY TOBY SHAPSHAK

Taking back our privacy @shapshak

Surveillance capitalism suffers a setback as consumers seize the chance to keep their lives to themselves

H working to make this change for over a year and it only represents a change of our official corporate name — not our purpose, our vision, our structure, or how we operate.”

It will retain its Wall Street ticker, SQ — something I have always found amusing, given that those two letters appear on expensive menus to warn customers about outrageously priced items.

Clearly poking fun at Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, Square tweeted: “Not to get all meta on you … but we’re going to! ‘Block’ references the neighbourhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks and, of course, tungsten cubes.” x

ATT is proof that such moves don’t make the sky fall in, as the social media giants wailed that it would

ow much does privacy cost? It’s largely been a theoretical question in the debate on surveillance capitalism.

But we now have a number, albeit from a test case involving only Apple.

The Financial Times reports that since Apple introduced controversial privacy settings in April, limiting an advertiser’s ability to track iPhone users and their app activity, social media giants Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have lost about $9.85bn.

In terms of the app tracking transparency (ATT) policy introduced with the iOS14.5 update, iPhone owners can opt out of being tracked by advertisers — and have done so in droves.

Over the years the advertising industry has become more aggressive in tracking and mining personal information.

When Apple first announced these changes last year, Facebook ran fullpage adverts in major US newspapers: “We’re standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere,” it proclaimed, oblivious to the irony of the world’s biggest social media giant claiming its data-hoarding business model is a survival essential for small businesses.

Clearly Facebook and its advertising agency think this is true. It’s a common boast by big tech firms that they are champions of small businesses, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Apple’s ATT is an important step in the right direction and a demonstra-

tion that such moves don’t make the sky fall in, as the social media giants wailed that it would.

“Apple moving from a stance of ‘tracking is sanctioned by default’ to ‘tracking is only sanctioned when a user opts in’ is a big, big deal,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Bennett Cyphers told The Washington Post.

ATT stops advertisers tracking iPhone users using a specific handset tracking system known as ID for Advertisers.

When people opt out, it reduces what these digital advertising networks can learn about us from our internet use. I was horrified when I first discovered how much detail an app can collect.

Of course, the app says such data is anonymous but numerous revelations (especially by The New York Times) have demonstrated how open to abuse this anonymised data can be. In one instance, the paper was able to track a specific person’s activity and movements — on the day she went to an abortion clinic.

I have turned off all such seemingly helpful messages to apps, which I suggest everyone should do. If you haven’t been shown pop-ups on your iPhone to turn them off, you can go to “settings” > “privacy” > “tracking” and untick “allow apps to request to track”.

A major theme this year has been how privacy controls have started appearing in the tech and internet space. If you haven’t already, turn off the taps of surveillance capitalism. We all deserve our privacy. x Shapshak is editor-in-chief of Stuff Studios (stuff.co.za) and publisher of Scrolla.Africa

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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GIMME

Give a little gadget at Christmas In this age of appliances, the FM’s regular Gimme columnist wraps up the year with a guide for gifts from the world of devices — from toys to coffee-makers and drones Nafisa Akabor

Nintendo Switch OLED The new Switch OLED model is meant to be enjoyed in hand instead of docking it to a TV due to its brighter, vivid screen.

Gamers can enjoy more on-board storage from its 64GB upgrade, take advantage of the Ethernet and HDMI ports, and make the most of its redesigned kickstand for multiple viewing angles.

The new model comes in white, as well as the original red and blue.

Fitbit Charge 5 The Fitbit Charge 5 has been updated to a slimmer design with a brighter OLED touchscreen and up to seven days of battery life.

It has tools for stress, sleep and heart-rate tracking.

It also has built-in GPS that works with 20 exercise modes and supports contactless payments and smartphone notifications.

A six-month subscription to Fitbit Premium is included.

Price: R3,999

Price: R7,999

Nespresso Vertuo Next The Nespresso Vertuo Next features a new centrifusion technology that spins pods up to 4,000rpm to brew the perfect cup.

It has one button to operate it and the result could be any of five drink sizes, including a 150ml Gran Lungo, 230ml Signature and 535ml pour-over.

The new pods have barcodes for the machine to read and brew the right drink, after a 30-second preheat.

The coffee-maker is made from 50% recycled plastics.

Price: R3,499

Mi Robot Vacuum Mop Essential Xiaomi’s next-generation Mi Robot Vacuum Mop Essential now has a larger 420ml capacity tank alongside a 200ml water tank for mopping, and its suction power is 2,200Pa. It traps dirt and dust (great for anyone with allergies), can overcome obstacles like cables up to 17mm high and promises 1½ hours of usage from its 2,500mAh battery.

Set schedules, track it and change cleaning modes remotely via the Mi Home app.

Price: R3,499

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

DJI Mini SE DJI newest entry-level drone, the Mini SE, is a great starter drone that has a selection of preset modes that removes the intimidation for first-time flyers.

It offers 30 minutes of flight time from its three-axis gimbal, shoots in 2.7K from its 12MP sensor at up to 60 frames per second, and has a 4km transmission distance.

It’s lightweight at 249g and editing can be done via the app, complete with sound and effects.

Price: R5,999

Instax Link Wide Instax has come out with the Link Wide smartphone printer that offers wide printouts — twice the size of the regular prints, at 108x86mm. It connects via Bluetooth over an app and recharges with a USB cable. You can apply filters, emojis and stickers or use templates for celebrations before you print. It is available in white or grey and supports iOS and Android.

Price: R2,499

Ring Video Doorbell 3 Amazon’s home security camera, the Video Doorbell 3, lets you see, hear and speak to visitors from anywhere using the Ring smartphone app. Using motion sensors, you will get notified immediately through the app when someone is at your door.

It supports 1,080p HD video footage, live view, night vision, 160° wideangle view and two-way audio with noise cancellation.

LG Tone Free Earbuds LG’s Tone Free FN6 wireless earbuds feature Meridian sound that delivers clear and spatial audio, making it an immersive experience.

They also support noise isolation, sealing out any surrounding noise.

What is appealing is the unique UVnano charging case that kills up to 99% bacteria while the earbuds are recharging.

The earbud tips come in three sizes and are made from hypoallergenic silicone.

Price: R3,499

Price: R2,900

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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Disaster: Cape Town’s recreational inland water bodies have suffered months of closure this year Gallo Images/Brenton Geach

POLLUTION

Water sports fouled up Cape Town is not only about the sea, the beaches and the mountain when it comes to recreation — there are also the inland water areas for skiing, yachting, canoeing, rowing and windsurfing. But human waste has polluted many of these venues, putting the city’s tourism at risk once more Steve Kretzmann

ý Like many seaside destinations, Cape Town’s tourism economy has suffered in this time of lockdowns and travel bans. Now it’s been hit by an earthbound hazard: human pollution.

Spills from the city’s sewerage and storm-water systems, combined with burgeoning informal settlements in catchment areas, have led to all four of Cape Town’s major recreational inland water bodies suffering months of closure this year because of the health risk posed by high pollution levels. This is despite three of the water bodies being in city-run nature reserves.

The direct cost to related businesses is conservatively calculated at about R9m, with plans for an Olympic-standard rowing facility in Cape Town under threat.

The first inland water body to be closed this year was Zandvlei in Muizenberg on May 25. It was partly opened again on October 11 but closed 11 days later because of high bacterial counts caused by sewage.

Rietvlei in Milnerton was closed from June 24 to November 17.

Zeekoevlei, next to Grassy Park, was closed on July 15, while Milnerton Lagoon has been closed for 20

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over a year.

Rietvlei, the only recreational water body still open, is economically significant because it is an annual destination for hundreds of European windsurfers, many of them professionals who come to train and test equipment.

Brian Weber, commodore of the Milnerton Aquatic Club at Rietvlei, says up to 300 professional windsurfers and enthusiasts come to train on the vlei in summer, with some staying as long as three months. However, Weber says, pollution levels have led to many regular European visitors cancelling their plans in September and October.

A week after Rietvlei reopened, international travel restrictions were announced as the Omicron variant arrived. This was a further blow to the guesthouses and businesses hoping to service the international clientele.

Weber says that just in the week between the opening of the vlei and the international travel bans, about a dozen or more international windsurfers arrived and signed on at the club.

But the club has not been able to re-employ the four employees who had to be laid off due to the lack of members using the club’s

December 16 - December 22, 2021

restaurant during the vlei’s closure, he says. Lack of work also resulted in the loss of the club’s bosun at the end of October, which meant neither its accredited sailing academy, nor the adaptive sailing programme for sailors with disabilities, could operate.

Milnerton Aquatic Club environmental manager Katja Haslinger estimates that the closure of the vlei, combined with international travel restrictions, cost the local economy R9m. Haslinger’s calculations are based on 150 visiting international windsurfers arriving with a partner and staying for an average of four weeks.

The figure is based on accommodation rates, spending at restaurants and bars, and car hire, but excludes sales of water sports equipment, coaches, trainers, and physiotherapists. She is concerned that the summer heat, together with the high nutrient content in the water, could spark a toxic blue-green algal bloom which would cause further closures of the vlei. “It’s a ticking time bomb.”

Simon Duffet, owner of The Brand Stable, says he had “zero sales” of windsurfing equipment between June and November, resulting in a 50% drop in gross turnover. Duffet says he’s had a few board sales since the vlei reopened, but only to locals. “There are no foreigners coming in. It’s hard to say what business is going to be like.”

Further south, Zeekoevlei is home to 10 rowing clubs, as well

as the Zeekoe Vlei Yacht Club.

Western Cape Rowing Association vice-president Paula Barnard says long-standing pollution undermines confidence in plans to create an Olympic-quality rowing course.

The buoy lanes and infrastructure required would have brought tens of millions in investment, and the ability to host international events, says Barnard She says all the rowing clubs are struggling financially because without being able to get on the water, they can’t expect their members to pay fees. This includes one of the oldest sports clubs in the country — the Alfred Rowing Club, established in 1864, which is in dire straits.

She says there are about 450 rowers across the clubs, bringing in about R1m in annual fees. Their development programmes are unable to operate, and the Zeekoe Vlei Yacht Club is also struggling to stay afloat.

Yacht club general manager Karen Slater says the pollution has resulted in two full-time coaches losing their jobs, as well as four part-time weekend coaches.

Eddie Andrews, Cape Town deputy mayor and mayoral committee member for spatial planning and environment, says the closure of the city’s three vleis is “of great concern, in particular how this has been impacting recreational users and those businesses that operate from the water bodies”.

He adds: “The city continues to investigate all sources of pollution and take action to prevent the pollution from impacting on the vleis.”

Various appropriate remedial actions are being planned. x

PROFILE David Lewis Outgoing executive director of Corruption Watch

A fighter steps down Corruption buster calls it a day after a 40year career that spanned the early days of the trade union movement and the creation of a vigorous competition authority Ann Crotty

ý David Lewis is not giving up.

And he urges the public never to give up. There is a danger that South Africans might cease to be outraged by corruption. If that happens, Lewis reckons the country faces the grim possibility of sliding from its ignominious 69th place on Transparency International’s corruption perception index past the likes of Russia and Uzbekistan all the way down to Somalia and South Sudan, which share the 179th spot.

“I think the biggest mark of our success was we kept a conversation about corruption going,” says Lewis, who was a key force in the establishment of Corruption Watch back in early 2012.

It was Lewis’s fourth start-up in a 40-year career that spanned the early days of the trade union movement, the development of an industrial strategy for the soon-tobe-governing ANC and the creation of a vigorous competition authority.

“He’s what you could call a social start-up expert,” says a former colleague, noting that Lewis was able to identify the essence of the urgent issues and help develop institutions to deal with them. “He possesses an almost unique combination of intellect, social comment and drive.”

The initial Corruption Watch plan, after much discussion with then Cosatu chief Zwelinzima Vavi and human rights activists Adila

Hassim and Mark Heywood, was to collect dossiers of information on allegations of corruption, investigate them and make sure people were sent to jail. Lewis reminds us Vavi was one of the few public voices speaking out about corruption at the time.

Lewis’s 10 years as chair of the Competition Tribunal had left him sceptical about getting wellresourced individuals into jail, but he grabbed the opportunity to lead what he considered an important initiative. At that stage Jacob Zuma had been in power just under three years. “By late 2011 it was evident corruption was already a very, very serious problem.”

Once the organisation was up and running it became more of a public mobilisation and advocacy tool, says Lewis.

Corruption Watch was also involved in strategic litigation such as the high-profile legal battle against Net1 and the SA Social Security Agency over the irregular R316m payment by the agency to Net1, and challenging the findings of the Seriti commission of inquiry into the 1999 arms deal.

In the early years not many government departments were willing to engage with Corruption Watch. “Now we have a government whose doors, if we knock loudly enough, will be opened,” says Lewis, adding that President Cyril Ramaphosa has made Cor-

ruption Watch’s life easier but the battle still rages. “He [Ramaphosa] has, in the main, appointed competent and honest leaders but I think he underestimated the damage that had been done and how pervasive corruption had become.

“As we’ve seen through Covid, nothing is off limits, especially at local government level.”

And then there are the stateowned entities (SOEs).

At the University of Cape Town, where he set up the Development Policy Research Unit with David Kaplan and Alan Hirsch, there was much discussion about what to do about powerful parastatals. Should they be privatised or kept as effective instruments for policy implementation?

During his Competition Tribunal years, SOEs featured regularly.

“The essence of competition policy would see these entities being subjected to market forces or being regulated very carefully,” says Lewis. But they were too dominant in the market and the competition authorities didn’t have the necessary capacity.

During the Zuma era, corrupt SOE contracts provided rich pickings for well-placed ANC leaders.

Lewis is quick to dismiss the notion that corruption was a Zuma creation. The arms deal may have been the first. Lewis believes the corruption around Chancellor House Holdings was more damag-

ing. After years of denial the ANC recently admitted that it is a beneficiary of a trust that owns the company, which has benefited enormously from governmentlinked contracts.

“Many ANC leaders who would have frowned upon corruption were comfortably disposed to corruption that supported the party,” says Lewis.

While he’s encouraged by the public’s levels of engagement on corruption, Lewis is disappointed by the private sector’s lack of action. He reckons there’s not one manufacturing or mining business of any scale in SA that hasn’t been exposed to corruption. Lewis is sympathetic but unequivocal: “I say you must report it, make a huge fuss, ensure the media knows about it; it may not seem like the easiest option but it is the only hope we have of chilling corruption.”

Few who know him believe retirement from Corruption Watch means Lewis will be retiring from working life. Even though dogged by poor health for the past 18 months, he continued to work for at least four or five hours a day.

“Some days I couldn’t work at all,” says Lewis who has just been discharged from his umpteenth hospital stay. He’s looking forward to lying on the couch and watching cricket for the next few weeks and to spending next year reading. x

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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BOARDROOM TALES BY ANN CROTTY

China’s option falls flat Global inequality prevails as communism taints Xi Jinping’s moves to hold the super rich to account

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s you might imagine from its title, The “World Inequality Report 2022” is not what you would call an uplifting festive read. Unless you happen to be one of the 1% who, the report tells us, have captured 38% of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s.

That’s jaw-dropping stuff; it’s difficult to imagine something like that happening outside some dodgy autocratic regime.

The danger with all this “1% owns almost the whole world” stuff is that it leads to indignation fatigue. Ten years ago the Occupy Wall Street movement stirred up the cynics and encouraged some hope that politicians across the

e-mail: crottya@bdfm.co.za

Democracy hasn’t made a difference to the millenniaold tendency for elites to capture the bulk of a country’s wealth

123RF/dmitryguzhanin

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

globe would heed the concerns of their citizens.

For a year or so there was hope that political leaders would spurn the ties that had been cultivated with their powerful business peers over the decades, hope that the lobbying, the political donations and the well-oiled revolving door between politics and business would be slowed.

Sadly, not much appears to have come from that headline-grabbing movement though, as any historian will tell you, revolutions are a long time in the making. And perhaps the rise of Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson have their origin in that movement; certainly France’s yellow vests do.

The depressing aspect of the report, which is co-authored by Thomas Piketty of Capital in the 21st Century fame, is the realisation that democracy hasn’t made one jot of difference to the millennia-old tendency for elites to capture the bulk of a country’s wealth. Today it seems as though powerful bankers such as JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and their armies of lawyers hold more sway than political leaders and their ministers.

The inequality report describes how the top 1% held high shares of the wealth of the US and Europe at the end of the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century. Much as you’d expect of the Dickensian predemocracy era.

Then came two world wars as well as political and economic upheaval, and in time the rolling out of universal franchise in the US and Europe. For 40 years after World War 2, democratically elected governments with relatively firm commitments to social welfare spending enabled the West to tout democratic capitalism as superior

to anything the USSR and China could offer.

By the late 1970s, wealth inequality had dropped significantly in the US and Western Europe. But then it all changed. By the early 1980s the pendulum began to swing back. It has not stopped swinging back.

“The economic policy mixes implemented in Europe and the US since the 1980s have favoured wealth concentration and were successful enough to invert the secular trend observed since the 1910s in rich countries,” write Piketty et al.

It does seem that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the removal of the USSR as a competitive regime threat to the West encouraged even more aggressive deregulation, privatisation and tax-lite policies.

This is why it’s a shame China’s Xi Jinping seemed to go off the rails these past few years. For a while it did look as though “socialism with Chinese characteristics” could give the West’s aggressive “winner-takes-all” freemarket capitalism a run for its money in the court of public opinion. Xi’s “common prosperity” policy seemed targeted at the evident inequality of Western capitalism as much as at homegrown Chinese billionaires.

His willingness to cause many of those billionaires to disappear suggests a Proudhon-type attitude to wealth as theft.

Western governments have a much more deferential attitude to their billionaires. The deference might be down to obscene levels of lobbying, or the hope of a well-paid sinecure after retiring from public life.

And how delightfully whimsical was Xi’s decision to impose strict limits on the amount of time children could spend online.

For a while it looked as though Xi was going to prove to the world it is possible to curb the excesses of the free market, possible to hold the super wealthy to account. But then he fell back into a rabbit hole of Communist Party obsession with control, which makes the West’s hollowed-out crony democracy look a little less scary. x

FEATURES An in-depth look at the hot button subjects of the day in SA and around the world

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NEWSMAKERS OF THE YEAR

ROLLERCOASTER YEAR

SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT!

HOW NOT TO SEE IN THE NEW YEAR

Jacob Zuma showed this year that he will do anything to stay out of prison and keep a hold on power — even if that means SA has to go up in flames

The country’s economy and psyche have been dragged from euphoria to despair by the events of the past 12 months

That’s Zuma’s autobiography, apparently — all 100 copies available — not the former president coming clean about his relationship with the Guptas

The Jameson Raid was a dangerous and drunken affair, with a hangover that would plague SA for years

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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cover story

newsmaker of 2021

SLASH AND BURN Former president Jacob Zuma showed this year that he will do anything to keep out of prison and keep a hold on power — even if that means SA has to go up in flames. The awful irony is that the looting of the fiscus during his presidency played no small role in creating the poverty so cynically exploited by his allies during the July unrest

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Natasha Marrian marriann@fm.co.za

o one individual has done more to delegitimise the state and subvert the rule of law in SA this past year than Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.

During his nine years as president, Zuma’s treachery was hidden by the façade of officialdom. He was protected by a coterie of compromised ministers, submissive law enforcement agencies and an ANC whose moral compass had been jettisoned at the elective conference in Polokwane in 2007, when he assumed leadership of the party.

Yet it was only on leaving office that he shrugged off all pretence, and openly rode roughshod over the constitution and the law.

In the end, 2021 will be remembered as a year of legal reckoning for the former president: he was jailed for contempt of court, and failed — again — to have the court throw

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

dence about Zuma’s allies the Guptas, his son Duduzane Zuma, and key ministers and government officials.

At first, Zuma sought to have the report and its recommendations set aside on review (he failed).

But things only got worse for him: after his chosen successor, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, lost to Cyril Ramaphosa at the 2017 ANC elective conference at Nasrec, one of The tinderbox Ramaphosa’s first tasks as ANC president On July 15 2019, Zuma sat in the witness box was to direct Zuma to set up the at the commission of inquiry into state capture, chaired by deputy What it means: commission. Zuma, powerless without the cover of the ANC preschief justice Raymond Zondo.

The key It had been a long road to get question still is: idency, had to comply.

Still, it took over a year — after there. Back in 2016, then public will Cyril Ramaprotector Thuli Madonsela recomphosa be ready much wrangling with Zuma’s lawyers, and after more than 40 mended in her “State of Capture” to act on the report that a commission of inquiry Zondo findings witnesses implicated him in wrongdoing — before Zuma finally be set up to probe allegations of — particularly agreed to appear before Zondo on corruption and state capture. Her in an ANC July 15 2019. report contained disturbing evielection year? out arms-deal corruption charges against him. It was also a year in which the deadliest riots this side of apartheid played out across SA — ostensibly in Zuma’s name, and ably cheered on by his children.

Once the smoke cleared, more than 300 people lay dead, and the economy, already battered by Covid, was R50bn poorer.

What followed was a feverish court battle, which included Zondo approaching the Constitutional Court to compel Zuma to appear before him. The court supported that application in January this year, but it wasn’t kind on Zondo either, accusing the commission of treating the former president with kid gloves.

Thus began Zuma’s road to prison.

Days after the ruling, Zuma announced he would not abide by the Constitutional Court order, which led the court to find him in contempt. It didn’t help Zuma’s case that he chose not to defend himself, even after then chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng gave him an additional opportunity to make his case.

Instead, Zuma did what he does best, whingeing about his plight and playing the victim. It kick-started the second prong of his legal strategy: propaganda.

The days that followed were marked by obfuscation, denial, bizarre legal arguments and conspiracy theories — not least of which, in Zuma’s telling, was a 30-year plot by local and foreign spies to keep him away from the presidency and to kill him. These faceless, nameless foes continued stalking him, he said, even after failing to prevent his ascent.

Yet Zuma’s channelling of his inner Ian Fleming wasn’t even the highlight of his short stint in the witness box.

