TAR119_Q2-2022_Extract by The Africa Report

‘Ukraine-Russia conflict an opportunity for our gas’

‘I will accept the outcome of the election’

President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania

William Ruto, Kenya’s Deputy President

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N° 119 • APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

‘I hope the tensions won’t lead to World War III!’ The WTO’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on vaccines, resilience, and the spirit of ‘made in Africa’

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EDITORIAL

CLASHING SPHERES CRUSH PEOPLE

In the mind’s eye of a handful of men in the autumn of their lives and brandishing weapons of mass destruction, our world is reverting into a grand conflict of spheres of influence. The signal is the biggest war in Europe for more than 70 years. The price is the destruction of thousands of lives and livelihoods in Europe, and lethal mayhem wrecking tens of millions of lives far beyond its borders. It is a geopolitical reality for which few of the world’s nearly eight billion people would vote. Yet, it has become the all-consuming news on our phones, newspapers and televisions. Like the peoples of Korea, Vietnam, Congo, Angola and Ethiopia before them, the brave fighters of Ukraine are trapped between the hammer and the anvil. In the 30 years since the Berlin Wall was picked apart by souvenir hunters, the international system was edging towards an uneasy multipolarity. Presiding over that evolution was the US, which spends more on its military than the next 11 countries combined. If guns were the sole measure of power, Washington would dominate the world for decades to come. But they are not. War is all around us, as Mark Galeotti points out in his brilliant tome The WeaponisationofEverything. Asymmetric wars

are being fought in cyberspace, by smart-suited lobbyists and by paramilitary criminal gangs, as well as in boardrooms where directors chew up the world’s ecology. This makes the outcome of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ever more problematic. His bid to rebuild the Russian Empire, the one that collapsed in revolution in 1917, comes as Western Europe’s empires are being held to serious account for the first time since their dissolution. Beyond the return of stolen cultural artefacts by Britain, France and Germany to Africa and Asia, there is a wider redrawing of the paths of trade and technology. Centuries of bloody expropriation are being dissected by scholars; bills are being presented. Reparations, not flaccid apologias, are on the agenda. This regathering and reconstitution of the Global South should not be diverted by a new tsar looking back to the centuries of blood and iron. The backing of the Russians and other Soviet peoples for Africa’s liberation movements is written into history. But that gives no moral or legal right for a new tyrant to trample on the peoples who are living in what he deems to be Russia’s near abroad. The UN charter of 1945 accorded all member states sovereignty, territorial integrity and recognition of their liberty and human rights. It was the template under which Europe’s empires surrendered their seized territories. We now have 193 members of the UN. Most of them voted to deplore Moscow’s attack on Ukraine. They did not vote for the redivision of the globe into hostile spheres of influence, with their axes in Washington, Moscow and Beijing. The only beneficiaries of that will be predators of a breed who strutted across Africa, Asia and Europe in the 1930s. Stopping them in their tracks should be our common cause today.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE E 2022

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54 DRC FOCUS President Félix Tshisekedi has successfully manoevred himself out of the shadow and power of his predecessor and made efforts to restore the image of the DRC abroad and further regional integration. He still has many obstacles to overcome before 2023’s elections.

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32 INTERVIEW / Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala The director-general of the World Trade Organisation talks to The Africa Report about vaccine equality, industrial policy and the future of free trade on the continent and beyond.

40 INTERVIEW / Samia Suluhu Hassan Thrust into the hot seat in March 2021, President Hassan has quietly nudged Tanzania onto the path of openness. Not far enough, say some. Too far, say others, who fear the influence of multinationals.

South Africa’s inefficient ports and the East African rail race.

98 ANGOLA FOCUS Has JLo done enough to improve the economy before this year’s elections?

48 INTERVIEW / William Ruto

106 LAST WORD

Kenya’s deputy president is the leading candidate in Kenya’s August presidential elections and is promising a sea change in the country’s politics and businesss.

Lessons for Africa from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

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NIGERIA’S NORTH VS. SOUTH Northerners (Hausas) will not and will never relinquish such political power to any southerner [‘Nigeria: Does the north have the numbers to retain power beyond 2023?’, TAR online, 15 February 2022] except a tested and proven sycophant, because of incompatible mentalities, values, senses of priorities, standards and characteristics of management and administration! Look at how they are mismanaging the still ongoing Boko Haram problems in Hausalands. Seton Olusegun During

THE GREAT ZONING DEBATE The analysis that President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor might be a northerner looks shortsighted. The informal arrangement of ‘zoning’ remains a powerful determinant of who becomes Nigeria’s president in 2023. Any political party […] that throws open the presidential candidacy

“The systems were broken ... The machinery was politicised” Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema

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N° 118 • JANUARY-FEBRUARY-MARCH 2022

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regardless of ethnoreligious considerations would be inviting defeat at the polls. Neither the north nor south as a bloc could alone produce the president. Most opinion in the country at present seems to favour the shifting of the power base to the south, with the north providing the vice-president. My own assessment is this: should the PDP decide to present

CONTINENTAL COMMITMENT Your piece by Patrick Smith [Editorial, TAR 118] is simply wrong about the World Bank Group’s work on the pandemic, climate and debt. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, we have taken broad, fast action to help developing countries strengthen their pandemic response, increase disease surveillance, improve public health interventions and help the private sector continue to operate and sustain jobs. During this period, World Bank lending to the African continent has averaged more than a third of our total portfolio for 2020-2021, reaching a total of $57bn in commitments. In 2021, lending to Africa rose to almost 50% of our total – a record $30bn. This scale-up in commitments represents a much larger share of financing than that of all other multilateral organisations combined. David Theis, Press Secretary, World Bank

a northern candidate, the next president will almost certainly emerge from the south-west, on an APC ticket; however, if the APC ignored ‘zoning’, the PDP might edge it out in the contest. The situation is too fluid at the moment to make any realistic forecasts.’Perhaps after the APC convention [...] we might be able to get a clearer picture. Gilbert Alabi Diche

BORROWER BEWARE Very interesting read [‘Tug-of-War: How China and the US are fighting over Africa’, TAR online, 6 January 2022]. However, if Africa continues to involve China, more debt to follow. [...] Africa should try to become selfcontained and not rely on dubious loans. Alfred Thamm

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THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

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The Africa Report’s exclusive guide to the quarter ahead features key events from the worlds of politics, business and culture. Whether it’s betting on which long-standing rival will win Kenya’s nail-biting presidential election, tracking Egypt’s progress in the space race or absorbing artist Tracey Rose’s profound work on the post-apartheid era in Cape Town, follow our pointers to the continent’s highlights and hotspots in April, May & June. THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

/ APRIL

THE DYNAMICS OF EGYPT’S WHEAT IMPORTS (mn tonnes) from Ukraine

Total import*

12.4

12.8

1.9

3.7

7.4

6.4

8.1

2018/2019

2019/2020

2020/2021

12.5 2.5

*USDA estimation

from Russia

RUSSIA/UKRAINE

Brace for impact

BOOKS Winner of the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, poet Noor Naga’s experimental novel, out in April, is set in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, as a photographer of the revolution and an Egyptian American woman meet, fall in love and do not live happily ever after. The prize committee said that If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English ‘seethes with metaphoric passion and emotional intelligence […] and will reward every rereading with new doses of pleasure’.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March set off a cascade of political, economic and strategic changes across the world, including Africa. The conflict is leading officials in Bangui, Bamako and Conakry to question their support for stronger ties with Russia. At the same time, African policymakers are examining opportunities to benefit from the competing interests of Russia and the West. Russia’s investment on the continent lags far behind its commitments to Europe and North Africa, so the economic impact of the fighting will be less direct. While the war is raising prices for commodities like wheat, oil, gas and gold, international financial institutions are warning that the conflict is a major threat to the world’s post-Covid economic recovery. The rapid return to selling oil at more than $100 per barrel is a boon to major African producers like Algeria, Angola and Nigeria. On the other hand, the conflict is already stressing Egypt’s economic planners. The world’s largest wheat importer relies on both Russia and Ukraine for most of its grain. Egypt’s 2022 wheat season will begin in April, with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government raising prices for domestic producers and supporting the expansion of land under wheat cultivation to boost local production.