When faced with questions about how he had outsourced his executive power to Atul Gupta, Zuma became unstuck: his usual jovial, cocky veneer slipped, he shifted in his seat, cleared his throat repeatedly and fidgeted; his lawyers, seeing this obvious discomfort, jumped up and down.

Four days later, Zuma summarily withdrew from the commission, his testimony incomplete. It was, his lawyers said, the fault of the commission’s evidence leaders.

The spark Zuma’s whingeing hinged on three themes: he was a victim of bias by the courts; his treatment by the judiciary was reminiscent of the apartheid era; and he was to be detained without trial.

All of this was a lie.

First, Zuma chose not to participate in a court hearing against him, failing to submit affidavits in his own defence. His strategy was to avoid participating in the state capture commission at all costs. You can see why. The allegations — for example, that he was a beneficiary of an intelligence slush fund — made the arms-deal corruption charges look like a Sunday picnic.

By refusing to participate, he could keep open one avenue to discredit the commission: challenge Zondo’s final report, and argue that his side of the story wasn’t heard.

It was, effectively, the groundwork for a longer-term legal strategy to fend off any possible charges.

What he didn’t count on was the damning judgment by the Constitutional Court — and a 15-month jail sentence for contempt.

So the Zuma propaganda machinery went to work again, whipping supporters into a frenzy, repeating his lie that this amounted to “detention without trial” and “judicial bias”.

Zuma’s children fanned the flames too — particularly his daughter Duduzile ZumaSambudla, who took to Twitter with a vengeance. Elsewhere, WhatsApp groups driven by the ANC’s “radical economic transformation” faction, business lobby groups, xenophobic truckers and rogue Umkhonto we Sizwe operators aligned to Zuma all got to work.

As Zuma, at the 11th hour, handed himself over to the Estcourt correctional services centre on July 8, the fuse had been lit by his

supporters. No matter what laws he had broken, his allies weren’t going to stand for his imprisonment.

In truth, Zuma’s jailing “was a victory for the rule of law”, says Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution executive director Lawson Naidoo. “For a former head of state to be sentenced to a jail term for contempt of court is hugely significant.”

But Zuma would serve fewer than two months before being released on medical parole — by none other than his long-term ally, the former correctional services commissioner Arthur Fraser.

Still, says Naidoo, the fact that he was jailed at all is important.

The fire By the morning of July 9, parts of KwaZuluNatal (KZN), and then Gauteng, were on fire.

Blockades and sporadic protests in support of Zuma had morphed into large-scale looting of malls; those directing events posted messages to WhatsApp groups.

All the while, Zuma-Sambudla continued to hold court in her taxpayer-sponsored castle at Nkandla, cheerleading from the side.

“Iziqhumane ZaKwaZulu … Silindile [Shooters out in KwaZulu, we are waiting],” read one post, along with a clip of a machine gun being fired in the air. She tweeted pictures of burning trucks, highways ablaze, each with the location and the words “We see you, Amandla!” and #FreeJacobZuma.

What may have started as a grievance linked to Zuma had mutated into rioting and looting, fuelled by SA’s eye-watering levels of unemployment and desperate poverty.

Thousands descended on shopping malls, looting electronics, liquor, clothing — anything they could get their hands on.

More than 150 malls were attacked, along with 11 warehouses, eight factories and 161 liquor stores and factories. More than 300 people died, many trampled to death.

Months down the line, Citi economist Gina Schoeman says it’s still difficult to quantify the exact loss to the economy. But without the July unrest, the third-quarter GDP figures released by Stats SA last week, which showed the economy contracting 1.5% quarter on quarter, would have looked rather different. “There are various industry estimates of the cost in [rand] terms, but it is obvious from economic growth the cost of the event,” she tells the FM. More insidiously, given that such violence is no longer considered an abstract risk but a real possibility, there will also probably be longer-term costs.

“Has [the violence] increased SA’s risk premium, which ultimately increases the December 16 - December 22, 2021

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AFP via Getty Images/Marco Longari

cover story bly, he explains.

Once the spark was lit, those instigating the riots lost control But what the violence showed so clearly is that the collapse of SA’s security cluster is far worse than anyone imagined. The recent SA Human Rights Commission hearings on the riots have simply underscored this terrifying truth.

During the hearings, government departments were at each other’s throats. So, too, were Cele and national police commissioner Khehla Sitole, trading blame for the absence of any real policing during the unrest. It was hard to disagree with Mapisa-Nqakula, who the news mouse

Picking up the scraps: Looters at a vandalised mall in Vosloorus during the unrest in July

cost of capital, which requires a higher rate of return on investment? For sure. It is part of the narrative when discussing uncertainty — politically, policy-wise and economically,” says Schoeman. “[It’s] a very big threat, especially when unemployment and inequality continue to worsen. It is difficult to argue for social stability with those record-high metrics. It adds to the growing view that political and policy uncertainty remain extremely high.”

This is now reflected in one of the steepest yield curves in the world, as the government must compensate for its higher risk premium by paying more interest on its debt.

The ashes After days of unrest, Ramaphosa deployed 25,000 soldiers to KZN and Gauteng. It was embarrassingly late in the game, and happened only after footage revealed a police force completely out of its depth. In some places the police were outmanned, but in others they nonchalantly sat on the sidelines, ignoring the unfolding mayhem.

If Zuma’s supporters acted, Ramaphosa’s administration dithered in response. As SA burnt, politicians did what they do best: very little, with a smattering of confusion.

The government couldn’t even agree on what to call the unrest. Ramaphosa characterised it as a “failed insurrection”, only to be contradicted days later by defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. Then when state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo said she had provided the police with intelligence of possible riots weeks before they occurred, 26

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

police minister Bheki Cele flatly denied this.

As far as bad farce goes, it was Wag the Dog meets the Keystone Cops.

In the end, much of the violence was curbed by communities who took matters into their own hands.

In KZN, that took on a deadly and decidedly racist flavour, with the Indian community in Phoenix targeting members of the black community in a spate of vigilante killings. In Soweto, Tembisa and parts of Mpumalanga, communities began defending their malls, stopping looters from destroying the already meagre infrastructure in sprawling informal settlements.

But perhaps the most demoralising part of it all was the aftermath.

As the dust cleared, the government vowed that the masterminds would be brought to book; the police claimed 12 key instigators were under investigation.

To date there have been 18 arrests — and no indication whether any of these were of the alleged masterminds of the violence. The specifics of the “insurrection” have yet to be detailed in any court papers.

In hindsight, independent political analyst Ralph Mathekga believes Ramaphosa was entirely wrong to characterise it as an attempted insurrection. If it was, he asks, why has the administration taken so long to properly effect arrests?

The “trigger point”, Mathekga says, was the ANC itself. In reality, it wasn’t an insurrection; it was an “environment of mutiny” created by a party lacking the basic discipline to resolve internal differences amica-

A most conspicuous absence

Shamila Batohi

There may be no crisis at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), according to national director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi, but there’s not much else either.

Certainly, no results to speak of. No cases in court or culprits in the dock, let alone the prospect of an actual jail sentence for any of the moneygrubbing crooks who, having plundered SA’s purse, are still happily tearing about the country, Fendi-suited, Gucci-booted, swinging the odd Louis Vuitton bag.

South Africans might have hoped Batohi would be the FM’s newsmaker of 2021 for precisely that rare thing the public is desperate to see: accountability. Instead, she’s kept a lower profile than an ANC member at confession — other than her media briefing and parliamentary appearance last week, that is, where she was grilled over the resignation of Investigating Directorate (ID) head Hermione Cronje.

DA MP and former NPA prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach puts it succinctly: “We are three years down the line [from Batohi’s appointment], and we have

seen very little progress. It is not good enough to tell us we need to be patient. Our patience has run out. That runway is closed. We need to see results, we need to see people in court, we need to see prosecutions. We need to see people going to jail. It’s as simple as that.”

Speaking to the FM following Batohi’s appearance in parliament, Breytenbach says there are plenty of large-scale corruption cases dating back to the early 2010s that “must get attended to”.

But there are more recent ones that would boost citizens’ confidence in the criminal justice system if prosecutions were brought, she says. “South Africans should be able to see that if you break the law you go to jail.”

Breytenbach cites the theft of public funds destined for personal protective equipment (PPE) to combat Covid, and the Life Esidimeni horror.

“Stealing money from PPE — that’s a priority. When you send disabled people off to die — that’s a priority,” she says. “As soon as you do this, all this pressure will go away. Then people will be prepared to wait for a result.”

In Batohi’s defence, the NPA hasn’t received anything close to the funding it needs to go after SA’s insouciant crooks. More than R422m was cut from the organisation’s original budget and R41m from the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) in the last financial year (the NPA got R4.5bn, and the SIU R438m).

The ID has a budget of about R324m over three years. “Bubblegum money,” sniffs Breytenbach.

Batohi argues that “moving too fast with cases is counterproductive”. We say moving just a little might be quite helpful. x Giulietta Talevi

Ramaphosa is ready to act on the findings — particularly in an ANC election year, with Zuma’s remaining allies in the party looking for any excuse to weaken the president.

Zuma may not be in jail any more, but he’s not off the hook. Apart from his pending corruption trial, the DA is challenging his release on medical parole. And Zuma-Sambudla faces possible criminal charges for inciting violence.

It means that, sadly, the country hasn’t seen the last of the 79-year-old Zuma — whose ability to weaken the fabric of its democracy has left any legacy he may have claimed in tatters.. x

next year.

As for Zuma? This week he released the first instalment of his biography, Jacob Zuma Speaks. It won’t surprise anyone to learn that it’s hardly the long-awaited tell-all about the skeletons in his comrades’ closets; rather, it’s a sanitised and glowing account of his presidency — a period Ramaphosa has called “nine wasted years”.

It may be Zuma firing up the propaganda machine early, ahead of Zondo’s final report, due on January 1. Once Ramaphosa gets that document, expect Zuma and his allies to again attack the judiciary.

The key question will be whether

business

ESKOM’S HEART OF DARKNESS Persistent load-shedding has kept SA’s struggling power utility solidly in the news this year — and its underfire CEO André de Ruyter along with it Rob Rose roser@fm.co.za

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ou wouldn’t have wanted to be Eskom CEO André de Ruyter this past year. Never mind juggling R402bn in debt, it was the crippling bouts of rolling blackouts that gave his critics an opening to call for his axing after less than two years in the job.

“It has been one of the most challenging years since I started my career 32 years ago,” De Ruyter tells the FM. “We’ve definitely made progress on some important strategic imperatives, but the big disappointment has been load-shedding.”

That’s no exaggeration. At one point in June, more than a third of Eskom’s generating units had broken down, as its energy availability factor — the percentage of power available for dispatch — fell to 64% from about 84% in 2011.

The blackouts became so frequent that they spawned an entire cottage industry of Eskom jokes. Have you heard the one, for instance, of how André temporarily handed

Freddy Mavunda

concluded that the police didn’t have a handle on the situation.

This week, University of Pretoria professor Sandy Africa’s panel, charged with looking into the government and the security cluster’s response, is set to present its draft report on the July unrest to Ramaphosa.

It is believed to offer a comprehensive — and damning — account of events.

Ramaphosa has already shaken up his cabinet once since the unrest, ousting some ministers in the security cluster. Further shifts may be on the cards, given the Africa report, as well as Zondo’s final report, which is set to be handed to the president early

André de Ruyter: It’s been frustrating for me that we haven’t made more progress

control of Eskom to his sister, Jenna Ruyter?

De Ruyter says he’s heard them all — often sent to him by friends and family.

“That doesn’t make it any funnier or more palatable,” he says. “I do take it very personally. It’s immensely disappointing when I have to go out and share with the public that there will be load-shedding, particularly when it could have been avoided.”

It doesn’t help that there is little tangible sense of progress.

In November, shortly after the elections, Eskom’s power crisis deepened, leading to a December 16 - December 22, 2021

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newsmakers prolonged period of stage 4 power cuts that Business Unity SA says would have cost SA more than R25bn. Earlier this year consulting company PwC estimated that load-shedding would be responsible for slashing SA’s already subpar GDP growth this year by half.

In one of the media briefings during the November nadir, it emerged that since SA hit an unprecedented level 6 load-shedding two years ago, not a single new megawatt was added to the grid. That appears unforgivable.

“It’s been frustrating for me that we haven’t made more progress, especially when it came to implementing our reliability maintenance programme,” says De Ruyter.

When he joined, De Ruyter promised he’d

And yet, hard as it is to imagine, Eskom has actually made some institutional progress this year.

De Ruyter says the balance sheet is stronger than it’s been in a long time, and there’s been progress towards splitting the utility into three separate businesses: transmission, generation and distribution.

Equally, Eskom has made headway towards cleaning up a company that seemed, at one point, entirely poisoned from within.

A few weeks ago the Special Investigating Unit’s investigations officer Leonard Lekgetho told parliament at least 102 Eskom officials had illegally done business with the

Sunday Times/Moeletsi Mabe

Eskom’s coal-fired Duvha power station outside eMalahleni in Mpumalanga

carry out this “reliability maintenance” in strict compliance with the guidelines of the original equipment manufacturers.

Only, this hasn’t been possible. In part, this is because Eskom just doesn’t have the cash available to plan for maintenance, buy spare parts, and sign contracts with providers. And the government’s rules on procurement have only made it harder.

“The procurement system does not lend itself to a maintenance programme. The average response time of the Treasury to requests for approvals is 77 days,” he said last month.

And the Public Finance Management Act, which obliges firms to embark on a laborious process of gathering three quotes, doesn’t help.

This suggests De Ruyter’s early ambitions have run into the cold reality that Eskom remains firmly stuck in bureaucratic treacle — unable to swiftly buy what it needs, or find the cash to deal with emergencies.

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utility, pocketing R5bn-plus in the process.

That’s before you consider how much money was wasted elsewhere: in one of the more bizarre revelations, it emerged this year that Eskom had been paying as much as R26 a roll of single-ply toilet paper (four times the cost) and R51 a black refuse bag (20 times the real cost.)

De Ruyter has attacked these sorts of costs with zeal — but this sparked a bitter fightback from within.

“We mustn’t underestimate the degree of internal resistance to some of our fixes,” De Ruyter says. “For example, I’ve badgered my guys to install a barcode system for controlling stock in our warehouses, but unless I drive this, it doesn’t happen, because there are vested interests that benefit from this lack of control.”

Of course, it needn’t always be vested interests pulling the handbrake on the cleanup; in many cases, it may be good old-fash-

ioned inertia, or ineptitude. State-run companies, after all, have never been an incubator of the can-do spirit.

Yet it is load-shedding that has given De Ruyter’s opponents enough tinder to demand his axing. Last week, the National Union of Mineworkers reiterated its call for De Ruyter and COO Jan Oberholzer to be axed for supposedly “destroying” Eskom.

More insidiously, this call has been amplified by a number of De Ruyter’s compromised predecessors, including Matshela Koko and Brian Molefe.

Remarkably, the SABC and other media even interviewed Koko — who was memorably caught lying on Carte Blanche about Eskom’s prepayment to the Guptas, and whose stepdaughter scooped contracts from Eskom worth millions — as a so-called “analyst” on Eskom’s travails.

Says De Ruyter: “The spectacle of some of my predecessors being [used] by our national broadcaster as energy experts, when we are trying to fix the legacy of what they left behind, is a bit much.”

Perhaps if the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had shown the slightest interest in bringing criminal charges against those implicated in looting the entity over the past decade, it would be different. But in yet another sterling example of institutional molasses, it hasn’t.

Eskom needs this reckoning, says De Ruyter. “We really need the NPA to start moving. There should be consequences in terms of any breaches of the law. And it should be swift and certain — not a decade after the fact.”

As it is, those who left Eskom under a cloud are now hard at work lobbying for De Ruyter to be axed. And were they to get their way, would anything improve at the utility?

Not likely.

As Business Unity SA CEO Cas Coovadia argues, it doesn’t make sense “to create a governance and leadership problem in the midst of an operational problem”.

Better for De Ruyter to commit to a timetable of improvements, analysts say, and hold him accountable for delivering on it.

Those goals include halting load-shedding. “To end load-shedding definitively, we need to add 4GW-6GW of capacity to the grid,” he says. “This will give us the required headroom to carry out maintenance, and to start on the just energy transition.”

If the old cliché is that it’s darkest before the dawn — or, alternatively, at 4am during load-shedding — then it may just be that 2022 is the turning point. Because, thanks to Eskom, the country spent most of 2021 in a pretty dark place indeed. x

Gallo Images/Alet Pretorius

politics

GETTING IN ON THE ACTION The success of ActionSA in the local government elections caught many off guard, and its subsequent surprise vote (with the EFF) for DA mayoral candidates in Gauteng has given it additional political heft Carien du Plessis

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ormer president Jacob Zuma’s illconceived, if short-lived, decision to put David Des van Rooyen in the finance ministry six years ago had at least one unintended consequence: it pushed Herman Mashaba properly into politics.

It was either that, or he’d have ended up a drunkard or in a mental institution, the ActionSA leader quips, reminiscing about SA’s “weekend special” finance minister.

It was, he says, this final straw that set him on his current career trajectory. He’d already resigned as chair of the Free Market Foundation and become a card-carrying DA member. But in short order he decided he’d run for office — a move that would set him up for an acrimonious split from the opposition party in 2019, and ultimately lead him to launch ActionSA in August last year.

“I’m a real accidental politician,” Mashaba says, echoing the title of his biography (written by ActionSA national chair Michael Beaumont). “It’s something I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would do.”

Just over a year after its launch, ActionSA secured sufficient votes in the six municipalities it contested in the local government elections to become the sixth-largest party in SA, with 2.36% of the vote.

In Gauteng, ActionSA managed a big enough share of a very fractured vote in the metros (16.05% in Joburg, 6.6% in Ekurhuleni and 8.64% in Tshwane) to hold some sway — thought not quite enough to return Mashaba to the mayoral chair in Joburg, as he may have hoped.

Now, after Mashaba at the 11th hour convinced the EFF to vote with ActionSA for DA mayors in the three metros, the parties have been thrashing out positions.

Mashaba himself has not been part of the talks, he says, because “if I don’t agree with something I don’t keep quiet”.

Herman Mashaba: Willing to serve as an ordinary councillor for Joburg as he builds ActionSA

Instead, Beaumont has represented ActionSA, and it’s said the party wanted key positions on the mayoral committees — such as the finance portfolios — for itself and the EFF. However, the DA, with the larger number of seats, has been unyielding. The party has accused ActionSA of trying to punch above its weight in the talks, but Mashaba attributes this to his former colleagues “[allowing] their hatred of me to cloud their common sense”.

In Mashaba’s telling, his days as DA mayor started on a reluctant note in 2016; the businessman almost lost his nerve.

“I learnt through the media the EFF didn’t want me,” he said. “I wasn’t involved in the negotiations.”

He says he felt the DA was forcing him to work with the EFF and he told his wife, Connie, he was being set up. “My wife said: ‘Many people voted for you and not the DA. You can’t let people down.’” That was how he eventually relented.

In 2019, after Helen Zille’s election as DA federal council chair, Mashaba was pushed to resign. The DA claimed he had to go because “he became the EFF’s mayor” and failed to act against illegal land invasions. His version is that the DA wanted the municipality “to cut grass in Sandton” rather than give projects to poor communities.

There were also, of course, his pronouncements against undocumented immigrants and unlicensed businesses — though these didn’t seem to bother the DA too much. He brushes off the accusations of xenophobia, saying he is simply in favour of stricter law enforcement.

For now, Mashaba is willing to serve as an “ordinary councillor” for Joburg as he builds ActionSA further.

In political terms, this means he’s thinking in 2½-year instalments — to the general elections in 2024, rather than the end of the fiveyear local government term.

To that end, he’s recruiting “strong provincial chairpersons to be premier candidates”, and he mentions, in confidence, the name of the party’s new North West leader, to be made public on December 18.

With both the ANC and DA on a downward trajectory, and with the exponential growth of race-centred parties such as the EFF and Freedom Front Plus, the businessminded Black Like Me founder and “unapologetic capitalist” could step into the gap as a leader with cross-racial appeal.

He believes the voting patterns in the metros in the November 1 elections proved this.

“I hate racism with a deep heart,” he tells the FM. “I’m 62 and I spent half my life under the apartheid system, but I took a decision at the age of 22 to free myself, and had an opportunity. This freedom, I got it by working with all South Africans.”

It’s this ability to work across social divisions that underscored his business success, the Hammanskraal-born Sandtonite claims.

Before he discovered politics, Mashaba was seriously considering emigration — perhaps to Florida in the US, or Rwanda. The latter is well-run, but his concern was “what happens to life beyond [President] Paul Kagame”, a man he considers a “great leader”.

But while he believes in firm leadership, he says he also puts great store in democracy and the constitution.

“We are a special people, but it is unfortunate that we are let down by our leadership,” he says. “Let’s take personal responsibility to correct it.” x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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newsmakers

THE MAN WITH A PLAN Imtiaz Sooliman’s Gift of the Givers provides communities with water, hospital patients with food, doctors with PPE. In all ways, it stands in where the state has fallen short, and is a testament to selfless service Adele Shevel shevela@businesslive.co.za

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ift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman never planned to set up a humanitarian relief organisation.

It was a chance spiritual encounter that led the medical doctor to wind down his three Pietermaritzburg practices almost 30 years ago, and establish an outfit that would become a mainstay of the disaster relief landscape — in SA and elsewhere in the world.

Just this month, Gift of the Givers has assisted the Southern Cape communities of George and Oudtshoorn following devastating flash floods, providing plastic sheeting, blankets and food. That’s in addition to a R5m upgrade to the Nkqubela TB Hospital in East London — one of several hospitals in the underserved province that the organisation is upgrading. And ongoing water provision to drought-stricken parts of the country.

Over its 29 years of existence, Gift of the Givers has become the largest home-grown disaster response agency in Africa, delivering nearly R4bn of on-the-ground support in more than 43 countries. In large part, that’s due to Sooliman’s tireless direction. He’s a self-confessed workaholic (he recently had two stents put in, and was back at work 48 hours later). “My family? They know I’m mad,” he tells the FM. But this wasn’t his original plan. “I didn’t get up one day and say: ‘Let me get a group of people together, write a constitution, have founding principles and form an organisation.’ It never happened like that,” he says.

Back in 1986, Sooliman met an Afrikaner in Pietermaritzburg, who’d recently returned from the US. He told Sooliman of a spiritual teacher in Turkey, whom he should try to meet.

“I said: ‘Is this a joke?’ I’d never seen Cape Town, when would I see Istanbul?

He said: ‘What God wills happens, there’s 30

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Imtiaz Sooliman: Gift of the Givers has a policy not to ask for money

a time and a place.’”

Sure enough, five years later Sooliman met the teacher at a Sufi centre in Turkey. It was just after the first Gulf war, the world was polarised, and it was a time of huge conflict. “Emotions were high — and you come to a place like this, [coming] from a place with an apartheid past … and you see all kinds of people — Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims … from all around the world.

And you think, what the hell is going on here? … There are no arguments, nobody fights, everybody respects each other’s point of view. Nobody is judged,” he says.

The teacher explained his world view: that there is a single deity for all of humankind — different groups just call it by different names. “[The teacher] said: ‘Any imam, priest and rabbi who preaches violence, terrorism, extremism and discord and the taking of life is not a man of God — don’t follow him,’” Sooliman says. “Immediately, all the blinkers, the tunnel vision, the prejudice, stereotypes, anything negative related to fellow human

beings evaporated … It became clear you assess human beings as human beings: the blood is the same, anger is the same, the hurt is the same.”

Then came the instruction. As Sooliman tells it, the teacher spoke in Turkish — and somehow Sooliman was able to understand every word. The teacher told him: “My son, I am not asking you, I am instructing you to form an organisation. In Arabic it’s Waqful Waqifin and translated it means Gift of the Givers.

“The name will be this. You will serve all people of all races, all religions, all colours, all classes, all cultures, of any geographical location and of any political affiliation. But you will serve them unconditionally — you will expect nothing in return, not even a ‘thank you’ … Serve people with love, kindness, compassion and mercy. And remember the dignity of man is foremost.

“So if someone is down on the ground, don’t push them further. Hold them, elevate them, caress the head of an orphan, wipe the tear of a grieving child, help the widow,

Sunday Times/Thapelo Morebudi

society

The moment Sooliman walked out of the centre, he knew what his next step would be. He took 31 containers of aid to Bosnia — a fractured country in the grip of civil war — then eight containers to Eastern Europe.

Three months later, he started building the world’s first container mobile hospital, in Pretoria.

By then, he’d also arranged 10 containers of back-up medical supplies, a generator and a bus for patients. “When CNN filmed the hospital in February 1994, they said the SA mobile hospital is equal to any of the best hospitals on the ground in Europe,” he says.

“When we started, it was the Muslim community who funded us.

It’s a religious instruction, we ingrain it in our children from the day we are born — you are frowned upon if you don’t give charity.”

But while Gift of the Givers is a Muslim organisation, “Islamic teachings emphasise service to all,” Sooliman explains. “Race, religion and colour mean nothing to us.”

As the organisation grew, and more people and organisations began to contribute, Gift of the Givers was able to deliver aid to Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, the Philippines, Nepal and South Sudan.

For all its work abroad, however, the organisation remained relatively unknown in SA. Until the Knysna fires of 2017. Then the public really began to understand how Gift of the Givers worked, says Sooliman, with its medical teams, fire teams, life support, paramedics and its own ambulances. It arranged fodder for animals in the elephant park, 30t of pet food and 20,000 food parcels in the Knysna region.

Within three weeks, it had raised R20m from donors of all stripes. Then the big corporates got on board. It’s a remarkable feat, given the organisation’s policy not to ask for money. “We have no fundraising staff, we don’t make proposals, we don’t phone or knock or call,” Sooliman says.

A year later, with the threat of “Day Zero” hanging over Cape Town — the day the city’s taps were supposed to run dry — Gift of the Givers moved 300 containers of water from

Durban and Joburg, and drilled boreholes in the city.

Also in 2018, the Karoo town of Sutherland was collapsing. “Animals were dying and merino sheep would be decimated,” says Sooliman. “We drilled 238 boreholes, we started supplying millions of rands of fodder.

Quite often the fodder was donated by farmers in SA who hadn’t been affected [by the drought], but often we had to pay for transport.”

In response to pleas from Beaufort West, Gift of the Givers geologist Gideon Groenewald was sent to the town. The organisation drilled five boreholes, and pumped the water into the town’s reticulation system.

When the Eastern Cape ran into water woes in 2019, the Gift of the Givers drought relief programme expanded further.

For the past two years, the group has been at the forefront of SA’s response to

thing for us,” says Sooliman.

Last December, a national ventilator group approached Gift of the Givers. It had developed a ventilator specifically for Covid patients as a temporary intervention. It was a life-saving device, but the group couldn’t get it into hospitals.

“The red tape … [meant] the machines were being blocked getting into the hospitals,” says Sooliman.

Then Gift of the Givers stepped in. Within 10 days, he says, the outfit had delivered 2,500 machines to hospitals in six provinces.

Soon, the messages started streaming in — “people broke down sobbing because they had access to these machines and they were saving lives”.

It probably helps that Sooliman won’t take no for an answer.

“I basically don’t follow rules, I just do what I have to do. They can jump, they can scream, I don’t care,” he explains. “People know when we walk into a town … if anyone tries to stop us, we just walk in.”

The group has become a recognisable — and trusted — presence on the ground. Communities know “the green people”, he says. “They see our branding. We take stuff in, calm them down, and the anger and pressure is gone.”

What does this mean for his relationship with the government?

In green: Gift of the Givers It’s “excellent”, he says. “In the has become a trusted presence on the ground morning we punch each other, knock each other in the teeth, and in the evening we have a cup of coffee Covid. When the virus reached SA last year, together. And the next day we do the same the organisation visited 210 hospitals, supthing. They realise we are there to help plying personal protective equipment and them, not to belittle them. I’m not interested reusable scrubs for doctors (it made 12,000 in politics.” sets at a cost of R400 each); it delivered If anything, Sooliman believes he can be masks, gowns, hazmat suits, goggles, pulse far more effective outside government, oximeters and thermometers. It installed where he feels less constrained by the rules. high-flow nasal machines, set up 10 Covid But he also believes “there are a lot of good testing sites, put in place mobile testing people” in the government who want to do teams and established 37 tents for triage at the right thing — though they’re often hamvarious hospitals. It also started a hospital pered by a huge shortage of skills at local upgrade programme, spending millions on government level, and a lack of adequate state facilities in Mitchells Plain in Cape resources. And, of course, “some people are Town and in Bhisho and other areas in the just downright thieves”.

Eastern Cape.

Still, Sooliman believes a turnaround is Earlier this year, Gift of the Givers under way in SA. “There is no shortage of secured water supplies at Rahima Moosa people wanting to make a difference — inside and Helen Joseph hospitals in Joburg, and it’s and outside government,” he tells the FM. sent drilling teams to other facilities. It’s also “There is a lot of hope in this country, but supplied R2m worth of medicines to the what is important is active citizenry. It’s a Eastern Cape and, as of last week, was provery important aspect in our development, viding food to patients at 40 hospitals in that where we don’t wait for government to fix province. things — we just do it.” x “Medical intervention has become a big Sunday Times/Thapelo Morebudi

clothe the naked and feed the hungry, provide water to the thirsty. In everything you do, do the best you can — not because of ego, but because you’re dealing with human life, emotion and dignity.”

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newsmakers sport

JUDGING RASSIE

SA’s director of rugby had the world game in a state with his strident assessment of a referee’s performance in a Rassie Erasmus Springboks-British & Irish Lions match in July. He must have foreseen some fallout David Williams

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as Rassie Erasmus correct in his analysis of Australian referee Nic Berry’s performance? Yes. Was he wise to put together an hourlong video highlighting Berry’s many mistakes and allow it to be “leaked” for global consumption? No. For most SA rugby fans, the answer to both questions would have been an emphatic “yes”. Few wanted to say otherwise for fear of being seen as unpatriotic.

Berry’s refereeing was indeed below the required standard, and it arguably resulted in the 17-22 defeat for the Boks in that first Test against the British & Irish Lions in July.

It took Nick Mallett, a former Springbok coach and SA’s most authoritative rugby commentator, to bring

some sanity to the controversy. Commenting on World Rugby’s decision to ban Erasmus from all rugby-related activities for two months, with a match-day ban until September 30 2022, Mallett said: “Nic Berry did have a very poor game. That wasn’t what they were allowed to adjudicate on.

They had to adjudicate on whether Rassie broke World Rugby rules in terms of the way directors of rugby and coaches deal with decisions.”

Erasmus, SA’s director of rugby, certainly did break those rules. He was found guilty of “attacking, disparaging and/or denigrating the game and match officials and not accepting their authority” — an unprecedented finding against a national coach.

There was something odd about Erasmus’s attack on the referee. It was not blurted out in the heat of the moment, but calculated and comprehensive. He could not have imagined he would not get into trouble.

Was he taking the risk of upsetting the authorities to put pressure on referees for the remaining two Tests against the Lions?

If the constant referrals to the TV match offi-

international

RED FLAGS

Xi Jinping: Has hopes of replacing the international liberal democratic system with one in which the state has primacy over every aspect of individual life

China’s Xi Jinping has spent the better part of 2021 consolidating his power. What that means for the international system remains to be seen — but early signs are concerning Ann Crotty

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021 is likely go down in history as the year President Xi Jinping’s legacy was set in stone. In November, the powerful central committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted a landmark resolution that will allow Xi, 68, to secure an unprecedented third term in office next year. He could rule China for life.

2022 is likely to reveal whether that legacy is dangerously negative or enrichingly positive for China and the world. At this stage it’s looking frighteningly like the former.

Of course, for Xi there are actually six more weeks before the year ends on January 30 — which means there’s enough time for

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

almost anything to happen.

There’s time for more countries to follow the lead set by the US, the UK and Australia and announce they won’t send government delegations to the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. Beijing has already warned that those three countries “will pay the price for their mistaken acts”.

There’s time for a few more hypersonic missile tests.

There’s time for several hundred more billion dollars of investment to be written off Chinese tech stocks as the CCP formalises its

position on foreign listings for powerful, datarich firms.

Perhaps there’s even time for a few more Chinese billionaires to disappear, as Xi gives further substance to his “common prosperity” slogan.

For decades the West assumed China would continue to mimic its version of democratic capitalism as the most effective way to secure economic growth. Eventually, it was thought, China would abandon its socialist roots and join the global capitalist club.

When he addressed the World Economic

cial in the crucial second Test (won 27-9 by the Boks) were anything to go by, he succeeded.

On the other hand, he also severely curtailed, for 12 months, his own future contribution to the Boks’ cause.

But, then, the charming Erasmus has always been rather unorthodox, even eccentric.

After his triumph in taking the Boks to winning the 2019 World Cup, he announced he would continue as director of rugby and step down from coaching in favour of assistant Jacques Nienaber. He then proceeded to appear on the touchline during matches pretending to be the “water boy”, but in fact relaying advice to players.

Questions were asked. Was this not undermining Nienaber? Was it not undignified for the national director of rugby to behave like this?

Did it not give opposing coaches an opportunity to ridicule SA? Erasmus is too intelligent not to have considered these things — clearly he didn’t care what anyone thought.

Forum at Davos in 2017, it seemed Xi had enthusiastically bought into this perspective, as he defended globalisation and the liberal economic order that underpins it. If nothing else, 2021 has shown this was yet another example of the dangerously low levels of understanding between China and the West.

In the years after Xi’s Davos speech, international relations became increasingly tense, initially led by US President Donald Trump’s erratic assault on China’s trade policy. But more recently, Xi’s increasingly assertive global stance and Beijing’s perceived reluctance to help deal with Covid have encouraged other Western countries, which for decades had seemed terrified of antagonising one of their largest markets, to take a tougher stance.

President Joe Biden has maintained Trump’s assertive policies. Even the EU, which announced a new investment deal with China on December 30 2020, began to get tough. The deal, championed by Germany’s Angela Merkel, was frozen months later, after the EU parliament voted 599 to 30 against it.

By November, members of the European parliament were on official visits to Taiwan and advocating an upgrade of Taiwan’s trading status, ignoring the sacrosanct OneChina policy.

From an international perspective, 2021 has been tough for Xi — tougher even than 2020. He may be perplexed by his fall from “grace”, given that for years the world’s most powerful politicians and businesspeople didn’t seem to care a jot about China’s policy

On match day when he was coaching the Free State Cheetahs, he was seen on the roof of the main grandstand with a contraption that looked like a set of traffic lights, apparently using different combinations of red, amber and green to signal tactical advice to the players on the field. Bloemfontein had never seen such a thing.

It was not clear whether the “rugby robot” made any difference — but it must have distracted the opposition, and it marked out Erasmus as a thinker (rugby doesn’t have too many of those). Again, he was unconcerned by criticism that he was being silly and acting in some way against the spirit of the game.

What is certain is that Erasmus is a great motivator of men. He combines that with careful selection, great tactical acumen and the courage to stick with his plans, even when everyone is howling for changes. He is able to make good players great, and great players consistent — often by deft changes in position. He backs a player like Willie le Roux, who is inconsistent but can be brilliant. He makes veterans

towards Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, or its increasingly aggressive claims on the South China Sea. For much of the past 40 years the international business and political community has kowtowed to China’s leadership, just as traders did to the emperors of the Middle Kingdom hundreds of years ago. Some still do.

One of the most powerful business leaders in the world, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, tied himself in knots recently trying to unwind his joke about his bank outlasting the CCP. Tesla’s Elon Musk, who never hesitates to criticise the US government, has only sweet things to say about China.

The much more hostile international environment is not restricted to the West. Xi’s Belt & Road Initiative seems to be losing traction, with increasing focus on the high levels of debt, corruption and environmental degradation that come with it.

The hostility may explain why Xi didn’t venture out of the country in 2021 — the second year in a row he stayed home. If so, it reflects a worryingly thin-skinned attitude from the leader of one of the world’s most formidable trading economies.

Like many Chinese leaders, Xi seems to suffer from a superiority complex derived from the centuries-old Middle Kingdom mentality.

He is also obsessed with the era of humiliation that began with the Opium Wars in the 19th century and ensured China played no role in creating the global system it now operates in.

The increasing hostility seems to have encouraged a more aggressive stance by Xi.

such as Frans Steyn and Morné Steyn look 10 years younger and induces them to be matchwinners under pressure.

Above all, he has somehow created a Springbok squad in which it is difficult to tell the top 15 players from the next 15. Not even the All Blacks have achieved that.

Whatever his innate gifts as a coach, Erasmus must have learnt from those he played under in his Springbok career of 36 caps between 1997 and 2001. He was part of Mallett’s superb side that won the 1998 Tri-Nations and went a record 17 matches undefeated.

Yet he also played under Harry Viljoen, a clever and innovative man who seemed to treat rugby like an MBA case study. Viljoen was indecisive, evasive with his players and in the end a disaster as a manager of men — Erasmus will have learnt from that, too.

Above all, Erasmus knows there is only one performance measure for the Springboks: they have to keep winning. As long as they do, he will be forgiven any further eccentricities and defiance of authority. x

Of course, it could just be that he was too busy to venture out, and 2021 was not a good year for that in any case. Not only was he caught up in China’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid, he was also putting an end to extreme poverty in the country. This he did in early 2021; a remarkable achievement given that in 1990 more than 750-million people — about two-thirds of the population — lived in extreme poverty.

There was also his commendable “common prosperity” policy, intended to ensure that not just a small minority of Chinese prosper from economic growth. This ambitious plan essentially aimed to curb the excesses of capitalism that have been given free rein for almost 30 years. In 2021 Xi did what every other global leader has refused to do — he challenged Big Tech.

In addition, 2021 saw progress with his “dual circulation” plan, which envisages a largely self-sufficient China that will continue to engage with the international economy and play a central role on that stage.

Xi’s more assertive leadership style may secure his position among the great leaders of the CCP, but it’s having a chilling effect outside China. His hopes of replacing the frayed international liberal democratic system with one in which the state has primacy over every aspect of individual life reflect a dismal understanding of global sentiment.

During 2022 we will get some indication of whether these hopes stand to be radically revised or violently dashed. The world will be a far better place if it is the former. x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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C O L L A B O R AT I O N

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C O L L A B O R AT I O N

Galaxy Z Fold3 5G + S Pen Boasting the first S Pen on a foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold3 offers precision that your fingers could only dream of. Put pen to glass and be amazed.

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Sumsung Galaxy Z Fold3 RRP* R37 999.00 S Pen Fold Edition- RRP R998,99

feature / economic year in review Claire Bisseker bissekerc@fm.co.za

T

So it was a big surprise when, at the end of June, President Cyril Ramaphosa kicked things up a gear by lifting the cap on energy self-generation from 10MW to 100MW, unleashing the prospect of billions of rands in green energy investment.

This, coupled with the robust firsthalf recovery driven by the commodity boom, transformed SA’s immediate fiscal and growth picture. Suddenly it was possible to imagine a future without load-shedding, where the debt ratio and SA’s credit risk were falling in tandem, and positive per capita growth was restored after years of steady decline.

he year 2021 started with SA in the throes of the second wave of the pandemic, which scuppered the summer tourism season and kneecapped large parts of the hospitality sector.

So the mood was understandably grim when finance minister Tito Mboweni stood up in February to release what turned out to be his final national budget. It was remarkable for the strong resolve the National Treasury showed in sticking to its fiscal consolidation plan.

The only problem was that it relied on a three-year wage freeze to achieve most of the envisaged spending cuts. Nobody was surprised when the unions dug in their heels and the government ultimately wilted, granting workers an average increase of 6% for 2021/2022.

The upshot was a R20.5bn overrun on the wage bill. But, thanks to an unexpectedly large R120bn revenue windfall, courtesy of the commodity boom, the extra amount could be absorbed — and the fiscus still looked better by the end of the year than expected.

Previously, the Treasury was expecting the debt ratio to hit 81.9% of GDP this fiscal year and to stabilise at about 89% by 2025/2026. Now it is set to come in at just under 70% this year and stabilise at about 78% in five years. So debt is going to keep rising, but it’s still a substantial improvement.

In short, the cyclical uplift to SA’s revenue and growth prospects in 2021 provided by the commodity boom made both the fiscus and the economy appear much healthier on the surface. This allowed SA to sail through the May and November ratings agency What it means: reviews unscathed.

The commodity boom However, neither has made the economy Moody’s nor Fitch appear much healthier, have removed their but SA’s inability to negative outlooks on reform jeopardises its the country. long-term sustainability Indeed, there were strong warnings, both from the ratings agencies and business in the first half of the year, that the pace of structural reform was still too slow and the cost of borrowing too high for debt stability to be achieved over a five-year horizon, as the government has promised.

Business has become increasingly frustrated at the government’s failure to ease the cost of doing business. Its concerns were heightened when the country entered a severe third wave of the pandemic as winter set in and lockdown restrictions were ratcheted up to level 4.

Taken together with the announcement that the private sector had been granted a majority stake in SAA, and that the Transnet National Ports Authority would be corporatised, it even suggested the government was warming to the desirability of allowing greater private sector participation in SA’s key network sectors.

This is of crucial importance to the country’s longer-term sustainability, as SA’s costly, inefficient logistics system is one of the key impediments to growth.

At the time, Bureau for Economic Research chief economist Hugo Pienaar described the move on self-generation as “a much-needed game-changer”. The hope was that if it got the ball rolling on other stalled reforms and spurred

ROLLERCOASTER YEAR

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If SA thought 2021 would be the year harsh lockdowns would end, it was sorely mistaken. The country’s economy and psyche have been dragged from euphoria to despair by the events of the past 12 months

123RF/Vectorlab

overall investment, SA would look back on this as the moment when the tide turned for the country.

Buoyed by this tantalising prospect, the country’s economic narrative swung firmly into positive territory. Soon economists were falling over themselves to upgrade their 2021 real GDP growth forecasts from the 3%-4% range to about the 5% mark.

But before the constructive mood could gain a foothold, it all came crashing down in July in an orgy of looting and violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. These events set back SA’s economic recovery, steepened the challenge of dealing with poverty, inequality and unemployment, and completely undermined investor confidence.

“As ever, we take steps forwards as well as backwards,” says Business Leadership SA CEO Busi Mavuso.

She believes 2021 will be remembered as the year in which the energy crisis reached its peak and SA began to win against the pandemic. But she fears the country isn’t doing enough to turn the tide on rising unemployment which, at 34.9% in the third quarter, was SA’s highest on record.

Though the first decisive step was taken to end the energy crisis, Mavuso notes many other reforms haven’t yet been delivered. These include finalising spectrum auctions, fixing visa policies that make it hard for businesses to attract scarce skills, cutting red tape (from the detail of BEE regulation to exchange controls), liberalising Transnet to improve port and rail efficiencies, and kick-starting a major infrastructure programme by mobilising private sector funding.

Maiden budget: Enoch Godongwana delivers his mid-term budget on November 11 Bloomberg/Dwayne Senior

Last week, in its annual report on the SA economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed alarm at the lack of progress. It notes that the country’s economic rebound has not decreased unemployment because of anaemic private sector investment and deteriorating confidence, made worse by the July unrest.

It urges SA to tackle structural rigidities depressing investment, growth and job creation “immediately”, and warns that “[without] decisive action to address obstacles to investment and reduce the government’s need to borrow, growth and employment will not pick up”.

By the time the bill for the July unrest was tallied in the November medium-term budget, it came to R37.9bn in additional state expenditure.

A large part was to cover the extension of the R350 Covid social relief of As ever, we distress (SRD) grant, which take steps had expired in April, until forwards as March 2022. well as The unrest gave fresh impebackwards tus to a groundswell of opinion pushing for a basic income Busi Mavuso grant. Given the devastation wrought by the pandemic, compounded by the unrest, the case for greater income support has never been more compelling.