APPOINTMENTS

MICHELE SPATARI/AFP

AFOLABI SOTUNDE/REUTERS

DUNCAN WANBLAD Mining giant Anglo American is getting a new boss. Duncan Wanblad will take over as chief executive in April. He has been with the company since 2008, rising up from its copper and base metals divisions.

TRIALS April will bring more hearings in high-profile Nigerian and South African criminal cases. The corruption case against South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma (above right) has been delayed several times and could again be postponed due to appeals. Hearings on an $8bn arms deal under the presidencies of both Thabo Mbeki and Zuma could further hurt the popularity of the African National Congress government. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Nnamdi Kanu (above left), the seccessionist leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, will also be back in court to hear the federal hight court’s ruling on 8 April about his motion to have the treasonable felony and terrorism charges against him dropped.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

Your day in court MARK DUNFORD In April, Mark Dunford will become the new managing director of Knight Frank Kenya, the real estate consultancy. He was previously the East Africa head of US-based Jones Lang LaSalle.

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/ APRIL

YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP

Long-standing rivals Raila Odinga (left) and William Ruto (right) finally vie for the presidency

YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP

KENYA

Campaign prep In Kenya, 2022 is a high-stakes year in politics, with national elections in August, when President Uhuru Kenyatta will step down from the presidency. April is an important milestone on the road to the vote, with political parties holding their primaries and national delegate conventions. There is no doubt that deputy president William Ruto and former prime minister Raila Odinga, the top presidential contenders, will head the ticket of the United Democratic Alliance and the Orange Democratic Movement, respectively. With the government’s high level of debt and the impact of the Covid pandemic, the economy, as well as education and security, will be high on the agenda as the ‘hustler’ Ruto takes on Odinga, the heir of a Kenyan political dynasty.

AVIATION With the worst of the pandemic’s impact on air travel seemingly behind us, Nigerian business leaders are launching operations of a new airline in April. Nigeria Air is backed by Nigerian investors (46%) and the government (5%), who are looking for foreign investors to take up the remaining equity. Nigeria Air launched a call for interested investors in early March, with reports that Qatar Airways is interested.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

They are busy forging alliances and meeting with potential vice-presidential candidates that could help to tip the balance in their favour. Ruto is leading in the polls, but Odinga has the backing of President Uhuru Kenyatta and the vested interests that come with that. As The Africa Report went to press, Ruto looked likely to pick former deputy president Musalia Mudavadi, while Peter Kenneth, a former assistant minister, was among the top potential running mates for Odinga. Down the ballot, the 2022 vote will bring opportunities for rising political stars, as two-term governors look elsewhere to advance their political careers. Primary season will reshuffle some decks, and those who do not win in their preferred parties have until 5 May to declare their candidacies as independents.

EVENTS 11-13 April Players in the tourism sector rally for their post-Covid recovery at Africa Travel Week in Cape Town, South Africa. atwconnect.com 11-16 April The African Studies Association of Africa conference at the University of Cape Town. as-aa-org 27-29 April The West Africa Pharma & Healthcare Show in Accra, Ghana. westafricapharmahealthcare.com 29 April to 1 May Stars like Master KG and DJ Maphorisa will be at Zimbabwe’s Vic Falls Carnival. vicfallscarnival.com

Let’s create wealth and build the future together. GROUPE EBOMAF: SIEGE SOCIAL, SIS BOULEVARD DES TANGSOBA, OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO. 10 BP 13 395 OUAGADOUGOU 10,TEL:+226 25 37 23 83, FAX: +226 25 37 24 66, E-mail: ebomafbureauouaga@ebomaf.com TOGO CASABLANCA, Bvd du 30 Août Siège de la filiale togolaise : 08 BP 81545 Lomé 08 Tel : 00228 22 21 11 48 / Fax : 00228 22 21 11 35

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HUNGER

0.6

MAURITANIA

/ MAY

Africa on the agenda

0.03

MADAGASCAR 1.3 0.3 ANGOLA 1.2 0.4

TELECOMS

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world’s hotspot for food insecurity. The World Food Programme is warning in its predictions until May that Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen are suffering the worst crises, driven by conflict, inflation and weak government responses.

CHAD 1.6 0.1 MALI 1.7 0.2 MOZAMBIQUE 1.8 0.04

Kenya’s Safaricom and its consortium partners plan to launch mobile-money platform M-Pesa in Ethiopia by May. The conflict in Tigray has dampened investor interest, and telecoms expect a big boost in the short term.

LEBANON (Incl. refugees) 1.8 0.2 CAR 1.7

BURKINA FASO

0.4

2.2

0.4

HONDURAS

2.7

SOMALIA

2.8

Number of people in acute food insecurity in hotspot countries

0.6

In 2022 (most recent projection), in millions Crisis (IPC 3)

0.6

BOOKS

Emergency (IPC 4)

NIGER

3.3

HAITI

3.2

0.3

4.6

SOUTH SUDAN

4.7

SYRIA YEMEN ETHIOPIA

Moderately food insecure people (WFP CARI) Severely food insecure people (WFP CARI)

1.3

SUDAN

The prolific Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi is keeping fans happy. The new novel You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty tackles love and new chances, and comes out in May. Bitter, about youth and revolution, targeted at a young audience, was published in February. And Emezi’s first book of poetry, Content Warning: Everything, is due out in April.

Catastrophe/Famine (IPC 5)

1.3 2.4

0.11

11.1

APPOINTMENTS

1.3 11

5.1 12.1

0.05

4.3

0.4 0.6

AFGHANISTAN

17.4 14.1

DRC

0.01

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS 8.7

20.5

5.4

SOURCE: FAO/WFP

NIGERIA

Only one person is willing take up the responsibility for helping the world see its way out of a global pandemic. The WHO director is running unopposed for the position and will be reappointed in May.

ELMA OKIC/UNITED NATIONS PHOTO

KENYA

0.7

/ MAY

STEFAN HEUNIS/AFP

AFOLABI STUNDE/REUTERS

Q2 NIGERIA

APC was created from a coalition of parties, with Lagos political godfather Bola Tinubu (above left) as its lynchpin. His toughest competition for the presidential primary is technocratic vice-president Yemi Osinbajo (above right), but other contenders have included the likes of Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank. Tinubu has the biggest backing, but also a sizable list of enemies who do not want to see him in power. Any major leader unhappy with the results could decamp to the opposition or set up their own party, further dividing the voters.

Primary picks The All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s governing party, is set to hold its presidential primary in May or June of this year to choose a candidate for the 2023 polls. Following the country’s informal ‘zoning’ principles, political parties are set to nominate southerners as their flag bearers after two terms of the presidency under a northerner, APC leader President Muhammadu Buhari. The

Both the APC and the opposition People’s Democratic Party are looking for candidates who appeal to the many voters in Nigeria’s north. The PDP is considering a northerner. Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar from Adamawa State is the candidate to beat. He faces a challenge from Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal. With the national economy in a regular boom-bust cycle due to its dependence on oil and gas exports, Buhari’s administration has not had any major victories on key voting issues in the north, like the economy, security and education.

AID

Somali election pressure SATELLITES The Egyptian Space Agency will oversee the launch of EgSAcube-3 and EgSAcube-4, the first locally designed satellites, in May. The government is building a ‘satellite city’ this year for research and education in the field.

70,000m

Amidst rapid urbanisation, Kenya’s Karimenu II dam should be completed in May, providing water for about one million people in Gatundu, Juja, Nairobi (see page 60) and Ruiru.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

Somalia’s $365.5m International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid programme is at risk because of delays in holding elections. IMF officials said that the vote and a programme review need to take place by 17 May or the country’s aid and debt-relief programmes – which would reduce Somalia’s debt from $5.2bn to $557m – could be stopped. In 2021, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s allies attempted to prolong his term for two years. Since then, several elections have been delayed. Parliamentary elections were not held as planned on 25 February and 15 March.