Many argue SA should view extending welfare as a form of insurance to prevent anger and hunger boiling over and fuelling political extremism. Unfortunately, SA’s public finances have never been weaker. The option of raising further taxes from a shrinking tax base to pay for greater welfare for rising numbers of unemployed adults is patently unsustainable in the absence of rapid economic growth.

So, despite the near-term improvement in SA’s fiscal metrics, concern over longer-term fiscal sustainability has continued to mount.

In early August, Enoch Godongwana replaced Mboweni as finance minister in a long-awaited cabinet reshuffle. His first task was to preside over the medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS), which was pushed out to mid-November to accommodate local government elections.

The ANC’s election drubbing led some analysts to fear that this would weaken the Treasury’s fiscal resolve. On the contrary, the MTBPS sent out a strong signal that the Treasury remains wedded to fiscal consolidation and will resist populist pressure that distracts it from its goal of debt stabilisation.

However, the budget is again subject to considerable implementation risk — it fails to allow for further bailouts of state-owned entities (SOEs), or for a big step-up in welfare spending, or for inflation-related salary increases for public servants. Yet all of these spending pressures are likely to materialise in the coming year.

This highlights the contradictory nature of the fiscal path being pursued, with the Treasury still attempting to curb spending across the board while other parts of the government back a huge welfare spending push.

“Critical to the fiscal path we have chosen is the need to be clear and unambiguous on the trade-offs we are willing to make as a nation,” said Godongwana in his budget speech.

“We cannot have everything we want at the same time.”

But this is precisely the lesson SA seems unable to learn. Politically, the SRD grant for SA’s unemployed adults looks impossible to roll back. However, if paid to all 16.8-million people who’re eligible (and not just the 9.5-million currently approved) the cost would quickly swell from R40bn to R70bn a year.

And yet, as the MTBPS made clear, the pandemic and the July unrest have virtually eliminated SA’s fiscal space. Meanwhile, fiscal risks have risen as the deterioration of many SOEs and municipalities continues unabated.

To crown a torrid year, load-shedding returned with a vengeance during the fourth quarter, making 2021 SA’s worst in terms of energy availability. And then in early December the new Covid variant, Omicron, was detected in SA. In the ensuing panic, many countries curbed travel to the country, which wiped R1bn off the summer tourism season, severely denting the recovery.

As the IMF report notes, the unfolding fourth wave has increased the downside risks to SA’s economic outlook. However, it still believes the country could sustain strong growth should the necessary reforms be undertaken.

SA lives in hope that 2022 will be the year when that happens; it has certainly run out of options. x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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feature / comment

SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT! T Chris Roper

he story I really wanted to write about today was carried by The Guardian on Sunday, titled “Spanish Bishop who Married Author of Satanic Erotica is Stripped of Powers”. What a great headline! It’s simultaneously coldly factual and wildly sensationalist. That’s the kind of headline I dream of.

It hints at a confluence of powers, both good and ungood, to quote Nick Cave’s song The Mercy Seat, and at an evil alliance between the word of God and the expletives of Satan.

Which brings us to the publishing event of the year: the launch of former president Jacob Zuma’s “autobiography”, Jacob Zuma Speaks: The Words of a President.

The title is already a bit of a giveaway. Jacob Zuma Writes was never going to fly. On the publisher’s website, the book’s authorship appears to be credited to Sipho Seepe, Kim Heller, Dudu Myeni and Themba Mathe. There is no author listed on the book’s cover. It’s also written in the third person, not the more customary first person that you’d associate with an autobiography. Mind you, illeism, or referring to yourself in the third person, is very much associated with egocentric, would-be despots. It was a favourite trick of Donald Trump’s.

My close textual analysis of the book will have to wait, as it’s sold out. I missed the first opportunity to buy a copy, as I thought the announcement was someone with a fake Twitter account making cruel fun of Mzwanele Manyi, official spokesperson for the Jacob G Zuma Foundation and its titular beneficiary. But it was in fact the former media titan and Gupta stooge himself. The tweet read: “Car Boot sales. Pre What it means: Book shop sales R300 per The book seems unsigned copy and R1,000 to be a way for for signed copy tomorrow Zuma to avoid 12/12/2021 @ 14h00. Deposit accountability for at Capitec Bank below. Bring his role in state proof of deposit, NO CASH. capture 1st come, 1st served. Dudu and I will be at Mcdonald in Sandton (Cr Grayston & Rivonia) #JACOBZUMASPEAKS.” Doesn’t that look fake? A presidential autobiography launched from a McDonald’s parking lot? While it potentially underscores Zuma’s reputation as a man of the people, in another way it’s as ridiculous as Trump’s famous Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference, acciden38

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That’s Jacob Zuma’s autobiography, apparently — all 100 copies available — not the former president coming clean about his relationship with the Guptas

tally held in front of a landscaping business near a sex shop and a crematorium.

I guess we should have expected this from a man who is chief strategist for a political party unabashedly called ATM. But, no, Manyi, the man who “bought” 24-hour propaganda station ANN7 from the Guptas is apparently still living the brand. That brand being incompetence and cutting corners.

You’ll probably remember the launch of ANN7, described at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture by launch editor, Rajesh Sundaram, as a train wreck.

“Anchors were not professional anchors, just models. Young interns fresh from university worked long hours without complaining. The technical staff were all from India and did not speak English,” Sundaram said.

He also described how Zuma functioned as “de facto editor in A presidential chief, holding meetautobiography ings at his Pretoria launched from a residence in the runMcDonald’s parking up to the launch of lot? It’s as ridiculous ANN7. So secret was as Trump’s famous Zuma’s role that the Four Seasons Total Guptas forbade any Landscaping of the team memconference bers from mentioning his name.”

Perhaps this is why they left Zuma’s name as author off his own “autobiography” — some vestiges of trying to hide accountability. Which would be tremendously fitting, as the book appears to be a way for Zuma to try just that: avoid accountability for his starring role in state capture.

By the way, I doubt you’d be surprised to learn that Manyi is part of the antivax clown army. “Did we know that AFTER after treatment of Covid-19 some people will have unexplained fatigue? What else don’t we know yet?? How can Mandatory Vax be ENFORCED yet there is no conclusive information about so many things? Informed consent is not possible.

Mandatory Vax = Bullying.”

But back to his own brand of snake-oil sales.

Unfortunately, if you paid your money and turned up at McDonald’s, you were probably out of luck. Arch-grifter Manyi tweeted: “This offer has now EXPIRED. But no stress. If u have Proof of Payment but due to limited stock you couldn’t get yr book today at 14h00, the following will apply. 1. Your money back tomorrow. 2. Get the Book later. 3. You can also choose to be deemed to have donated. YOU WILL DECIDE.” “Deemed to have donated”. There’s a lot of slippage in that sentence. And speaking of slippage, one of the celebrity purchasers, as featured on the twitter feed of Zuma’s daughter

Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, popularly known as the Ivanka Trump-lite of SA, is public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane. The tweet featured a pic of her in startlingly red boots, with the caption, “Thank You Mama @AdvBMkhwebane. We Love You!” When I saw the Jacob Zuma Foundation tweeting “SOLD — OUT. SOLD — OUT. SOLD — OUT”, I thought, wow, he’s finally coming clean about his relationship with the Guptas. Alas, it was just about the first print run selling out.

Which is not as impressive as you might think, if TimesLive’s report is accurate: “Manyi said Zuma would be very pleased to hear that the first 100 copies had sold ‘like hot cakes’.”

If you’re only printing 100 copies and selling out of a car boot, we’re not really talking about a major literary event. And it’s unclear whether Zuma’s book is really intended to be a piece of effective propaganda, or just another moneymaking scheme. Certainly, paying an extra R700 for a book just because it’s signed seems excessive.

It’s as hard to feel sympathy for Zuma’s pecuniary plight as it is to feel sorry for the Spanish bishop who lost his job because he decided to get in bed with the devil, so to speak.

Normally, we’d cheer him on, I presume, but not after you learn that he “is reported to have backed and participated in so-called conversion therapies for gay people”.

He’s moved on from a position where he was supposed to be a servant of the people, to selling pig semen. Another fitting metaphor for Zuma’s book, to go with the empty calories sold at McDonald’s.

The Nick Cave song referenced earlier is about a convicted murderer who refuses to admit he’s guilty until he is actually in the electric chair, “the mercy seat”, with no possibility of a medical parole. He sings, “And in a way I’m yearning / To be done with all this measuring of proof. A life for a life / And a truth for a truth / And anyway there was no proof / But I’m not afraid to tell a lie.”

Zuma, too, is not afraid to tell a lie. We can assume his book is yet another attempt to evade responsibility for his evisceration of SA’s economy and state. As the publishers hopefully write, entirely without irony: “Significantly Jacob Zuma Speaks comes at a time when the lie of the ‘nine wasted years’ for SA under the presidency of Jacob Zuma is increasingly being unmasked.”

One can only hope, fruitlessly I’m sure, that Zuma eventually has the same epiphany as the protagonist in the Cave song. “And in a way I’m yearning / To be done with all this measuring of truth. An eye for an eye / And a truth for a truth / And anyway I told the truth. But I’m afraid I told a lie.” x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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feature / the new year coup

Matthew Blackman

Botched effort: Not all the telegraph lies were cut as planned Supplied

D

ecember may, for some, be a time to set off to another part of SA with a bag of light summer attire and a decent book or two, with the only troubling thought being where to spend New Year’s Eve. For others in our history, it’s been a time to relocate — with some heavy military hardware in tow, and the goal of displacing a people or overthrowing a government.

The first, third, sixth and eighth of the nine frontier wars all began in the December/January period. And let’s not forget the Battle of Blood River on December 16 1838 (a day that’s accrued more names than Gqeberha: Dingane’s Day, Day of the Vow, Day of the Covenant, Day of Reconciliation).

The First SA War also started in December (and ended with the Boers kicking the British out of the Transvaal, in 1881).

On a less brutal note, some may recall December 31 1987, when a 32-year-old Bantu Holomisa led a bloodless coup in the Transkei while homeland prime minister Stella Sigcau was on holiday in Durban.

Holomisa’s military intervention was a response to the level of graft in the Transkei.

Under his subsequent rule, former leader George Matanzima was charged with nine counts of corruption and spent three years in jail.

But if there’s one event in SA’s history that truly joined the holiday spirit to catastrophic effect, it’s the Jameson Raid. Cecil John Rhodes’s attempt to overthrow Paul Kruger over New Year 1895/1896 would reverberate for years, politically and socially.

“Before the Jameson Raid my father used to write to my mother in English,” judge Kowie Marais said some 80 years after the event. “After the Jameson Raid he never allowed English to be spoken in the house again.”

A special bond In our research for Rogues’ Gallery: An Irreverent History of Corruption in South Africa, from the VOC to the ANC — and the soon-tobe-published Spoilt Ballots — Nick Dall and I were surprised at how often we came across Rhodes’s partnership with the anti-imperialist Afrikaner Bond in the Cape Colony.

In fact, Rhodes had become prime minister of the Cape largely because of the rural Afrikaners of “Onze” Jan Hofmeyr’s group.

But that was all before December 29 1895, when Rhodes’s “best man”, Leander Starr Jameson, rode into Kruger’s ZuidAfrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) with about 40

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HOW NOT TO SEE IN THE NEW YEAR

The Jameson Raid was a dangerous, drunken affair, with a hangover that would plague SA for years

500 men, armed to the teeth and with a healthy dose of Dutch courage.

The whole escapade was to turn into a drunken and ill-managed shooting party.

The scene was set in the year preceding these events, with Jameson and US mining engineer John Hays Hammond persuading Rhodes that a military overthrow of Kruger’s government was both possible and desirable.

The economic motive was obvious: control of the gold mines. But there were also moral reasons to do so, Hammond argued. Not only was Kruger’s regime backward and corrupt, but it also refused political representation to the Uitlanders (British and other immigrants), who had swarmed into the republic after the discovery of gold. For an American, a life of taxation without representation meant teatime — Boston-style.

The plan was simple enough: the Uitlanders, led by the “Reform Committee” (including Hammond and Rhodes’s brother Frank), What it means: would rise in rebelOddly enough, the raid lion in Joburg. They swung US sentiment would then call on away from Kruger and Jameson — supdrew the US closer to ported by a military Britain force made up largely of troops from Rhodes’s British SA Company (BSAC) — to ride to the rescue.

The planning started off well enough. Rhodes used his BSAC to buy a truly extraordinary arsenal for both Jameson’s invading army and the Reform Committee in Joburg. Rifles, Maxim guns and ammunition were smuggled into the city in oil drums.

Satisfied that the committee was ready to rise by the end of 1895, Jameson gathered his troops on the Bechuanaland border, waiting for the call.

But there were two fatal problems with the plan. First, getting the Uitlanders to actually rouse themselves to action. Their gripes with Kruger, though legitimate in part, were not as annoying to them as Rhodes and the British press claimed. Most were happy to negotiate with Kruger, and had no real interest in a war that might damage their beloved gold mines.

Second, Rhodes knew he couldn’t include his long-standing Afrikaans allies in the Cape in the conspiracy. Though the Afrikaner Bond’s politics were not quite the same as Kruger’s, the group was protective of the ZAR’s independence from Britain.

As it later turned out, there had been a fair amount of collusion between Rhodes and British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain — which went down like a lead balloon with the Afrikaner Bond.

Rhodes himself was entirely ambivalent as to what flag would fly over the ZAR after the raid:

British or that of a new independent republic, he didn’t care. He was only ever interested in being able to pull the strings after Kruger’s violent removal. He would have been happy to leave Britain out of this, but the jingoes were eager and ready, while the Afrikaner Bond was not.

The problems began in the lead-up to Christmas. Despite Frank Rhodes’s best efforts to instigate an uprising in Joburg, nothing happened. So Jameson was left on the border with an army of 500 — and they were beginning to drink.

With no sign of rebellion forthcoming, Hammond and Frank Rhodes concocted a letter claiming “unarmed men, women and children of our race will be at the mercy of well-armed Boers”.

The letter was, of course, totally bogus: no threat of this nature existed. But with no sign of an uprising, Jameson took matters into his own hands. After reading the fraudulent letter to his men, he galloped across the border ahead of his column of 500.

But what state were his men in? Several people at the time claimed the raid was simply “a drunken frolic”. Their first slip was failing to cut the telegraph lines to Pretoria (they mistakenly identified a farmer’s fence as a telegraph line), leaving communication lines open. One particularly drunken trooper is said to have buried the farmer’s fence, with the great satisfaction of a job well done.

What was more, Jameson’s right-hand man, Sir John Willoughby, accidentally crossed the border, taking with him Major Bobby White’s dispatch case, or trommel. It contained a diary with all the Uitlander conspirators’ names. There was also a stash of secret documents written in code — along with the cipher key to read them.

After Jameson’s border incursion was reported to Kruger via telegraph, a commando under Piet Cronjé rode out to shadow the raiders.

At Doornkop, near modern-day Soweto, Cronjé struck. Jameson, hopelessly outclassed and outmanoeuvred, was forced to surrender after 17 of his troops (many still in their teens) were killed and 55 wounded.

The Boers lost four men.

As the Boers swept the area, they discovered, in the dirt outside Krugersdorp, de trommel van Bobby White. The dispatch case, which had fallen out of a raider’s cart, gave up the family jewels: not only did it incriminate all the members of the Reform Committee, it also pointed to Rhodes’s collusion with British authorities.

Kruger gleefully had de trommel se contents published in local papers.

Mopping up Politics being what it is, Jameson and his officers would spend only a short time in a ZAR

jail. Kruger handed them over to the British government on agreement that they would be prosecuted in London for invading a foreign state. There, they were each sentenced to 15 months in prison.

After literally getting away with murder, Jameson would go on to become prime minister of the Cape.

As for the Reform Committee, Kruger lined them up for special treatment. Four, including Hammond and Frank Rhodes, Rhodes the were tried and sentenced to Afrikaner has death — though the sentences become an were later commuted to a impossibility fine (essentially a bribe) of — thus now £25,000 each and they were begins the released on June 11 1896. career of On the surface, the JameRhodes the son Raid might seem a jingo slightly innocuous joyride by Onze Courant a group of revellers that saw them greeting the new year in a ZAR prison, all the worse for wear. But the hangover would last for decades — and not just locally.

Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm sent a telegraph congratulating Kruger on Jameson’s defeat — proof, the British press said, of Germany’s interests in its Southern African colonies. The rift between the two countries grew significantly wider as a result.

What was more, the British establishment was rocked by the scandal. Even high-powered Americans such as media tycoon William Randolph Hearst stuck their oar in, outraged that Hammond (an American) was being held and tried.

Public sentiment in the US had been largely pro-Kruger and anti-British before the raid. But this swung around, and according to at least one historian was a significant factor in drawing the US and Britain closer together.

Locally, of course, the effects amounted to a social cirrhosis. Having lost the backing of the Afrikaner Bond, Rhodes had to step down as prime minister. Many in the Bond felt he had been “unmasked” as an imperialist provocateur and refused to work with him ever again.

As the Bond-aligned newspaper Onze Courant stated: “Rhodes the Afrikaner has become an impossibility — thus now begins the career of Rhodes the jingo.”

A giant rift emerged, too, between English and Afrikaans speakers. For the century to come, English speakers became suspects and outsiders, with one foot in Britain.

Rhodes himself would set SA on course for a far more devastating war. The Jameson Raid would turn out to be one of his many unnecessary and carelessly thought-through gifts to the nation. x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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feature / airlines

Gidon Novick: Aiming for a future, prosperous SAA Gallo Images/Brenton Geach

AIMING SKY-HIGH Airline industry veteran Gidon Novick believes low-cost airline Lift can teach SAA a thing or two once its sale to the Takatso Consortium is finalised Adele Shevel shevela@businesslive.co.za

G

idon Novick is no stranger to the airline industry. He’s a former joint CEO of Comair, and founder of low-cost airline kulula. More recently he, former Uber executive Jonathan Ayache and airline leasing and maintenance company Global Aviation launched Lift. The only new airline in the world to have taken to the skies in 2020, it’s celebrating its first birthday this month.

“We’ve been through four waves of a pandemic, aggressive price competition, rampant oil prices — survival and thriving through all that is a good sign,” Novick tells the FM. He also represents Global Aviation’s interest in the Takatso Consortium, the government’s preferred equity partner for the sale of SAA. It’s a joint venture with infrastructure and investment company Harith General Partners, and is chaired by Tshepo Mahloele, who is also chair of Arena Holdings, owner of the FM. The 51% stake in the state-owned airline is expected to cost Takatso at least R3bn over three years. The sale, announced in June, has been delayed by months. But it should be concluded shortly, according to public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan.

“There are a few more regulatory hoops that we have to jump through,” he told Bloomberg TV last week. “So early in the new year that process should be completed.”

Novick has long been of the view that the national carrier should not be subsidised by taxpayers; they’ve stumped up more than R50bn for the struggling airline over the past decade.

“If run professionally and independently, SAA is a real commercial opportunity,” he says. “It also has the potential to demonstrate a positive case study of public-private partnership in the country — to take something that’s been a drain on the country and create 42

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an asset that adds value … and builds positive sentiment.”

He believes the airline “has the potential to rebuild itself as a strong regional player.

The brand still has good recognition on the continent.”

Still, there’s work to be done. “Legacy models are no longer viable,” Novick says of post-Covid air travel. Success now is premised on efficiency and putting the customer first.

“We’ve taken advantage of the opportunity with Lift to start afresh from an efficiency and culture perspective. This is a model that is replicable and needed in many parts of Africa, a market which remains the most underserved travel market on the planet,” he says.

The Lift model is technology driven, leveraging off rapidly evolving cloud-based solutions. So while airline support capability is traditionally focused on an inbound call centre with high staff overheads, for example, Lift has gone completely digital, using artificial intelligence to prioritise issues and manage service levels. It costs the company one-fifth of what it would pay for a traditional call centre, he says, and delivers much better service.

Which is all good and well. But isn’t there an inherent conflict of interest between Lift and SAA, given Global Aviation’s role in the consortium?

“There would be,” says Novick. “The businesses would need to be combined in order for it to work.”

In Novick’s view, numerous aspects of the Lift model need to be embedded into a “future prosperous SAA”. Among these is the combination of a low-cost base with a premium service offering.

So far, it’s worked well for Lift. “We’ve operated over 2,000 flights, 97% of them on

time, and are carrying over 30,000 passengers a month,” he says. “The business is profitable and operates both economy and premium [business-class] services on up to five daily return flights on the Joburg to Cape Town route.”

One of the drivers of Lift’s success has been the introduction of flexibility, allowing customers to change or cancel their flight at no cost. Then, in October, the low-cost airline launched a business-class offering. Lift is also the first airline partner of the Pick n Pay Smart Shopper loyalty programme, and has introduced other innovations, like allowing small dogs to fly in the cabin with their humans.

First Lift, now Takatso and SAA — all in the space of a year. Just how did this come about?

As Novick tells it, during the hard lockdown last year — before Lift was conceptualised — he reached out to the department of public enterprises (DPE) to offer guidance and input on the future of the then grounded SAA. “We had some good discussions with the DPE’s advisory team, but nothing really came of it.”

Then, around April this year, he got a call from the DPE about selling a controlling stake in the carrier. At the same time, he happened to meet Mahloele, CEO of Harith — a big shareholder in Lanseria Airport.

Given Harith’s interest in SAA, “it was obvious we should combine our efforts and that led to the discussions and the negotiations, culminating in a memorandum of understanding with the DPE”, he says.

For Novick, the SAA proposition is twofold. There’s the commercial value that would come out of making a success of the carrier. But there’s a personal motivation, too. “We need to start believing that this country can succeed,” he says. “That is very appealing to the patriot in me.” x

BY JEREMY SAMPSON AND RAYMOND PARSONS

OMICRON: SPEAK SMART Everyone knew Covid variants were likely, so did SA fail to plan enough for how we communicated this message to the world?