BOOKS Bestselling Sierra Leonean author Namina Forna is coming out with The Merciless Ones, the second book in the Deathless fantasy trilogy about a powerful girl, magic and the fate of an empire. And, for those who would prefer special effects over imagination, the books are being turned into films.

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Features

32 INTERVIEW Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

40 INTERVIEW Samia Suluhu Hassan

48 PROFILE William Ruto

The first African and the first woman to head the World Trade Organisation has the political nous needed to break more than a decade of deadlock.

A year into her presidency of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan has ushered in an era of Kikwete-style economic liberalism.

Kenya’s deputy president is polling high for the August elections, but his campaign is mired in personal rancour after the president he serves switched sides.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

FEATURES /

Ngozi OkonjoIweala INTERVIEW

‘I hope the tensions won’t lead to World War III!’

As multiple crises gnaw away at global unity, the director-general of the World Trade Organisation talks to The Africa Report about geopolitics, vaccine equality and the future of free trade on the continent and beyond

Interview by NICHOLAS NORBROOK 32

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

DAMIEN GRENON FOR JA

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

FEATURES /

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

‘We are mixing the Nyerere ideology and liberalism’ INTERVIEW

Samia Suluhu Hassan Thrust into the hot seat in March 2021, President Hassan has quietly nudged Tanzania onto the path of openness. Not far enough, say some. Too far, say others, who fear the influence of multinationals

VINCENT FOURNIER FOR TAR

Interview by NICHOLAS NORBROOK

N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

PERFORMANCE

Workshop in Startgate, UM6P Startup Campus, Benguerir, Maroc.

Sowing the seeds of innovation One of the greatest challenges the world faces is bringing industrial production in line with safe, sustainable progress. The key is innovation – brilliant ideas that take industry into a low carbon future, responding to the needs of populations and creating a powerful entrepreneurial ecosystem. OCP has put the full weight of its industrial know-how and partnerships behind the “Usine du Futur by OCP” challenge, within its Open Innovation platform “The Next Seed”, aimed at discovering, nurturing and growing tomorrow’s players in agriculture, mining, sustainable development, supply chain, and smart cities.

here’s nothing like a challenge or competition to get the most inventive, ambitious and determined minds into gear. This is what OCP, the world’s leading producer of phosphates and market leader in phosphate fertilizers, had mind when it launched its Open Innovation platform “The Next Seed”.

The idea is to identify the most innovative and technologically promising Moroccan, African and international startups to work with OCP and collaborate to solve strategic challenges while benefitting from the support of a virtuous ecosystem. “The Next Seed” is an Open Innovation platform that offers fertile soil to innovate, collaborate and sprout creative shared-value solutions. OCP Group believes in Open Innovation’s capacity to provide access to Innovation, agility and talents that could optimize operational excellence and development of innovative services, in the conquest of disruptive and futuristic solutions. Through this initiative, OCP and its ecosystem are calling on the expertise of the most innovative

players – young startups, innovative SMEs and researchers – to work with them to co-develop digital industrial solutions to meet technological challenges, optimize the company’s operational excellence, and encourage the development of new innovative business and services in agriculture, mining, sustainable development, supply chain, and smart cities

Usine du Futur by OCP This first challenge, called “Usine du Futur by OCP”, focuses on four major themes that will revolutionize the factory of tomorrow: Safe Operations, Smart Operations, Supply Chain, and Sustainability. OCP’s vision is that of harnessing futuristic technologies that maximize safety for employees to achieve Zero Incidence, optimizing the performance of industrial production lines by reducing losses, making the traceability of shipments more efficient, optimizing customer satisfaction and controlling the air quality at the industrial site level.

MESSAGE

First, however, contenders for the coveted final four spots in the Usine du Future challenge selection of startups have to compete against each other by submitting their ideas for the factory of tomorrow. These projects can respond to one or more of the challenge’s themes i.e. Smart Operations, Safe Operations, Supply Chain and Sustainability. Their concepts have to provide a relevant solution to the problem raised, be business orientated and commercially viable, innovative and sustainable (taking into account its environmental impact) and demonstrate high added value in solving concrete problems.

These four winners will proceed to what can only be called a game-changing 3-month phase for the future of each startup and the Usine du Futur by OCP – infrastructure for experimenting with their solutions, support programs and a large network of experts and mentors, an acceleration program, and dedicated experimentation fields such as the Safi experimental factory to validate the value proposition of their solutions. The Safi industrial complex is historically Morocco’s first phosphate processing site, producing phosphoric acid and fertilizers. This is where the startups will work with the various businesses across the entire phosphates value chain to adapt and perfect their solutions to meet the technological, industrial, and environmental challenges

Interested startups can apply to contribute to The Next Seed’s Usine du Futur by OCP challenge on https://www.the-nextseed.com./en/challenges/ usine-du-futur?lang=en

The OCP ecosystem is a versatile, dynamic and welcoming environment comprising universities, research laboratories, training centers, innovation hubs and support programs providing access to resources, training, equipment and a professional network.

OC P’S INN OV AT ION EC OS YST EM

There will be a first selection of 16 startups with the most relevant ideas that will work with a team of OCP mentors to take their concepts further. Thereafter, a second selection will identify eight of the 16 startups to continue developing their projects and pitch them to a jury of OCP experts and their partners at the Grand Finale where the four winning startups will be announced.

of the factory of the future. Following the prototyping phase, the startups that succeeded in setting up an innovative and functional solution will be able to put their solutions to work in real life conditions, benefiting from a tremendous boost to their growth.

JAMG © D.R.

Four startups in the final

It includes the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) with its “Startgate” campus for startups and “Innovation Lab Operations” (ILO), UFounders, UM6P Ventures, UM6P Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab, Impulse, and AgTech Garage (supported by OCP Do Brasil). Field of experimentation – where startups can test their solutions in the experimental plant at SAFI’s industrial site.

Networking & Expertise – a network of business experts and support from OCP and its partners.

Acceleration Program – operational coaching and training during a 3-month acceleration program. Ultimately, OCP’s Open Innovation platform aims to develop and manage infrastructure, demonstrators and other test tools focused on industrial digitization, so as to support OCP and Moroccan and African industrial players in improving their competitiveness through industrial digitization and the improvement of their production tools.

FEATURES /

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

William Ruto PROFILE

‘[I] will accept the outcome of the election whichever way it goes’

THOMAS MUKOYA/REUTERS

Kenya’s deputy president is the leading candidate in the August presidential elections and is promising a sea change in the country’s politics and business

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

FOCUS /

DRC FOCUS Let the campaign

begin! With elections on the horizon in 2023, President Félix Tshisekedi must now deliver on the promises he made on the 2018 campaign trail: fighting corruption, ending the conflict in the east and boosting the economy

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

ANTA NTINA

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

URBANISATION DOSSIER

Nairobi the future mettropollis

Kenya’s capital will house more than six million people by 2030. How are city planners and investors getting ready for the dreams, aspirations and needs of its generations to come? By MORRIS KIRUGA in Nairobi Every December, it has become a tradition for Nairobians and out-of-towners to flock to Uhuru and Central parks in the Kenyan capital to celebrate Christmas. In October 2021, however, both of the parks, which are separated by a highway, were closed by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) for renovations. Two months later, when the parks should have been playing host to thousands of families, couples and other visitors over the festive season, they were still closed. A fringe political party filed a court case against the closure of the parks. At the heart of the controversy was not just access to these green spaces, but also the social and environmental effects of the renovations.

Waiyaki Way, where a 100-year-old fig tree was saved from developers

LUIS TATO/AFP

Demolition spree The park renovations are part of several ongoing projects being undertaken either directly by the central government or through the NMS – the body created by President Uhuru Kenyatta to take over many functions of the Nairobi City County government – as part of the 2014 master plan. The latter was launched by the Nairobi city authorities to provide much-needed updates to its existing master plan, which went back to 1973. Since then, there has been much local criticism of the ongoing infrastructure developments. As part of the pre-planning for the rejuvenation of the city, for example, the government and city authorities went on a demolition

N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

URBANISATION DOSSIER / Nairobi the future metropolis

spree in 2018, levelling malls, fuel stations and other structures that they claimed had been built on riparian lands and road reserves (areas of land set aside for potential road construction). Like other urban centres in sub-Saharan Africa, Nairobi is poised for significant population growth over the next few decades. According to a World Bank estimate in 2016, the Nairobi population will grow from 4.3 million to more than 6 million by 2030. This will increase energy demand, strain solid-waste management, and bring more traffic to Nairobi and its suburbs. Water demand in the city, to give just one example, is expected to increase from 540,000 cubic metres per day to 1.2m cubic metres per day by 2030.