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The priority is to ensure that the new threat can be tackled through heightened vaccinations

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t is acknowledged that SA’s medical research is world class and that in quickly identifying Omicron’s presence, it has again proved its worth.

We are rightly upset that SA is being penalised for being the first country to report this new variant.

Indeed, unseen virtue on this occasion has not brought visible rewards. As someone recently quipped, “punishing SA for the variant is like punishing the burglar alarm for the burglary”. It is deplorable that overseas “partners” behaved in such a precipitate way, particularly given their earlier global commitments to co-operation.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is among many who have criticised the travel bans imposed on SA and its neighbours by about 30 countries, and called for their early lifting, given the heavy economic toll they take. Now Britain has announced it is removing SA and other countries from its red list.

Yet we’re left with a nagging question. Have our communication skills been equal to our scientific endeavours? To what extent did SA bring bans on itself through faulty communication of a significant

health development with obviously widespread consequences? Was the road to hell again paved with good intentions?

Surely the need for transparency, on which SA prides itself here, does not exclude the importance of being strategic in bringing Omicron to the world’s attention? With hindsight, maybe the news could have been better conveyed at a better-planned media conference, particularly as there were plenty of unknowns about the variant.

SA can indeed be proud of its medical scientists. But did the scientists’ desire to claim “bragging rights” trump good judgment, depriving the announcement of its broader context? Did we shout fire in a crowded theatre, when the news should have been shared in an orderly manner?

In retrospect, the handling of Omicron suggests a widespread indifference to the art of communicating scientific developments.

There’s no dispute it was right to tell the world that we’d found this variant. We know the trouble China got into for not telling the world earlier about its first discovery of Covid in 2019.

The question, however, is whether a smarter way of communicating the science may have prevented the knee-jerk travel bans.

The emergence of variants was predictable — so, where was the scenario planning, the crisis management, the Plan B? Instead, it seems as if the bad news was just turfed into the global arena, without thought of the reaction.

There are several lessons. First, it highlights the need for a well-coordinated communication strategy; second, the need for a country to speak with “one voice”; third, it flags the need to cultivate good

relations with all stakeholders, particularly the international media; fourth, to control the narrative as much as possible; and fifth, to remain on the “front foot” to limit the damage. Ultimately, this is what skilful communication is all about.

If we accept that SA has been unfairly discriminated against, it highlights the need for SA to maintain cordial relations with global players. Failing to protect our reputation makes us an easy target.

Right now, that’s water under the bridge. The challenge facing SA today is how to manage the “clear and present danger” of Omicron.

The priority for the whole of SA – not just the government – is to ensure that as far as possible the new threat can be tackled through heightened vaccinations, rather than through lockdowns.

Covid isn’t going away. Annual flu shots are adjusted each year to cover mutations. In the same way, updated Covid booster shots are likely to become the norm.

Yet whatever future decisions are taken regarding virus containment, the management of new variants and the introduction of palliative measures for the economy need to be underpinned by effective communication.

The unfolding Covid narrative must be sensibly managed to get the best of all possible, albeit difficult, worlds. x Parsons is a professor at the North-West University Business School and Sampson is CEO of Brand Finance Africa

Jeremy Sampson

December 16 - December 22, 2021

Raymond Parsons

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africa

international china

A CAUTIOUS SHIFT China’s relations with Africa could be moving towards private sector-led development as the country looks to reduce risk — reputational and otherwise — in its investments Carien du Plessis

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hinese diplomats take exception to any labelling of Chinese loans to Africa as constituting a “debt trap”.

After all, according to China’s ambassador for the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (Focac), Zhou Yuxiao, his country’s own trajectory out of poverty was by way of loans.

“Africa’s development is not as fast as we expected it to be because there is a lack of infrastructure, a lack of funds, and a lack of qualified personnel,” he said at a Business Day Dialogues webinar following the Focac summit in Dakar, Senegal, in late November.

Still, China believes it can help by “building infrastructure for you to help you”, by lending money to help African governments afford this and by inviting African students to study technology in China.

“Our intention is 100% good,” Zhou said.

But when countries can’t repay their loans, it is China that loses out. Zambia, for example, owes China $6.6bn.

The next three years In his video address to the recent Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, President Xi Jinping laid out China’s commitment to Africa over the next three years.

The programme sees a steep cut in investment pledges and a reduction in planned activities compared with the previous commitment in 2018. ● China is to provide 1-billion doses of vaccines to Africa. It will undertake 10 medical and health projects on the continent and send 1,500 health workers and experts. ● China will undertake 10 poverty reduction and agricultural projects for Africa, and send 500 agricultural experts.

It will also encourage Chinese institutions and companies to build “demonstration villages” to showcase co-operation. ● It will provide “green lanes” for agricultural exports to China, and add more products to the list of zero-tariff goods. The

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At this year’s Focac summit, China for the first time in two decades reduced its financing pledges — from $60bn each in 2015 and 2018 to a total of $40bn. Its actual lending already started falling in 2019, to $7bn from a high of $28bn three years before, according to research by the China-Africa research initiative at Johns Hopkins University.

In part, that’s the result of the pandemic’s pinch on China’s economy: its GDP growth dropped from 6% in 2019 to 2.3% last year.

But the cuts also reflect the country’s growing risk aversion, says Gert Grobler, former ambassador and senior research fellow at the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University.

The “debt trap” allegations that arise when countries struggle to repay loans have cast China in a bad light. An Afrobarometer survey in 19 countries, for example, has shown increasing concern among citizens that their governments can’t repay loans from China, or are paying too much for them.

“There are also corruption issues on the continent in some of the countries where

aim is for $300bn in total imports from Africa. Beijing will provide $10bn in trade finance, and build a zone in China to promote trade and economic co-operation with Africa. It will undertake 10 connectivity projects and form an expert group on economic co-operation with the African Continental Free Trade Area’s secretariat. ● Chinese businesses will be encouraged to invest $10bn in Africa, and a platform will be established for private investment promotion. China will undertake 10 industrialisation and employment promotion projects, provide credit facilities of $10bn to African financial institutions and support African SME development. It will write off some debts due in 2021 and channel into Africa $10bn from its share of the International Monetary Fund’s new allocation of special drawing rights. ● China will undertake 10 digital economy projects and support the development of joint laboratories, partner institutes and innovation co-operation bases. A market-

China’s state-owned entities and companies are involved, such as recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC],” says Grobler, “while conflicts in Ethiopia, Sudan and the DRC, where China has a large vested interest, moved the Chinese authorities to take a more cautious stance with financial

ing campaign will showcase 100 African stores and 1,000 African products on ecommerce platforms. ● China will contribute to the Great Green Wall project in the Sahel with 10 green development, environmental protection and climate action programmes. It will build African centres of excellence on lowcarbon development and climate change adaptation. ● China will help build or upgrade 10 African schools and invite 10,000 African professionals to seminars and workshops.

Chinese companies will be encouraged to create at least 800,000 jobs in Africa. ● Chinese tourists will be encouraged to travel to Africa and there will be film festivals and China-Africa women’s and youth forums. ● China will undertake 10 peace and security projects for Africa, continue to deliver military assistance to the AU and support regional security and antiterrorism efforts. x

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PAST THE PEAK? China’s investment pledges to Africa during Focac meetings ($bn)

Note: Data is not available for the 2000 and 2003 meetings Source: Quartz/Bloomberg

posed global development initiative, a concept that the international community should take to heart.”

Xi first flighted the concept during the UN General Assembly’s session in September, in a call to the international community to speed up implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

However, China doesn’t intend scaling back in Africa, according to Zhou. “Actually, China believes that Africa is the continent with full potential, and the future will be brighter for Africa when we look at Africa as a rising star,” he said. “So there might be a possibility that investment is going down, but that is temporary.”

support and loans.”

Grobler believes China wants to be seen as a responsible international citizen that keeps to multilateral rules. This is especially true for China’s involvement in the UN and its agencies, the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation and other world bodies such as the G20.

Because of this, China’s economic and financial involvement in other countries “will increasingly be done in a more careful, calculated, transparent and sustainable way”, Grobler says.

On the whole, he thinks Beijing is genuinely committed to multilateralism. “A good example of this is President Xi Jinping’s pro-

Analysts have suggested that China’s relations with Africa could be shifting from the traditional model of infrastructure and construction investment towards private sector-led development, as is evident in Xi’s nine-point plan (see box).

China’s state council information office for the first time published a white paper on the subject, “China and Africa in the New Era: A Partnership of Equals”, a few days before the conference. It lays out Beijing’s new vision as follows: “China is promoting a new development paradigm with domestic economy and international engagement providing mutual reinforcement and the former as the mainstay. China’s development will create more opportunities for Africa’s development.”

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Kenyan development economist Anzetse Were told an SA Institute of International Affairs webinar last month that there is appetite on both sides for a local development approach in sectors such as construction, agriculture, renewable energy, digitisation and innovation and manufacturing.

And the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, too, can be leveraged to promote trade between Africa and China.

“The reality and the perception of AfricaChina relations will [in future] be a triangle of state-to-state relations, civil society organisations and private sector engagements,” Were said.

Folashadé Soulé, senior research associate in the global economic governance programme at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, agrees that “China has become a strategic partner for Africa’s private sector”.

To many African businesspeople, “China has also become an African business”, says Soulé, due to the supply of, for example, construction materials, textiles, furniture and motorcycles. But she warns about the trade imbalance between the continent and China.

China’s imports from Africa in 2020 accounted for $72.7bn, mostly in raw materials; its exports to Africa were valued at $114.2bn.

The shift in China’s approach to Africa is also reflected in its intention to provide credit to African financial institutions to support the development of local companies, rather than to African governments to fund Chinese projects. This could shield China from being accused of China has become setting debt traps for a strategic partner African governments. for Africa’s private Most African counsector tries, including SA, want Folashadé Soulé China’s involvement in Africa to continue. President Cyril Ramaphosa — a proponent of development through trade — said in his address to the summit that Focac is “an engine for progress”, and that the continent should work with China “to improve liquidity in our respective countries so that they have the necessary fiscal space to recover”.

Africa should, however, ensure it takes advantage of China’s private sector approach and improve its products on offer, says David Monyae, director of the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg.

“We can’t keep taking raw bananas to China,” he says. “We need to compete with other countries in Asia who are selling more or less the same products to China. We need this to be a two-way project.” x December 16 - December 22, 2021

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THERE SHALL BE WORK BY XHANTI PAYI

LESSER OF TWO EVILS The Reserve Bank’s decision last month to hike interest rates is not helping South Africans out of their misery

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n 2013, an article in The Washington Post raised the question: what makes people more miserable — inflation or unemployment? It has occupied my mind ever since Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago’s announcement last month of an increase in interest rates.

Kganyago is often at pains to explain that the primary role of the Bank is to keep inflation low and stable. This, he says, is for the benefit of the poor. But we’re living in times of extreme unemployment, so a supportive environment for investment, the opening of small

What’s concerning in the Reserve Bank’s decision to raise interest rates is that the threat of inflation is low 46

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businesses and consumption are important. This means the rates hike raises the question: which is more painful — high unemployment or high inflation?

In 2013, Dartmouth College professor David G Blanchflower and others attempted to determine levels of misery. In a paper presented

December 16 - December 22, 2021

at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s annual research conference, they introduced a “misery ratio” to compare the awfulness of unemployment with inflation. For this, they considered surveys of wellbeing across Europe to determine how bad people felt during periods of high unemployment and high inflation.

The outcome was that a “one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate lowered our sense of wellbeing by nearly four times more than a one percentage point rise in inflation”. Put more simply, they said, “unemployment makes people four times as miserable [as inflation]”. Intuitively, this outcome should not be surprising: many of us would much rather have money for which we can buy less than no money at all. Considered this way, we should be more tolerant of inflation if it supports job creation.

But what’s concerning in the Bank’s decision to raise interest rates is that, by its own admission, the threat of inflation is low, even if inflationary risks have risen and “the level of policy accommodation remains high”.

Market economists have begun to predict an upward trend or “normalisation” of interest rates.

This will affect economic growth and job creation. As the Bank for International Settlements showed in a paper evaluating the impact of monetary policy on the real sector, an indication of higher future interest rates negatively affects spending and consumption.

Earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund argued that central banks, in taking policy action, “need to explain how their actions may increase aggregate

welfare by boosting the employment prospects of the poorest and reducing consumption inequality”.

This is not something that came up when Kganyago spoke. However, we do know he often says we can’t rely on monetary policy to improve aggregate welfare and boost employment, and that we need structural reforms instead.

Feeling the pain But monetary policy has a role in the success and effectiveness of reforms. In 2015, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi attempted to define the relationship between structural reforms, inflation and monetary policy.

He argued that “short-term costs and benefits of reforms depend critically on how they are implemented. If structural reforms are credible, their positive effects can be felt quickly even in a weakdemand environment.”

He added: “Our accommodative monetary policy [low interest rates to stimulate growth] means that the benefits of reforms will materialise faster, creating the ideal conditions for them to succeed.”

With the normalisation of rates lying ahead, monetary policy may not act in a way that will accentuate the impact of reforms.

Yet, as Kganyago noted in his address: “The July unrest, the pandemic and ongoing energy supply constraints are likely to have lasting effects on investor confidence and job creation, impeding recovery in labour-intensive sectors hardest hit by the lockdowns.”

Under these conditions, should SA really have to suffer the pain of inflation too? x Payi is an economist and head of research at Nascence Advisory & Research

adfocus planning for 2022

MEGATRENDS TO WATCH Brands need to find new ways to sell in an era when retailers can use many channels, ideas and concepts to advertise products Jeremy Maggs jmaggs@iafrica.co.za

ý Ahead of what is expected to be another difficult marketing year, the global Dentsu advertising network has identified three megatrends that will go some way towards assisting brands define and chart a recovery.

Locally, media buying agency The Media Shop says a cyclical recovery in global economic growth will be felt in SA gradually next year. It says the momentum will likely complement an increase in adspend as digital channels increase their consumption and reach.

In a report titled “Reimagine Next”, Dentsu says consumers have become accustomed to the flexibility offered by omnichannel retail — the ability to research and buy both online and instore and by combining the two. The Dentsu, a Japanese advertising report says many other areas of life are now becoming omnichannel, developing company, has these tips for hybrid models that mix digital and indeveloping and promoting brands: person participation. Brands need to experiment to accommodate this ○ Experiment with new ways to sell — megatrend, Dentsu says. Shopping and target shopping and payment payment messages should include strong, brand-based messages. messages around new contexts The second megatrend is increased and include strong, brand -based brand citizenship. Dentsu says: “Brands messages; are increasingly showing their human side. The rise of social media has meant ○ Increase brand citizenship using a that many consumer-facing brands now have a more human tone of voice. They human tone to share news and reply have become used to sharing news and to consumer queries; and to replying to queries. Many are … showing a more empathetic and caring ○ Redefine identity and build trust — side.” brands need to be trusted for people The key takeaway for brands is a “new to agree to sign into their sites or go need to be conscious of their consumers’ views and [to] help them live more to their stores. sustainable lives”.

The third megatrend concerns the redefinition of identity. Dentsu says: “It seems demonstrating transparency and empathy.” certain that people’s online identities will According to The Media Shop’s Louise become even more important to them, while Hefer, the lockdown in SA accelerated the being ever harder for brands to access. Brands growth of streaming services and viewing need to be trusted for people to agree to sign behaviour during 2020. “All indications are that into their sites [or stores] or submit e-mail consumer viewing habits have changed addresses to give them permissions to target. permanently. In the war for audience share, Brands can build trust by acting in more there are two categories that continuously tip ethical, fair and sustainable ways, essentially by the scale — sport and local content.”

Tegan Smith

Another trend to watch out for in 2022 is the growing popularity of concept stores.

Simone Musgrave from Musgrave Crafted Spirits, which has a boutique gin and brandy range, says the aim of the concept store is to offer engagement spaces and storytelling platforms. “This gives the visitor a haptic impression of the brand, and an emotional experience. Liquor brands, which have always been about the brand experience, are ideally suited to the concept store environment. It offers the consumer the opportunity to immerse themselves in the brand. So not only are they buying the product or merchandise, they’re also bottling their own limited edition, personalising it with their own label or packaging it as a unique gift.”

Brands following this trend include French fashion retailer Ba&sh in New York. Its store features a “dream closet” where customers can choose some of the label’s signature items and “borrow” them for 72 hours. And it’s not just luxury brands — in Chicago, furniture and homeware store Crate & Barrel is launching a restaurant in its store. Other brands, like Vodacom, Zara and adidas have also launched such stores. x

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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IN GOOD FAITH BY CARMEL RICKARD

BONUS COMING UP A Namibian court has found in a former bank employee’s favour after she faced two disciplinary actions — and two sanctions — for one infringement

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amibia’s Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) takes a dim view of banks that disobey its intervention orders, something that became clear through a Supreme Court decision last week.

When First National Bank (FNB) Namibia allowed a withdrawal from an account against the instructions of the FIC, a hefty fine followed. It’s a situation FNB had not previously confirmed, but with a case at the Supreme Court testing whether its dismissal of the employee responsible for the payout was lawful, details of the fine became part of the record.

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The story goes back to December 2015, when the FIC directed the bank not to permit any transactions that would reduce the balance on two specified accounts.

The next day, the bank sent an e-mail from its anti-money-laundering office to Elizabeth Nghishidivali, who was acting as

December 16 - December 22, 2021

manager of the Oshikango branch.

The e-mail said a hold had been placed on the two bank accounts following the FIC instruction. However, despite those instructions, Nghishidivali authorised a withdrawal of N$75,000 on one of the affected accounts.

When she realised what she’d done, Nghishidivali acknowledged that she had approved the transaction without following proper procedures. She said she hadn’t seen the “hold” on the account, conceded that she had been negligent, and apologised.

FNB appointed an investigator to look into the matter. His report noted that the bank could face administrative sanction and, in line with his recommendations, Nghishidivali signed an “admission of guilt statement” and was issued a final written warning, valid for 18 months.

Some months later, the FIC imposed a N$7m fine on FNB for infringing its instructions, though N$5m was suspended for five years.

It’s what happened next that led to the litigation: in July 2016, the bank informed Nghishidivali that she was suspended pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.

That hearing led to her dismissal in November 2016.

The arbitrator who heard Nghishidivali’s challenge to this outcome confirmed the dismissal.

She then asked the labour court for its view — a step that involved lengthy delays and requests to condone them. But the court eventually agreed to hear the matter and found it was unfair for the bank to have held a second inquiry.

FNB in turn appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the labour

court ought not to have heard the matter in the first place, and that the outcome should be overturned.

The Supreme Court judges found that the labour court’s decision to hear the case, despite the delays, could not be appealed, and that Nghishidivali had tried her best under the circumstances to get the matter to court in time.

They found that while the bank had used the FIC fine to justify Nghishidivali’s disciplinary hearing and eventual dismissal, this was in fact not “new material”: when the bank issued Nghishidivali with a final warning it was already aware that an FIC fine could follow, and had even anticipated it.

Tried twice Nghishidivali claimed “double jeopardy” in that she’d been subjected to two sets of inquiry and two punishments.

FNB, however, said there had been only one hearing — a claim the Supreme Court said was based on form rather than substance, especially as the bank itself called the process leading to her admission of guilt statement “shortened disciplinary proceedings”.

The court said the bank decided on dismissal out of concern for reputational damage. But it was “manifestly unfair” to hold a second disciplinary hearing and dismiss her on the same set of facts as had resulted in a final written warning.

The judges thus found the dismissal unfair, and ordered that Nghishidivali be paid her salary for 28 months (the period from dismissal to the labour court’s finding that she was unfairly dismissed).

And, in what will be an unexpected year-end bonus for her, it must be paid by December 31. x

money& investing Analysis and coverage of SA's top companies and investments - the guide to where your money should be

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Afrimat unearths its newest gem One of the JSE’s few 10-baggers of the past decade reckons its R550m acquisition of the Glenover phosphate and rare earths mine could be its best deal yet

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Ford vs Ferrari (and Tesla) Elon Musk may be Time’s person of the year, but the better buy this year was actually old-timer Ford

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Where to next for RMI? The surprise sale of its Hastings stake presents RMI with an interesting fork in the road

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ARC’s pot of gold 51

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Some vroom for your portfolio

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Serving up the deals Perhaps 2022 will be Ethos Capital’s year — with recent deals a harbinger of things to come December 16 - December 22, 2021

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money&investing MINING

Afrimat’s best deal yet?

A tilt into rare earths and phosphates could be (another) game-changer for one of the JSE’s savvier deal-makers Marc Hasenfuss hasenfussm@fm.co.za

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

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ý Diversified minerals producer Afrimat has done some cracking deals over the past dozen years, mostly snapping up neglected or troubled assets and quickly turning these into reliable another R265m to get it going again. Demaneng, profit-spinners. albeit boosted by booming iron ore prices, But the group’s latest deal may well leave all churned operating profit of R454m in the halfthese previous transactions in the shade. year to end August. That is an astounding payAfter prudently sitting out the Soccer World back on what were distressed assets only five Cup infrastructure acquisition binge — which years ago. put a heap of building supplies counters into But, says Van Heerden, “Glenover is more trouble — Afrimat carefully, and with minimal valuable than Demaneng … this business is the execution and balance sheet risk, expanded its real game-changer for Afrimat”. portfolio from its traditional aggregates, cement, The latest deal is two-pronged. First, there is sand and clinker businesses into a diversified the right for Afrimat to “mine” the stockpile of minerals player that takes in dolomite, marble, phosphate rock located at the Glenover mine lime, iron ore and manganese. for R250m (a deal to be settled in R215m cash Afrimat can now add phosphates and rare and the balance in a share issue) and second, earths to its list of products after buying Glenthere is another R300m if the group takes up an over and its dormant operations for R550m. option to buy Glenover (to be settled by a 50:50 Afrimat CEO Andries van Heerden, who is a split in cash and equity). straight-talking execuFor the record, STAR PERFORMER tive not known for Glenover is about an hyperbole, reckons the Afrimat vs JSE industrial 25 index vs JSE resources hour outside Thaba10 index – weekly – based to 100 Glenover transaction zimbi and owns not could be the best deal only rights to mine 240 the group has ever phosphate and vermi220 JSE industrial 25 index done. culite but also rare JSE resources 10 index That’s not a stateearth elements.

200 Afrimat ment to be taken lightThe deal lends 180 ly, given that Afrimat’s some cutting edge to 160 acquisition of iron ore Afrimat’s operational and manganese proprofile, allowing the 140 ducer Diro (now called group to tilt at the 120 Demaneng) is already agricultural sector the stuff of legend. (phosphates are used 100 Afrimat bought the in fertilisers) and the 80 Demaneng assets out electric vehicle segof business rescue in ment (rare earths proJul Jul Jul 2016, when it forked vide magnets for elecout R175m, and spent tric vehicles).

Source: Infront

Glenover is a fairly chunky deal by Afrimat’s standards, and some may question the purchase price, noting the assets’ dormant operation tag.

The value of the stockpile assets, at the end of June last year, was just R27.7m and Glenover’s NAV only R38m.

But Van Heerden stresses these figures are misleading, estimating that just the value of Glenover’s higher-grade phosphate stockpile alone could be more than the purchase price.

He adds that there are plans to upgrade the medium- to low-grade phosphate deposits to higher-value single super phosphate grade, and then look to use new processes to extract the rare earth minerals from the stockpile.

“We are still doing the research and development in the background, but we think that through our beneficiation process for rare earths we can have a project of very efficient scale. It is the most exciting project of my career,” Van Heerden says.

Afrimat is expected to provide more granular detail on these projects when it issues an update on the Glenover business plan in the new year.

Small Talk Daily analyst Anthony Clark estimates the total capital cost for Glenover at R1.2bn. “On early analysis, I estimate that Glenover’s profitability at full production of the deposit will be similar to the main iron ore site business within Afrimat, a sizable future earnings kicker,” he says.

Glenover will be the largest project that Afrimat will have undertaken, he says. “I’m not that concerned over project execution, though the risk that a black swan event in global bulk

Cutting edge: Afrimat has expanded its portfolio from its traditional aggregates, cement, sand and clinker businesses into a diversified minerals player

commodities alongside a normalisation of global fertiliser prices — should they occur concurrently — will add to the risk metrics of the current expansionary phase.”

But Clark maintains that Afrimat has been a consummate deal-maker and has made every acquisition work, on time and on budget.

“The group has shown that at full operational capacity it has an ability to return the initial acquisition cost in early profitability. This was certainly true of Demaneng and latterly Nkomati Coal. I envision that Glenover will emulate past successes,” he says.

That’s clear in the performance of Afrimat’s share price. The company is that rare beast, a 10-bagger. The stock has risen from R4.30 a

We think that through our beneficiation process for rare earths we can have a project of very efficient scale Andries van Heerden

share in December 2011 to today’s R54 — a 1,158% gain.

Cynics, of course, might question how Afrimat can keep uncovering “hidden gem” deals.

Van Heerden says Afrimat’s participation in the Industrial Development Corp’s “Mine to Magnets” initiative opened opportunities in the rare earths space and led to the group developing its own ion exchange technology. This allows it to extract rare earth minerals from the phosphate stockpiles.

Van Heerden also points out that behind the scenes there is considerable legwork. “Our success rate in seeking out viable opportunities is below 5%. For every 100 opportunities that come our way we eliminate 95% for operational risk, technical feasibility, financing challenges or market issues.”

He says Afrimat also focuses strongly on projects that can make back the capital invested as soon as possible. Remarkably, Afrimat recently reported that at Coza Mining (better known as Jenkins) and (the notoriously difficult) Nkomati Anthracite, both the quality and the quantity of the respective resources are exceeding expectations, “with good cash flow as a result”. With this in mind, it’s difficult to doubt Van Heerden’s assessment that the total purchase price and all project spend at Glenover will be funded from the company’s “robust balance sheet and strong future cash flow generation”. x

NEW LISTINGS

Put a tiger in your real estate tank The first petrol station Reit to debut on the JSE has ambitious plans to grow assets to R1bn within 18 months Joan Muller mullerj@fm.co.za

ý Property listings have been few and far between in the past five years, and the odd new portfolio that did come to market tended to offer more of the same — a mix of retail, industrial and office buildings.

However, in early December Gaia Fibonacci Fibre — a first-of-its-kind specialist infrastructure real estate investment trust (Reit) that invests in fibre-optic cable networks — was listed on the Cape Town Stock Exchange, originally known as 4AX. The listing, with an initial investment of R34m, was brought to the market by Gaia Fund Managers, Fibonacci Managers and Kruger International Asset & Wealth Management.

More intriguing perhaps is last week’s listing of Afine Investments on the JSE, which brings an entirely new offering to the sector’s 50-odd property counters. Afine, albeit still a small counter with a market cap of less than R250m, is the first SA-focused Reit to offer local investors access to the rental income streams generated by petrol service stations.

Afine is the brainchild of veteran property players Mike Watters and Peter Todd, both former South Africans who have teamed up with SA developer Petroland Group, which was founded by Anton Loubser in 1993. Loubser has since developed more than 60 petrol stations across SA and will run the new company.

Watters is the former CEO of UK-based RDI Reit (formerly Redefine International), where he was at the helm for 16 years before the company was bought out by Starwood Capital Group earlier this year and delisted from the London Stock Exchange and JSE. Todd is chair of London-listed Grit Real Estate Income Group.

Though the petrol service station sector is an established real estate investment class in the US, Europe and Australia, high entry barriers December 16 - December 22, 2021

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Staying power: Petrol stations in their current guise are unlikely to suddenly disappear

FASHION RETAIL

have made it difficult for ordinary investors to share in the ownership of the SA petroleum sector’s bricks-and-mortar assets. Barriers include onerous licence requirements, complex legal structures and environmental legislation.

Watters tells the FM that SA has about 4,000 petrol stations, most of them controlled by the major oil companies and a small group of private developers and property owners. “The industry is quite fragmented, so there’s a big opportunity for consolidation,” he says. “People still need income and petrol stations are a more defensive option at a time when traditional sectors are under pressure.”

He refers to the retail and office sectors in particular, which he believes are vulnerable on the back of pandemic-related rental losses and lease cancellations.

“Though the listed property sector as a whole has gone through a tough 18 months it’s the big diversified Reits that have been on the back foot. The only stocks that have performed are specialist ones such as logistics-focused Equites, self-storage owner Stor-Age and multilet industrial plays Stenprop and Sirius.”

Though Afine did not market itself via the usual prelisting roadshows to potential investors, it is likely to attract smaller retail investors looking to diversify away from the sector’s typical mixed-bag offerings. Howard Penny, equity research analyst at Anchor Stockbrokers, says that at last week’s listing price of R3.67 a share and interim dividend guidance of 25c a share, Afine offers a dividend yield of more than 10%. There’s further upside on the back of potential accretive acquisitions.

Penny notes that a longer-term risk is the global shift to electric and other fuel-efficient vehicles. But he doubts whether petrol stations in their current guise will suddenly disappear, because petrol and diesel cars bought today will probably still be on the roads for at least the next 10 to 15 years.

He adds: “However, there will most likely be an evolution of stations over the long term to offer a blend of food, retail and convenience alongside different fuel and energy options.” x

Watters says a key attraction Your only tenants of owning service stations is the are the large oil long leases — 15 to 20 years on companies like average compared with three to Sasol, Engen, Shell five years for shopping centres and BP. So your and offices. “Also, your only tenincome streams ants are the large oil companies are secure like Sasol, Engen, Shell and BP. So Mike Watters your income streams are secure.”

Afine owns just seven service stations scattered across four provinces, worth R307m. But Watters is confident that the portfolio can be bulked up to R1bn within the next 18 months as the company has first right of refusal to Petroland’s developments.

He also expects strong appetite among existing service station owners to list their properties in exchange for Afine shares, given how “efficient” the Reit structure is. “It provides liquidity and tax benefits for property owners,” he says.

Watters, Todd and a few other shareholders have self-funded the business with a loan to value of just below 30%. But they will go to the market to raise capital at a later stage and, Watters says, “hopefully bring some institutional investors on board”.

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Leading the fashion pack It’s been a long grind through the woods, but cash-flush Mr Price is back on form — and winning market share Adele Shevel shevela@businesslive.co.za

ý Riots and lockdowns aside, SA’s fashion and home retailers had one of their better years on the JSE in 2021.

Pepkor, for example, has soared 60% in the year to date, while Truworths has rallied more than 45%. TFG and Mr Price lagged somewhat, though gains of 17.3% and 20% respectively are hardly shabby.

But it’s over a period of five years that Mr Price has really shown its worth as an investment.

Where Truworths and TFG went backwards — total returns for both were a negative 14.7% and 1.5% respectively over the same time frame — Mr Price has gained 49% in value.

That comfortably bests the 41% returned by the JSE’s all share index, and shows a welcome return to form for what was long a retail darling.

After barely putting a foot wrong in the years after its listing, Mr Price shares were pummelled in 2016 after some bad fashion blunders made earnings growth grind to a near halt. It’s been a somewhat treacherous ride since. The group’s shares recovered in the wake of 2018’s

Mr Price BUY Target price: R227.50 Potential upside: 13.1% * Based on analysts’ consensus forecast

Pepkor HOLD Target price: R24.50 Potential upside: 13% * Based on analysts’ consensus forecast

RETAIL ROUND-UP Mr Price vs TFG vs Truworths vs Pepkor Weekly – based to 100

The 80-million units sourced from SA over the past year were worth R3.9bn, says Blair, adding that the company’s orders accounted for one-third of all units manufactured in SA by listed apparel and homeware retailers. “This gives some context to our scale and what it means for local manufacturing [when we] increase our order volumes even more. We now support over 40,000 factory workers through our supply chain network in SA.” During the reporting period, the group faced a third wave of Covid, frequent load-shedding and ongoing global supply disruption.

Civil unrest in July caused 111 of its stores — or 7% of the group — to close. Despite this, Mr Price’s earnings now exceed pre-Covid levels. The group appears to have emerged from the pandemic with a higher market share, and plenty of cash — R3.9bn on its books as of October — and no debt.

Chief financial offi-

Apr

Jul

Oct

Apr

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Source: Infront

cer Mark Stirton argues that one of the advantages held by Mr Price is the sheer amount of stuff it sells. “Where there are costs affecting everyone, our order size does [enable] us to get more competitive pricing.”

Richard Cheesman, senior investment analyst at Protea Capital Management, says Mr Price’s revitalised strategy of going into babywear and school clothes and its acquisition of Power Fashion and Yuppiechef make sense.

“The group is trying to make inroads on the schooling front, where Pepkor dominates, and babywear seems to be an area that everyone is going into at the moment.

“It’s a good strategy for a company to expand around the close periphery of its core competence rather than attempting to grow into farflung geographies.”

Cheesman is pleased that Mr Price is focused on its core local business. “The further away you get from what you’re really good at, the lower the likelihood of a profitable outcome,” he says.

He says buying into local manufacturing, as TFG has done, can also make sense, but there are reasons why local retailers have not expanded into this area.

“We’ve had the worst year of load-shedding on record, and have strong unions — some of the reasons why the local apparel manufacturing industry has struggled. Hopefully there are improvements on these fronts.” x

TFG BUY Target price: R155.88 Potential upside: 27.3% * Based on analysts’ consensus forecast

Truworths HOLD Target price: R58.97 Potential upside: 15.1% * Based on analysts’ consensus forecast

December 16 - December 22, 2021 High-volume: One of Mr Price’s advantages is the sheer amount of stuff it sells

2021

Turkey and Vietnam.

Foschini owner TFG has been at the forefront of growing a local manufacturing base, and it has worked for the group, which has also gained market share.

But Mr Price CEO Mark Blair said at the interim results presentation last month that the group can still get many of the benefits of vertical integration by having a third-party supply base.

“And in some respects it mitigates a lot of risk as well,” Blair says. These relate to “tying up capital, managing factories — in good times but also in periods of disruption — potential labour issues, single points of failure and electricity”. He says: “We’ve got a wide supply base, and if something happens at any one of those we’ve got many others we can go to. So it certainly builds up agility.”

At present the retailer sources 40.3% of its products from China and 39.2% from SA. “Over the past 12 months we’ve [taken on board] 43 new local manufacturing suppliers,” he said in an analyst presentation.

Mr Price Truworths Pepkor TFG

2020

Ramaphoria, peaking at R290 in March of that year, before beginning a long slide back to the Covid lows of R154 in March 2020. But the group appears to have regained its mojo.

Interim results released at the end of last month showed that the company has grown market share by more than 2% according to the Retailers Liaison Committee, with Mr Price Apparel achieving market share gains for 19 consecutive months. Online sales more than doubled, increasing their contribution to 2.9% of retail sales, while cash sales jumped 38.2%. Earnings climbed 46% to 448.3c a share in the 26 weeks to October 2 2021, and the cash-rich group upped its interim dividend 34%, to 282.4c a share.

In a recent research note, Standard Bank Securities writes that Mr Price is “a best in class, wellMark Blair focused retailer, and well positioned in the sector”. The bank says: “We are favourably disposed to its clearly focused strategy, and its management team seems well positioned to deliver.” It says Mr Price could earn R11.55 a share in the 2022 financial year and R13.11 in 2023.

Like its peers in SA, Mr Price is doing more to source its products locally — 20-million more units of clothing and homeware, to take it to 100-million units a year — though it has stopped short at incorporating a full manufacturing business.

There’s a growing trend among local retailers to reduce their dependence on global supply chains, especially from Asia, in light of delays and the spiralling costs of bringing in goods not only from China but from countries such as

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the ghost train by the finance ghost

Ford versus Ferrari

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otorsport gained in popularity in 2021 thanks to a fierce rivalry between two drivers. But the biggest winner of the 2021 Formula 1 season will probably be Netflix with Drive to Survive, especially after the drama of the past weekend’s final race (in which Max Verstappen won the title ahead of Lewis Hamilton).

Over 50 years ago, Ford and Ferrari battled it out at Le Mans, as told in the excellent film Ford v Ferrari. Both those companies are listed, with Ford boasting a market cap of nearly $86bn and Ferrari over $44bn.

Ferrari sells just over 10,000 vehicles a year. Ford sold more than 4-million vehicles in 2020, and this was down on pre-pandemic years, which exceeded 6-million sales. Ferrari’s unit sales are less than 0.17% of Ford’s in a normal year, yet the Italian Stallion’s market cap is over half of Ford’s.

When it comes to investing, you must look far below what you can see on the surface. In a bull market, where everything goes up, it hardly matters what you buy. As many investors learnt the hard way this year, those days were left behind in 2020. Investors need to unpick financials and valuation multiples to see if they look reasonable.

Ford has generated $36.7bn in revenue and $7.9bn in gross profit over the past 12 months, producing a gross profit margin of 21.5%. Over the same period, Ferrari posted $4.8bn in revenue and $2.5bn in gross profit, a gross profit margin of 52%.

Ferrari’s net profit margin has been over 20% in the past 12 months, a spectacular business model despite the company continuously disappointing the long-suffering tifosi with its Formula 1 efforts. Ford’s net profit margin, meanwhile, is just 2.1%. Ford must achieve almost $10m in sales to make the same profit for shareholders that Ferrari generates with $1m in sales.

As I always remind readers, valuations matter. Ferrari clearly has a far

@FinanceGhost

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

stronger business model than Ford, yet Ferrari’s share price is up 15% this year and Ford is up more than 150%. Ford trades on an EV/ebitda (enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) multiple of around 22 and Ferrari at over 33.

The market isn’t blind to the fact that $RACE is a much sexier business than $F and not just when it comes to their stock tickers. The multiples reflect this.

Comparing Ford and Ferrari products hasn’t been relevant since the GT40s took the chequered flag and embarrassed the Italians in the 1960s.

The overlap in product categories is practically zero.

But this isn’t the case for Ford vs Tesla, as Ford’s Mustang Mach-E sits squarely against the Tesla offerings.

These two companies offer a fascinating share price comparison.

I’ve written many times over the past year that Tesla’s share price may disappoint investors.

At the time of writing, it’s up nearly 40% year-to-date which certainly isn’t a disappointment. Importantly, this does pale in comparison with the likes of Ford (150% as mentioned).

It doesn’t do any favours for the share price that Tesla’s emperor is more volatile than Max and Lewis battling it out at the apex. When he isn’t smoking weed on podcasts or holding Twitter

polls about whether to sell his shares, Elon Musk is threatening to resign.

Tesla’s revenue over the past 12 months was nearly $47bn. Gross profit margin was 23.1%, so both those numbers are better than Ford’s. Net profit margin of 7.4% is also higher than Ford’s figure.

The days of debating whether Tesla is a good business are behind us.

Instead, we must focus on its valuation.

Tesla’s market cap is $1.02-trillion, or 12 times higher than Ford’s. It trades on an ebitda multiple of over 140. The only way to try to make sense of numbers like this is to consider forward vs trailing multiples. A trailing multiple compares the current share price to the earnings over the past year.

A forward multiple takes an estimate of next year’s earnings and compares it to the current price.

This is how fast-growing companies can justify substantial multiples.

If I said you could pay R500 for a company that will make R400 next year, you probably won’t care about what the earnings were last year. The forward multiple is the one that matters.

Based on data provider TIKR, Tesla’s forward ebitda multiple is just under 70 and Ford’s is nearly 14.

Tesla will grow earnings much faster than Ford, but the market is already pricing that outcome into the Tesla share price.

I believe strongly in leaving room for error and avoiding hugely expensive stocks. I hold Ford, not Tesla, which was the right call this year.

Another good call was avoiding the Queen of Growth Cathie Wood and $ARKK, down nearly 23% year-to-date.

We don’t know what 2022 will hold.

What we do know is that fundamental valuations remain all-important. x

view from the Thames by Deon Gouws

A wholly owned subsidiary of nature

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ESG funds have become mainstream; if you begin to question the strategy, you will be seen not only as contrarian but also as a heretic

ne thing we can all agree on is that each of us should do our bit to save the planet. If you’ve ever had the privilege of holding a newborn and experiencing that sudden injection of overwhelming love which only a first-time parent would ever really understand, you will appreciate why people want to leave behind a better world for their kids than the one we’ve created through exploitation of resources and pollution of the environment, all in the name of progress, economic growth and the pursuit of wealth.

Just in the past year or two, we have seen a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season, an ever-increasing number of earthquakes and countless flash floods around the world. Harrowing scenes from enduring wildfires in New South Wales at the beginning of 2020 are still fresh in our memories. Thousands of people are losing their lives in climate-related disasters.

So, please do your bit to slow down global warming. Don’t litter and try to pollute less. Separate your glass bottles from your plastic waste and recycle where you can.

While you’re at it, spare a penny for the poor, if at all possible.

And do obey all the rules if you really want to be seen as a good global citizen. Or, in financial parlance: be mindful of all matters of an environmental, social and governance (ESG) nature.

Many investors would say that you should also invest accordingly. In the past few years, ESG funds have become mainstream; if you even begin to question the strategy, you will be seen not only as a contrarian but probably also as a heretic.

Take BlackRock, the largest asset management company in the world, for example: in January 2020, it announced a number of sweeping changes in an effort to position itself as a leader in sustainable investing.

At the time, company chair Larry Fink warned CEOs that an intensifying

123RF/siberianart

climate crisis would bring about a “fundamental reshaping of finance”, with a significant reallocation of capital set to take place “sooner than most anticipate.”

Fink then hopped on a plane, flew halfway around the world to Davos and preached to captains of industry (most of whom also arrived by private plane) on the topic.

Having pivoted so fundamentally and publicly towards ESG, you can only imagine how disconcerted BlackRock must have been when its previous chief investment officer (CIO) for sustainable investing, Tariq Fancy, resigned from that role and wrote a long-form article in three parts and published it on the Medium platform under the heading “The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’” in August last year. Note the inverted commas: they provide the first hint of the author’s cynicism about the field he left behind.

In total, the piece runs to approximately 23,000 words — that’s about a quarter of the length of the typical novel, so it will take most people a good few hours to get through it.

Thankfully, however, Robert Armstrong, the US finance editor for the Financial Times, recently provided a helpful summary of Fancy’s article and reduced it to nine key criticisms of the ESG investing industry which the two of them agreed on.

Arguably the main point is this, as articulated by Armstrong: “The core mechanism of ESG investing is divestment, but when an investor sells a security in the secondary market,

another buys. All the ESG selling may drive down the price at which the buyers buy, giving them an opportunity for juicy returns as the price recovers.”

Put differently: ESG-compliant companies are thus likely to underperform their “sinful” counterparts over time.

This links neatly with the logic espoused by Cliff Asness, the cofounder and CIO at AQR Capital Management, in a 2017 note published under the heading “Virtue Is its Own Reward: Or, One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor”.

Asness explains it as follows: “Accepting a lower expected return is not just an unfortunate ancillary consequence to ESG investing, it’s precisely the point (though its necessity may indeed be unfortunate). As an ESG investor this lower expected return is exactly what you want to happen and really the only way you can effect the change you seek.”

None of this should be interpreted as making light of ESG; it’s simply to point out that you should understand your reasons for engaging with the field, and maximising investment performance as such should not necessarily be top of your list when you do so.

I recently came across a quote which said the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of nature, not the other way round. I couldn’t agree more.

But just bear in mind that, if you invest accordingly, it is likely to come at a price.

Gouws is chief investment officer at Credo Wealth, London

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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the G spot by Giulietta Talevi

RMI: cash flush and fancy free

@GTalevi talevig@fm.co.za

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he surprise sale of Rand Merchant Investment Holdings’s (RMI’s) 30% stake in UK insurer Hastings to its co-investor, Sampo, means that RMI — which owns Outsurance and is also in the process of unbundling Momentum and Discovery — is suddenly awash with cash. What now for shareholders? The FM spoke to RMI CEO Herman Bosman.

Were you not wanting to build up an insurance conglomerate? Or did you simply get a price too good to refuse?

HB: As a strategic investor you need to exhibit to the market and remind it that you have financial discipline. In this case financial discipline met strategy and actually trumped it, and the reason for that is the context.

Hastings is a great business, it’s probably the only property & casualty insurer in the UK that has been profitable through many cycles. However, it’s a hugely competitive market, with over 120 underwriters, and because of the prevalence of price comparison websites you have a completely transparent market. So in most cases you are a price taker.

The second piece of context is that Sampo has been a magnificent partner to us. But one has to see where it is in its existence: it finds Hastings very attractive, it has a market cap of almost €30bn — of which most businesses are unlisted — and it owns 100% of those businesses. So it was probably inevitable that it would buy us out.

Then you look at the context of RMI: can this not be a classic example of being great shareholders? Maybe it’s shorter than any other timeframe, but here’s a great return, here’s a great price and we’ve created value. Also, part of our unbundling was that we had to raise R6.5bn of capital. So I avoid that and am not diluting shareholders.

The last bit of context is that we feel we’ve fulfilled our role as a partner to management: the business is in better shape and we’re leaving it in great hands.

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

What will you do with the proceeds?

HB: We’re paying off the debt in the holding company, which is called Main Street, and then half of the proceeds go to Outsurance, our partner in Hastings. It has identified the next geography where it wants to build a business, so it is now capitalised for that. We also want to buy some of the minority shareholders out in Youi in Australia.

Then, Outsurance is distributing a dividend of about R3bn to its shareholders — we are 90%, with management and ex-management. at 10%. We will be left with about R3bn in cash.

Does that imply a special dividend?

HB: The R3bn is earmarked for two purposes: should Discovery do a capital raise for any investments before the unbundling we will support it, so there’s a soft bracket around R500m of that.

We want to keep a bit of a cash buffer for operational costs, probably R500m.

Then the remaining R2bn — I won’t commit to a special dividend now, but similarly, we are not in the business of building a war chest for future investments, so it’s possible that in the next cycle we would declare a special dividend.

But what is RMI’s raison d’être now?

Simply the conduit into Outsurance?

HB: No. The sale of Hastings has positioned us at an important fork in the road. The one direction is to say we want to build a network of noncompeting collaborative local champions, and obviously we’ve taken a step back by selling one of them. However, if you follow the strategy, you’ll probably then say we need to give the team time to go deeper into the seven markets we find attractive, see whether there’s another [unlisted] local champion where we can partner with management, and then add that next to Outsurance.

If, after a reasonable period of, say, two years, we’ve not found a suitable asset, we probably would turn to the other direction of the fork in the road, where we basically change the name of RMI to Outsurance, which is effectively an Outsurance listing.

That’s not an unattractive option. The way we did it, by not listing Outsurance itself, is financially quite important. If we took Outsurance while RMI and its affiliates were in existence and made an IPO of it, we would have incurred at least two additional costs: we would have had to empower Outsurance (if you want to do 10% or 15% typically it would cost the company 3%-5% in terms of dilution), and we would have had to take 25% of Outsurance as a free float. And if you’re bringing that to the market, you’d have to apply the so-called IPO discount to get the asset managers interested.

But by leaving Outsurance behind in a listed vehicle which is empowered and has a fantastic spread of shareholders, you avoid both those costs.

What’s it like having slowpoke Remgro as a shareholder?

HB: I grew up in the RMB stable and as a CEO I think maybe the biggest thing you want is consistency. If you have shareholders who are clear, articulate and consistent, it’s a huge benefit to have a controlling bloc and you’re not subject to the whims of an ever-changing institutional base. x

Herman Bosman

investor’s notebook by Stephen Cranston

ARC’s many machinations

I @scranston

t can’t have been much of a surprise to anyone to see some corporate action between Sanlam and Alexander Forbes. After all, the major shareholder in both, African Rainbow Capital (ARC), needs to be seen to be taking action.

ARC, which is billionaire Patrice Motsepe’s main investment vehicle, has traded at a discount of up to 70% to its NAV for years. And it will continue to do so as long as it is seen as an unfocused investment trust. There has been progress at its largest holding, rain, which is aggressively rolling out its 5G network. And TymeBank, in which it is the biggest shareholder, is acquiring other high-profile investors such as Naspers associate Tencent and the London-based CDC Group.

But ARC needed to show that it would also rationalise its two competing employee benefits businesses, Forbes and Sanlam Corporate. Earlier in the year ARC brokered the deal in which Sanlam bought Forbes’s group

ARC needed to show that it would rationalise its two employee benefits businesses, Forbes and Sanlam Corporate

risk and retail life underwriting units.

Forbes is now entirely concentrated in capital lite businesses such as fund administration, consulting and thirdparty asset management.

Forbes is already the largest administrator of standalone pension funds.

Old Mutual has closed its standalone administration business and now only manages umbrella funds. When funds convert to umbrellas they no longer have the right to elect the board of trustees, but because of the increased scale, costs usually fall. Sanlam, instead of forcing clients into its umbrella, has sold its standalone retirement fund administration business to Forbes.

Forbes has a bombastic corporate culture which is not to everyone’s taste.

But if the transition is successful it could increase the Forbes retirement fund member base by 40%. This will give it rivers of cash to scale up digital development, giving members more information in real time about their fund holdings. And it would also give an opportunity, somewhat by stealth, to

give clients financial advice. Sanlam and Forbes will now only compete as umbrella fund providers. There would be competition considerations if these merged as it would be the largest umbrella fund provider in SA by far.

A responsible choice Forbes certainly can’t claim to be best of breed when it comes to retail linked investment service providers (Lisps).

There has been very little investment into its Alexander Forbes Individual Client Administration (Afica), used exclusively by the Forbes financial planners. They aren’t obliged to use it, but it is a convenient place to park client assets. Forbes decided to merge Afica with a larger Lisp with the capability to run on more modern systems. After months of due diligence Forbes chose to sell to, you guessed it, Glacier by Sanlam. There was always an outside chance that Forbes would not choose Sanlam. But that was about as likely as a Forbes consultant recommending to their clients a multimanager other than Alexander Forbes Investments.

But I wouldn’t call Glacier an irresponsible choice. It is a firsttier Lisp and will be around long after some of the Antarctic glaciers have disappeared.

It was useful to see ARC doing another piece of housekeeping before the end of 2021.

It owned 25% of employee benefits service provider EBS and has strong-armed its fellow shareholders to sell the business to Forbes. EBS offers back office services to self-administered funds such as Sentinel, the largest mineworkers’ fund.

It will be run separately from Forbes. But, of course, it will encourage its clients to use other services on the Forbes menu. x

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MANIA / THE AMOUNT OF COMPUTING POWER DEDICATED TO CHURNING OUT BITCOINS IS CLOSE TO A RECORD HIGH December 16 - December 22, 2021

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market watch by Marc Hasenfuss

As a (small) EPE shareholder I’d be fascinated to see how gracefully Ethos can exit its other ‘mature’ investments 58

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Blockchain boost

t’s been a prolonged farewell at the Fish Hoek Tennis Club to our stalwart player Eddie Botes (“Stoute Kabotes” to his pals.)

The official departure date to the clay courts up north has been delayed by Kafkaesque visa complications. Still, most of us are accepting that we may never again see the huge arc of a frame-shot winner, or hear the familiar query of “How lame was that?” after a muffed overhead.

Most older players rein in their games, but Eddie was always exuberantly expansive with the widest possible wheelhouse on backhand and forehand side. The amount of fluff scathed off a new tennis ball by a backhand banger was something to behold, and (I suspect) a huge boon for the Bridgestone Tecnifibre Co. Of course, there was collateral damage. One bout of tennis elbow was so debilitating that a desperate Eddie snorted a line of crushed anti-inflammatories off the bar counter. There is a video of Eddie lurching violently, in a powdery implosion, into the spirit dispensers. Though the initial reaction was a tad disturbing, the tennis elbow did clear up quickly and sinusitis never again plagued the man.

Speaking of clearing passages, I note that private equity group Ethos (which has a listed variant in the form of EPE Capital) has been extracting value from its more mature investments. This year it saw the listing of African telecoms infrastructure group IHS on the New York Stock Exchange, and the sale of logistics specialist J&J to Imperial.

More recently, Ethos sold Neopak, which it bought from Nampak in 2015, for a decent premium. The proceeds raised would probably be sufficient to buy an influential slug in the now much diminished Nampak (which is strictly an academic observation). This flurry of activity is intriguing, with a number of Ethos’s other holdings in the private equity exit range of five to seven years.

As a (small) EPE shareholder I’d be fascinated to see how gracefully Ethos can exit its other “mature” investments such

.

December 16 - December 22, 2021

as industrial services specialist Waco International, tissue group Twinsaver, motor spares group Autozone, debt counselling business IDM and the “work at height” equipment business Eazi Access.

Perhaps a tad more exciting would be plans for Eaton Towers (the cellular mast operation) in light of recent developments at IHS. The medium term looks more enticing, with media conglomerate Primedia, internet services provider Echotel and private tertiary education business Richfield as well as a logistics cluster (parcel distribution company RTT and North Africa-centred SJL) shifting into the business end of their respective investment terms.

A Premier puzzle Speaking of possible deal-making, I was puzzled by the most recent cautionary

by Premier Fishing & Brands (another of my left-field small-cap hooks).

Most readers will know that the local fishing sector is anxiously awaiting the finalisation of the prolonged fishing rights allocation process (Frap), which has precluded any significant moving and shaking on the high seas for the past 18 months.

So seeing Premier (with a market value of only R195m) under cautionary because of disposing of a subsidiary is already curious.

To date the cautionaries have been unspecific, except that the December 6 renewal notice was emblazoned with the headline “Spanish transaction”.

There would be plenty of carping, with strict empowerment deal guidelines, if a Spanish fishing company bought Premier’s squid or lobster businesses. The Seagro plant fertiliser business is probably too small to justify a cautionary, which leaves me to conclude that Premier might be looking to sell all or part of its abalone farm.

Abalone farming is not subject to Frap, so there might not be issues with a foreign buyer. Premier always presented the abalone business as a future growth driver. If it’s a sale, I hope it’s for a large chest of doubloons. x

HSBC and Wells Fargo are cutting out a key part of the currency market’s infrastructure from some trades after the two banks agreed to settle transactions directly on blockchain technology. As of this week, they will use the technology to reconcile and pay out on deals in dollars, sterling, euros and Canadian dollars, using HSBC’s FX Everywhere platform. It means the banks will bypass historic settlement firm CLS. Financial Times

Bloomberg/Luke MacGregor

@marchasenfuss

Serving up deals

GLOBAL MARKETS

FUTURE FX HSBC and Wells Fargo’s move to blockchain technology in the $6.6-trillion daily currency market means they will have real-time transparency of the settlement status of foreign exchange trades

Cheap cheap Smaller US-listed companies are trading at a steep discount compared with their larger peers, highlighting how corners of the market remain relatively inexpensive despite the big rally from the depths of the Covid crisis. The S&P 600 gauge tracking the smallest stocks by market value is priced at 14.5 times expected earnings over the next year, according to FactSet data.

The valuation is well below the 21.3 times for the benchmark S&P 500 index, which tracks titans such as Apple, Facebook and Tesla.

Financial Times

economic indicators AFRICA TOP STOCKS (EXCL SA) Company

Itissa Al-Maghri Safaricom Attijariwafa Dangote Cement

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Country

Market Cap ($000s)

Price Total Return Ytd

Morocco

13,501.60

142.10

0.85

Kenya

13,410.73

37.80

14.23

Morocco

11,209.88

482.10

18.60

Nigeria

10,473.70

255.00

12.29

Egypt

6,621.40

52.80

18.94

Commercial Intl

INTEREST RATES

Latest

Month ago

Dec 10

Inflation (% change y/y) 5.0

5.0

Prime

7.25

7.00

7.00

Producer price index

Oct

8.1

7.8

NCD*

3.93

3.75

3.65

Repo

3.75

3.50

3.50

Claims on the domestic pvte sector

Oct

1.29

1.60

Jibar*

3.87

3.68

3.57

Total loans and advances

Oct

3.07

3.32

SABOR†

3.82

3.52

3.47

Total domestic credit extension

Oct

2.15

2.27

Credit Aggregates (% change y/y)

Morocco

6,152.66

280.00

15.46

Morocco

2,886.42

1,850.00

16.40

Cosumar

Morocco

2,716.41

266.00

29.47

Industry (% change y/y) New passenger car sales

Nov

9.40

3.10

New commercial vehicle sales

Nov

1.40

12.70

Nigeria

2,665.24

1,395.00

-3.22

Zimbabwe

2,572.77

78.00

743.75

Zenith Bank

Nigeria

1,895.69

25.05

14.98

Retail sales

Oct

1.8

2.1

Afriquia Gaz

Morocco

1,861.69

5,011.00

40.23

Wholesale sales

Oct

0.2

0.3

Wafa Assurance

Morocco

1,777.90

4,700.00

24.51

Manufacturing production

Oct

-8.9

0.7

Mining production

Oct

2.1

-0.8

Mineral sales

Oct

4.8

1.5

Trade (Rbn)

DIVIDENDS & DISTRIBUTIONS S Special F Final I Interim

Company

Amount (c)

Trade by

Payable

Year ago

Oct

Ciments du Maroc

Econet Wireless

Month ago

Consumer price index

Banque Centrale

Nestlé Nigeria

Short-term interest rates (%)

Imports

Oct

128.14

134.78

Exports

Oct

147.92

156.93

Trade balance

Oct

19.78

22.15

* 3 months

† Overnight rate

Bond yields (%) Dec 10

Month ago

Year ago

R186

7.855

8.010

R213

9.740

9.625

6.955 9.395

R214

10.755

10.605

10.815

R209

10.435

10.180

10.335

Gold & Forex Reserves ($bn)

Bowler Metcalf

S

84.00

Jan 4

Jan 10

Gold reserves

Nov

7.22

7.21

Schroder European Real Estate

F

1.85€c

Dec 21

Jan 14

SDR holdings

Nov

6.61

6.68

Schroder European Real Estate

S

4.75€c

Dec 21

Jan 14

Forex reserves

Nov

43.80

43.63

Sygnia

F

80.00

Dec 28

Jan 3

Gross reserves

Nov

57.62

57.52

Telemasters Holdings

I

0.50

Jan 4

Jan 10

Net reserves

Nov

55.16

55.43

WHERE TO INVEST IN AFRICA 2021

COMMODITY PRICES Dec 10

Week ago

Year ago

EXCHANGE RATES

12-mth low 12-mth high

Precious metals ($/oz) Gold Platinum

1,783

1,836

1,687

1,957

946

936

1,014

926

1,306

1,764

1,817

2,298

1,745

3,013

Silver

22.20

22.52

23.98

21.52

29.33

Aluminium

2,616

2,638

2,048

1,961

3,149

Copper

9,507

9,486

7,861

7,724

11,300

Base Metals ($/t)

Nickel

19,862

20,171

17,374

15,897

21,046

Lead

2,305

2,226

2,080

1,891

2,494

Tin

39,821

39,910

19,493

19,450

41,118

Zinc

3,353

3,240

2,837

2,546

3,847

Coal ($/t)

15.97

15.09

15.03

13.43

16.28

Euro

18.10

17.46

18.18

16.34

18.83

UK pound

21.20

20.41

19.99

19.01

21.71

Japan yen (100)

14.08

13.33

14.38

12.27

14.86

Canada dollar

12.55

12.14

11.76

11.11

12.72

Switzerland franc

17.34

16.53

16.91

14.94

17.64

Australia dollar

11.45

11.11

11.25

10.39

11.94

0.39

Brazil real

0.35

0.36

0.34

0.33

China yuan

0.39

0.42

0.43

0.39

0.47

India rupee

4.74

4.92

4.90

4.62

5.40

238.64

Russia ruble

4.59

4.68

4.88

4.59

5.42

74.74

69.77

50.14

49.40

85.70

Malaysia ringit

0.26

0.27

0.27

0.26

0.30

120.47

120.47

49.45

49.45

250.72

Thailand baht

2.10

2.17

2.00

1.94

2.32

Botswana pula

0.73

0.74

0.72

0.71

0.78

3,552

3,485

3,482

2,937

3,729

3,878

3,741

3,364

3,070

3,878

Our ‘Where to Invest in Africa 2021’ report combines expert analysis and in-depth research revealing Africa’s top 20 investment economies.

Emerging Markets — Foreign currency unit per rand

80.37

Yellow maize

Soya

US dollar

138.56

White maize

Sunflower

12-mth low 12-mth high

95.33

Agriculture (R/t)

Wheat

Year ago

98.67

Energy Brent ($/bbl)

Month ago

Developed Markets — Rand per foreign currency unit

1,783

Palladium

Iron Ore

Dec 10

DISCOVER THE FULL STORY BEHIND AFRICA’S TOP-RANKING ECONOMIES

6,117

6,225

4,681

4,681

7,400

11,257

11,200

8,534

8,021

11,400

Economist: Global Markets Research,

7,660

7,619

8,450

6,850

10,000

Rand Merchant Bank (tel) +27 11 282-1040 or e-mail: Mpho.Tsebe@rmb.co.za

Get the report rmb.co.za/u/wtiia

The information in the commodities column is provided by Mpho Tsebe,

Traditional values. Innovative ideas.

SHAREHOLDER MEETINGS Company

Date

Type

Place

Ascendis Health

Dec 20

AGM

Virtual

CSG Holdings

Dec 20

GM

Virtual

Company Hulisani

Date Jan 7

Type AGM

Place Virtual

CORPORATE AND INVESTMENT BANKING a division of FirstRand Bank Limited, is an Authorised Financial Services and Credit Provider NCRCP20.

Terms and conditions apply.

December 16 - December 22, 2021

.

financialmail.co.za

59

jse top stocks COMPANY

CLOSING PRICE

(MONDAY) (c)

Prosus N.V.

Market Cap — Market Capitalisation. YTD — Year to Date. TRI — Total Return Index. P:E — Price:Earnings ratio as at most recent annual results, Forward P:E — Price:Earnings ratio as at next annual results. HEPS — Headline Earnings per Share. Trailing HEPS — HEPS at the time of the most recent annual results presentation. EST. forward HEPS — HEPS as estimated by analysis as at next annual results presentation. * — all companies quoted in rand.

MARKET CAP (Rm)

SHARE PRICE RETURN YTD (%)

TRI RETURN YTD (%)

P:E

FORWARD P:E

TRAILING HEPS (*)

EST. FORWARD HEPS (*)

DIVIDEND YIELD (%)

FORWARD DIVIDEND YIELD (%)

3-YEAR AVERAGE RoE (%)

PUCSP

VIEW

PEG RATIO

128909

2,673,113

-19.74

-19.59

23.81

22.11

5414.13

5829.83

0.19

NA

14.81

138806.61

BUY

0.42

92206

1,601,729

-11.26

-10.49

23.88

21.20

3860.60

4350.14

0.95

1.80

7.68

103898.01

BUY

0.25

British American Tobacco plc

57713

1,324,332

5.81

12.23

9.67

8.74

5968.33

6600.33

NA

7.67

9.67

63824.37

BUY

0.30

Compagnie Financière Richemont SA

24521

1,279,996

87.04

90.76

32.39

36.60

757.13

670.02

1.25

16.04

9.65

21699.63

BUY

4.88

Glencore plc

7772

1,133,639

65.96

72.32

16.57

7.37

468.94

1054.53

3.00

4.46

-3.18

17477.28

BUY

0.08

Naspers Ltd.

251369

1,094,740

-16.75

-16.52

17.79

14.39

14129.38

17465.16

0.26

0.49

17.86

310714.19

BUY

0.10

45651

964,182

17.34

29.79

10.40

7.73

4388.77

5902.55

9.82

10.91

19.55

61397.00

BUY

0.06

Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV

BHP Group plc Anglo American plc Anglo American Platinum Ltd. FirstRand Ltd. MTN Group Ltd. Vodacom Group Ltd.

61731

830,104

28.76

37.20

6.35

6.71

9714.92

9198.75

5.81

9.58

13.14

58451.16

HOLD

0.06

175991

466,890

21.95

29.13

6.62

6.25

26574.00

28152.71

6.57

9.33

28.05

186446.30

HOLD

0.02

5671

318,114

11.11

16.31

11.80

10.30

480.50

550.50

1.94

5.66

16.50

6497.16

BUY

1.45

16050

302,425

166.66

166.66

22.73

16.40

706.00

978.50

NA

2.78

13.98

22244.94

BUY

0.28

13132

241,086

5.57

12.42

13.78

12.38

953.00

1060.50

6.32

6.37

18.18

14613.31

HOLD

6.18

Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd.

191286

221,178

33.52

35.87

27.92

26.35

6851.00

7259.67

1.46

1.58

21.22

202696.34

SELL

3.06

Standard Bank Group Ltd.

13207

213,947

3.93

8.63

10.56

8.98

1250.20

1471.13

4.54

5.68

12.21

15540.92

BUY

-2.86

4292

199,838

52.31

57.10

29.32

9.01

146.40

476.57

1.67

7.80

0.32

NA

BUY

0.06

Mondi plc

38418

186,540

11.97

15.07

17.05

14.88

2253.26

2582.32

2.80

3.17

18.56

44028.45

HOLD

2.28

Sasol Ltd.

27677

174,106

106.65

106.65

7.00

6.93

3953.00

3992.74

NA

4.98

-16.58

27955.27

BUY

0.12

Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd.

20409

166,794

1.08

12.39

4.40

4.91

4635.00

4152.65

10.78

12.98

25.07

NA

BUY

-0.05

Kumba Iron Ore Ltd.

44150

142,201

-29.11

-16.01

3.75

3.73

11766.00

11838.50

25.82

25.97

40.03

NA

SELL

0.08

Gold Fields Ltd.

15927

141,387

15.77

20.42

9.63

9.79

1654.24

1626.94

3.33

2.95

4.25

15664.14

BUY

0.04

Sibanye Stillwater Ltd.

4844

136,039

-19.27

-10.31

3.10

4.06

1561.00

1192.00

12.65

8.61

11.50

NA

BUY

-0.02

Sanlam Ltd.

5795

129,053

-1.36

3.89

12.77

19.81

453.90

292.50

5.18

NA

10.50

3734.39

BUY

40.21

South32 Ltd.

AngloGold Ashanti Ltd.

30380

126,826

-11.30

-9.12

8.52

10.56

3564.16

2876.35

2.61

0.78

10.42

24517.30

HOLD

0.03

Absa Group Ltd.

14548

123,331

21.37

23.87

8.82

7.16

1649.40

2032.50

2.13

4.47

9.87

17927.01

BUY

-0.81

Shoprite Holdings Ltd.

20505

121,254

46.46

51.23

21.44

21.05

956.30

973.98

2.65

2.65

18.49

20883.99

HOLD

Bid Corporation Ltd.

31258

104,841

18.84

20.28

35.99

20.99

868.40

1489.25

1.28

1.92

9.89

53605.45

BUY

104.53

9.25

Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd.

21462

97,964

71.19

73.05

17.82

13.63

1204.30

1575.14

1.22

1.41

8.66

28070.87

BUY

2.06

Discovery Ltd.

13601

90,551

-11.42

-11.42

29.91

14.60

454.70

931.67

NA

NA

7.39

27868.04

BUY

0.17

Sasol Ltd.

14300

89,917

88.16

88.16

NA

NA

3953.00

NA

NA

NA

-16.58

NA

NA

NA

Nedbank Group Ltd.

16644

84,696

28.54

31.72

9.39

8.90

1772.00

1870.87

2.60

4.40

10.69

17572.62

BUY

-1.11

Pepkor Holdings Ltd.

2185

80,785

60.31

60.31

16.14

16.58

135.40

131.75

2.02

1.99

2.28

2126.10

NA

0.46

Northam Platinum Holdings Ltd.

19925

79,026

-4.91

-98.58

7.41

6.29

2687.90

3166.00

NA

7.02

20.59

23469.08

BUY

0.01

Clicks Group Ltd.

30641

74,755

21.27

24.04

38.61

31.65

793.70

968.00

1.60

2.15

36.77

37369.90

BUY

3.36

Rand Merchant Investment Holdings Ltd.

4507

69,039

40.62

42.50

23.52

10.87

191.60

414.50

1.00

NA

11.59

9750.27

BUY

4.33

Remgro Ltd.

12743

67,438

32.46

33.41

24.96

12.64

510.60

1008.15

0.71

1.39

6.01

25160.31

BUY

6.50

The Bidvest Group Ltd.

18461

62,818

17.57

21.65

15.60

9.58

1183.30

1927.33

3.25

3.56

9.43

30068.78

BUY

0.96

NEPI Rockcastle plc

10206

62,154

9.16

16.25

15.79

14.55

646.42

701.33

6.03

6.59

3.72

11073.00

BUY

0.99

Investec plc

8147

56,710

116.39

128.45

9.60

9.59

848.38

849.35

4.66

NA

13.93

8156.36

BUY

2.65

Old Mutual Ltd.

1181

55,608

15.67

3.53

15.03

NA

78.60

NA

4.36

NA

18.84

NA

NA

-0.41

MultiChoice Group Ltd.

12356

54,677

-7.79

-2.82

44.13

13.32

280.00

927.67

4.57

5.23

16.30

NA

BUY

0.21

5115

53,804

29.36

30.80

13.66

14.02

374.40

364.75

1.29

4.05

13.50

4983.16

HOLD

0.56

Reinet Investments SCA

27390

53,668

-0.62

0.97

8.14

684.75

3363.00

40.00

1.57

1.67

2.75

325.78

BUY

-0.11

Exxaro Resources Ltd.

15102

53,254

8.73

35.55

3.54

2.84

4267.00

5316.25

21.98

26.04

19.94

NA

BUY

0.05

Mr Price Group Ltd.

20155

51,686

18.11

20.71

17.03

16.56

1183.20

1216.75

3.70

3.80

29.15

20726.50

BUY

17.13

3016

50,432

-1.89

1.57

36.07

17.20

83.62

175.35

3.71

NA

12.03

6324.50

BUY

0.89

HOLD

0.53

BUY

0.04 -1.24

Woolworths Holdings Ltd.

Quilter plc Growthpoint Properties Ltd. African Rainbow Minerals Ltd. Mediclinic International plc

1431

49,095

13.84

24.09

8.42

8.64

169.98

165.64

8.28

9.89

0.35

1394.43

21344

47,908

-18.51

-6.18

3.19

4.29

6688.00

4972.20

14.06

15.44

23.71

NA

6227

45,908

9.36

9.36

18.99

13.60

327.84

457.98

NA

NA

-3.76

8698.80

BUY

Royal Bafokeng Platinum Ltd.

15510

44,826

137.23

165.13

5.44

6.80

2851.00

2280.50

7.16

9.40

6.63

12406.37

BUY

0.01

The Foschini Group Ltd.

12052

39,895

17.80

17.80

17.87

12.58

674.60

957.67

1.41

3.33

7.77

17109.10

HOLD

-1.09 0.05

Harmony Gold Mining Company Ltd.

5929

36,554

-17.19

-15.33

6.01

9.67

987.00

613.11

2.31

0.30

0.42

3683.01

HOLD

16200

36,143

70.45

70.45

21.05

14.78

769.60

1096.00

NA

NA

8.50

23070.69

BUY

0.69

2816

35,677

66.14

72.91

16.64

18.50

169.28

152.25

2.91

2.59

18.29

2532.73

BUY

-1.15

Ninety One plc

5431

33,815

19.07

25.83

14.08

NA

385.79

NA

5.04

NA

82.14

NA

NA

0.91

Sirius Real Estate Ltd.

2866

33,517

48.50

50.68

37.08

24.25

77.30

118.17

2.42

NA

15.30

4381.39

BUY

0.99

Tiger Brands Ltd.

17487

33,194

-16.00

-11.95

15.51

11.34

1127.30

1542.20

4.72

5.17

14.69

23923.05

SELL

-1.38

2214

32,487

31.63

33.05

19.93

12.23

111.10

181.10

1.13

4.74

8.76

3608.94

BUY

2.06

Textainer Group Holdings Ltd.

55416

32,159

94.45

95.93

8.75

NA

6332.04

NA

0.73

NA

4.84

NA

NA

0.30

The SPAR Group Ltd.

16505

31,789

-12.92

-8.75

13.80

11.54

1196.20

1430.03

4.94

6.12

26.71

19731.28

BUY

3.92

MAS P.L.C.

2000

30,000

56.86

65.71

15.86

16.00

126.13

125.00

4.99

4.80

4.29

1982.08

BUY

0.05

Santam Ltd.

25750

29,646

1.07

2.93

19.81

22.99

1300.00

1120.00

1.68

NA

18.82

22184.62

BUY

-9.12

Barloworld Ltd.

14731

29,499

61.70

66.94

11.68

11.16

1261.20

1320.00

2.97

3.61

7.10

15417.79

BUY

0.06

Transaction Capital Ltd.

4082

29,431

64.00

66.15

27.77

19.05

147.00

214.30

1.27

2.08

13.05

5950.83

SELL

0.62

660

29,137

26.92

28.47

89.07

32.75

7.41

20.15

1.23

NA

-25.62

NA

SELL

-1.87

HOLD

22.54

Distell Group Holdings Ltd. Vivo Energy plc

Life Healthcare Group Holdings Ltd.

Hammerson Plc Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd. Bytes Technology Group plc Redefine Properties Ltd. Capital & Counties Properties PLC

60

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.

3376

29,036

60.69

63.24

37.30

31.95

90.50

105.67

1.50

1.14

29.59

3941.78

12000

28,738

79.91

80.55

48.79

NA

245.94

NA

0.34

NA

119.02

NA

NA

NA

432

28,300

29.73

47.99

6.01

6.65

71.88

65.00

13.92

1654.86

-9.98

390.64

BUY

-0.53

3318

28,245

16.18

16.52

-96.51

NA

-34.38

NA

0.31

NA

-18.83

NA

NA

-2.46

December 16 - December 22, 2021

jse top stocks COMPANY

CLOSING PRICE

(MONDAY) (c)

Dividend Yield — Dividend Yield as at most recent annual results. Forward Dividend Yield — Dividend yield as at next annual results. Three-year average RoE — three-year average Return on Equity. PUCSP — Potential upside from current share price (1 year target price). View — Consensus Buy/Hold/Sell recommendations. PEG Ratio — Price:Earnings to Growth ratio as at most recent annual results.

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¿

!

MARKET CAP (Rm)

SHARE PRICE RETURN YTD (%)

TRI RETURN YTD (%)

P:E

FORWARD P:E

TRAILING HEPS (*)

EST. FORWARD HEPS (*)

DIVIDEND YIELD (%)

FORWARD DIVIDEND YIELD (%)

3-YEAR AVERAGE RoE (%)

PUCSP

VIEW

PEG RATIO

Momentum Metropolitan Holdings Ltd.

1804

27,014

14.47

16.98

58.38

6.05

30.90

298.00

2.22

NA

4.67

NA

HOLD

-4.39

Pick n Pay Stores Ltd.

5309

26,197

5.63

9.31

21.51

16.73

246.81

317.25

3.71

4.48

37.58

6824.20

BUY

2.50

Investec Ltd.

8200

26,150

123.80

136.47

9.67

11.24

848.38

729.41

4.63

NA

13.93

7050.10

BUY

2.35

Telkom SA SOC Ltd.

5070

25,915

65.09

65.09

8.61

8.83

588.70

574.17

0.99

1.05

6.37

4944.84

BUY

0.21

Liberty Holdings Ltd.

8906

25,489

43.69

43.69

24.97

14.83

356.60

600.50

NA

5.09

3.85

14997.34

BUY

-0.89

AVI Ltd.

7467

25,161

1.98

11.85

14.94

13.37

499.90

558.50

5.83

6.09

37.18

8342.31

BUY

8.48

Sappi Ltd.

4417

25,044

34.58

34.58

59.49

6.93

74.25

637.56

NA

1.36

1.07

NA

BUY

-4.99

Montauk Renewables Inc.

16690

23,535

-22.37

-22.37

-44.15

NA

-378.04

NA

NA

NA

2.88

NA

NA

Resilient REIT Ltd.

5678

22,719

34.23

46.22

80.93

12.16

70.16

466.90

7.55

8.15

-0.13

NA

HOLD

-0.84

Truworths International Ltd.

4989

21,319

35.39

45.07

9.59

9.32

520.30

535.30

7.02

6.92

8.41

5132.83

HOLD

-2.92

Italtile Ltd.

1606

21,226

8.51

15.75

11.46

NA

140.10

NA

3.49

NA

22.72

NA

NA

0.80

Netcare Ltd.

1395

20,075

11.60

11.60

22.68

11.40

61.50

122.33

2.44

5.09

11.47

2774.88

HOLD

0.06

10464

19,650

86.86

95.07

8.88

7.95

1179.00

1316.50

3.97

5.12

11.71

11684.36

BUY

0.15

8372

18,692

39.81

39.81

2.26

38.40

3699.00

218.00

NA

NA

55.08

NA

BUY

0.08 3.51

Motus Holdings Ltd. PSG Group Ltd. Coronation Fund Managers Ltd.

NA

4855

16,983

12.46

23.24

9.95

NA

487.90

NA

9.68

NA

63.55

NA

NA

53500

16,559

7.00

7.00

35.30

NA

1515.50

NA

NA

NA

38.79

NA

NA

NA

PSG Konsult Ltd.

1181

15,751

31.22

34.19

20.15

NA

58.60

NA

2.24

NA

19.74

NA

NA

1.03

Ninety One Ltd.

5247

15,746

19.25

26.21

13.60

NA

385.79

NA

5.22

NA

82.14

NA

NA

0.88

Equites Property Fund Ltd.

2131

15,527

22.68

32.93

10.43

12.84

204.30

166.00

7.46

7.70

6.37

1731.50

BUY

-1.88

Fortress REIT Ltd.

Karooooo Ltd.

1202

14,323

-11.94

-7.22

13.43

7.13

89.50

168.50

6.21

13.73

-4.91

2262.98

BUY

0.16

Lighthouse Capital Ltd.

830

13,486

21.52

29.52

-3.28

NA

-252.80

NA

6.43

NA

-28.79

NA

NA

0.03

Massmart Holdings Ltd.

6044

13,245

43.84

43.84

-36.06

29.56

-167.60

204.50

NA

NA

-24.37

NA

HOLD

0.87

Imperial Logistics Ltd.

6260

12,702

67.60

70.70

18.86

12.23

332.00

512.00

1.33

3.91

7.40

9653.98

HOLD

20.07

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

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life

Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick in Pirate (99), R820, Chanel Fragrance & Beauty boutique Sandton City, V&A Waterfront, Menlyn Park

Geraldine Fenn pearl and dog necklace, R3,200, tinselgallery.com

A look at how to spend your downtime — from music, to sport, books, the theatre and the screen

ALL WE WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

Bros on the Road palm tree candlesticks, POA, artefact.co.za, rkcontemporary.com

Been an awful good boy or girl?

Ask Santa to leave these gifts under the tree.

Sarah Buitendach

THAT SENTIMENTAL FEELING

Eli Espinoza Soberón Natural – Cup of Excellence #8 – Peru, R689, father.coffee

Soft cover Drum notebooks, R175 each, baha.co.za

La Marzocco Linea Mini espresso machine, R78,650, beanthere.co.za

Leopard print cushion cover, R1,195 (including inner), louharvey.co.za

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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Geraldine Fenn resin cameo and carnelian earrings, R1,800, tinselgallery.com

POP GOES THE WORLD Joe Paine Purple Rainz table lamp, R2,760, alwayswelcome.store

Invoking the fever dream (blue), 2019, Neill Wright, R16,500, everard-read.co.za

Hype woman on red vase, 2021, Boemo Diale, R5,260, thegalleryjhb.co.za

Ophelia Forever scarf and NFT, Olivié Keck, R2,300 (ex VAT), latitudes.online

Wally’s Wangle by Walter Battiss swim shorts, R999, granadillaswim.com

Kaweco Collection vibrant violet fountain pen, R1,399, writegear.co.za Kaweco Perkeo jungle green fountain pen, R269, writegear.co.za

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

Moholo dog blanket, R520, mungo.co.za

Cigarette side table, R5,199, tonicdesign.co.za

Understory, 2020, Neill Wright, R60,000, everard-read.co.za

Icon Series Vol.1 postcard set, Mac Mckay, R120 for a set of 4, dreampress.co.za

ELECTRIC AVENUE

Ardbeg Wee Beastie, R496, bottegawhiskey.com Curvaceous vase, R399, Swannie, Instagram: @swannie_handmade

What doesn’t kill you ceramic plate and giclee prints, Sonja Kastner, Instagram: @skceramics_and_art

December 16 - December 22, 2021

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30 by Adele, R790, mrvinyl.co.za Tokara XO Brandy, R950, tokara.com

No 153 Poivre Noire Huile de Parfum, R450, akjpstudio.com

Gideon Plays by Gideon “Mgibe” Nxumalo, R400, mrvinyl.co.za

Sextet, 2021, Sam Nhlengethwa, R12,500 (ex VAT), latitudes.online

Cedar duffel bag, R2,695, rowdybags.com

Agora spice concentrates, 500ml, R165 each, agoraplantbased.com

BIRTH OF THE COOL Leather tablet sleeve, R1,200, acorn.capetown

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

Kenwood vintage cordless 1.7l electric kettle, R1,199, yuppiechef.com

SOFT CELL Red Dots earrings in 18k yellow gold vermeil, R2,390, kirstengoss.com Pink cushion cover, R1,195 (including inner), louharvey.co.za

Sugarbird Pino & Pelargonium gin, 500 ml, R280, pnp.co.za Seatox marine algae and aloe detoxifying mask, R319; the drip deep sea biotics and African malachite hydrating mist, R299, leliveafrica.com

Steenberg ruby rosé 2021, R105 a bottle, steenbergfarm.com

Wade Bales brut rosé, R1,200 for a case of 12, wadebales.co.za

Extra-large ice cube tray, R219, reusetarian.co.za December 16 - December 22, 2021

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Bentley for Men Silverlake EDP, 100ml, R1,499, dischem.co.za

Six-bottle cooler in khaki, R490, karibugear.com

Thule EnRoute camera backpack 25l, R3,300, thulestore.co.za

Patagonia mens down sweater, R4,499, goneoutdoor.com

NATURE BOY

Bird feeder kit, R480, babylonstoren.com

Nike Blazer Mid Jumbo in black, bright crimson, sail and olive aura, R2,099, shelflife.co.za

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Bluetooth 44mm, R5,499, capeunionmart.co.za

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

crossword Cryptic No 154 1~2~3~45`6`7` 8`````~`~`~`~ `~`~`~9`````` 0`````~`~`~`~ `~`~`~~-````` =````q``~`~`~ `~`~~`~`~~w~e ~r~t~y``u```` i`````~~`~`~` ~`~`~`~o````` p``````~`~`~` ~`~`~`~[````` ]``````~`~`~` SCRIBBLE PAD

ACROSS 4 One way to welcome me coming back with two more (7) 8 See 13 Down 9 I’m only disturbed by a maintenance grant (7) 10 USA’s involved with an expensive resort in the West Indies (6) 11 One of those service addresses (6) 12 Touches electrical points (8) 18 An edict about the words of the play (8) 20 A box that slides back to reveal the prize (6) 21 The craft for a tailor (6) 22 See 19 Down 23 Make an attack on the price for a load (6) 24 State reorganised the French seaport on Elliott Bay (7)

DOWN 1 Nutritious food brings about a change in chaps (7) 2 Failing to see what’s not there! (7) 3 Beds down among the rocks (6) 5 Medical officer gets the girls a sweet concoction (8) 6 An observation about a gospeller (6) 7 Lacks the ability to see a small number

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Financial Mail_Jetcraft_half-page_145mmx235mm_17 Nov 2021_.indd 1

surrounded by hypocrisy (6) 13 & 8 Across. The chief directions the high churchman indicates (8,6) 14 Those who pose as easy targets (7) 15 As far as athletic events are concerned, he’s just a beginner (7) 16 Reduce the value of French military station (6) 17 It is piled on the floor (6) 19 & 22 Across. Presumably no wide-awake criminal is apprehended in this way (6,7)

SOLUTION No 153 Across: 1 Mathematics; 9 See; 10 All at once; 11 Inapt; 13 Dallies; 14 Misery; 16 Hymnal; 18 Trainer; 19 Stern; 20 Syndicate; 21 Ass; 22 Progenitors.

Down: 2 Aye; 3 Heart; 4 Malady; 5 Totally; 6 Consignee; 7 Astigmatism; 8 Beastliness; 12 Abstainer; 15 Rending; 17 Ordain; 19 Sheet; 21 Air.

F E AT U R E D A I RC R A F T

2015 BOEING BUSINESS JET • • • • • • •

S/N

61040

809 Hours; 205 Landings 8 Auxiliary Fuel Tanks Split Scimitar Winglets Stage 4 Noise Compliance Always Hangered SwiftBroadband Internet 14 Passenger Configurations

2020 BEECHCRAFT KING AIR B250 S/N BY-377 • • • • •

102 Hours; 56 Landings Engines Enrolled in ESP Airframe on ProParts ADSB Out, WAAS, LPV Phase 1 & 2 Maintenance Completed 06-11-2021 • 8 Passenger Configuration

2016 DASSAULT FALCON 7X S/N 268 • 2,039 Hours; 1,481 Landings • Honeywell EASy II Plus, 4th Gen, HUD, EFVS and SVS • ADS-B Out and CPDLC Compliant • Engines and APU Enrolled on JSSI Premium SwiftBroadband Internet December 16 - December•22, 2021 financialmail.co.za 69 • 12 Passenger Configuration

.

11/16/21 7:30 AM

backstory Seelan Gobalsamy CEO: Omnia Holdings

What was your first job?

After my studies, I spent a lot of time following my dad around a chemical plant that he ran. But my first formal job was at an audit firm.

How much was your first pay cheque, and how did you spend it?

It was around R1,950. I had a student loan and my family needed financial help, so the money was quickly allocated to cover these expenses.

What is the one thing you wish somebody had told you when you were starting out?

Remain humble and cherish opportunities to learn from people. I have worked with many incredible leaders who have helped accelerate my growth and development.

If you could fix only one thing in SA, what would it be?

Education is the key to success. We need to implement the best education system for the children of our continent.

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December 16 - December 22, 2021

What’s the most interesting thing about you that people don’t know?

I’m an entrepreneur at heart … My university dorm had little space for much else than a single bed and a tiny desk.

Even so, I had boxes piled to the ceiling — filled with T-shirts and tuck-shop stock that I flogged. Selling these helped me pay for my studies and resulted in me buying my first car by my fourth year of study.

What’s the worst investment mistake you’ve made?

Emotional investments are the ones to avoid. While passion is important in business, one needs to be considered and disciplined.

What’s the best investment you’ve ever made? And how much of it was due to luck?

On a lighter note, I bought a few koi fish and, a number of years later, when they were eventually valued, I was astounded by how valuable they had become!

What is the hardest life lesson you’ve learnt so far?

The success of any business or organisation is determined by its people. Making difficult people decisions to ensure you have the right team, and doing so quickly, is key to success.

Was there ever a point at which you wanted to trade it all in for a different career? And, if so, what would that career be?

I would really enjoy spending all my time on a racetrack or with cars.

If you were President Cyril Ramaphosa, what would you change, or do, tomorrow?

The changes I would like to see are ones that have already been extensively considered. However, I’d focus more energy on addressing education, infrastructure and service delivery challenges. Simultaneously, I would look at more ways in which to restore our pride in our wonderful country.

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S P E E D M A S T E R M O O N WAT C H In July 1969, the Speedmaster earned its nickname when it became the first watch worn on the moon, and in 1970, it went above all expectations when it helped guide the crew of the crippled Apollo 13 mission back to safety. Updated today as a Co-Axial Master Chronometer, the iconic Moonwatch is now tested and certified at the highest level by the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS) which guarantees more accuracy, reliability and supreme resistance to magnetism.