Public transport is key Evans Kidero, who was governor in 2014, launched the new blueprint in the hope of accommodating this exponential population growth. The plan was designed to rejuvenate both residential and commercial areas, mainly by improving the public transport systems. “Urban renewal only works where the public transport system works,” says Eric Kigada, a Nairobi-based architect. He argues that the major road projects in progress will lead to the opposite scenario, since they encourage private car use. Over the past decade and a half, the Kenyan government has prioritised road transportation, making massive investments in new roads and expanding existing ones. One public transportation solution included in the master plan is a bus rapid transit (BRT) system similar to the one launched in Dar es Salaam in 2015. The BRT plans for both these East African cities were designed with assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), but

while Dar es Salaam’s took off, Nairobi’s got delayed. The transport authority created in 2017 is currently working on five BRT lines in the city, with operations predicted to start in June 2022. According to a tender issued by the Ministry of Transport in February, the government is seeking to lease electric and hybrid buses for the new transport system. Some of the infrastructure from the previous master plan was either being built or had been recently completed when the new one was launched. One example is the city’s ring roads, a network of four highways designed to divert traffic away from the city centre. Construction of the last of the four ring roads, the Western Bypass, was still ongoing in early 2022. In November 2021, a Chinese contractor began dualling (expanding into a dual carriageway) the Eastern Bypass – a trafficjammed, 31.2km semi-circular road that allows traffic from Mombasa Road to Thika Road to bypass the city centre – and the 20.2km Northern Bypass in Kiambu County, with which it connects. Another solution resides in the upgrading of the Nairobi Commuter Rail service. Launched in November 2020, the new service uses diesel engines on the city’s old metregauge railway. Its Central Station and rail yard in Nairobi is also the site of a futuristic ‘city within a city’ that is one of the flagship transport and urban rejuvenation projects in the new master plan. The ambitious project is expected to take 20 years to complete. When finished, it will host commercial and residential

KSh1.15bn

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

Cost of the diesel-powered trains procured to operate on the Nairobi Commuter Rail service in 2020

Number of years in which the Chinese investors in the Nairobi Expressway will be able to extract tolls from users

complexes, as well as a new Central Rail Station, all built on 172ha of the current rail yard. “The Railway City is, futuristically, a good idea,” says Constant Cap, a Nairobi-based urban planner. “You have a huge, unused rail yard the size of the central business district, and it makes sense to put it to good use.” Perhaps to reduce Kenya’s already high levels of Chinese debt, President Kenyatta invited a British firm to design the new Central Rail Station, including BRT nodes and public grounds. The most significant ongoing project is the Nairobi Expressway, which began construction in 2019 and is expected to be completed in mid-2022. At $668m, the elevated road has gone $61.5m over the initial budget. Under the publicprivate partnership, the China Road and Bridge Corporation is authorised to collect tolls from road users for the next 27 years, before handing the road over to the government.

Oops, we forgot the trees Even before its construction began, the expressway project attracted criticism over whether elevated roads are the best solution for easing traffic in urban areas. “The big problem is that we are building highways in the middle of the city,” the architect Eric Kigada says. “Cities around the world are demolishing their expressways.” Although the expressway was included in neither of the master plans – although one idea had been to expand the existing highway – city and road authorities did not commission an environmental

MESSAGE

EXPERT ADVICE impact report until after construction had begun. One explanation offered is that the expressway is a crucial item on President Kenyatta’s infrastructure agenda, which has included completing projects begun during his predecessor’s term, as well as several of his own. The speed of construction of the expressway was disconcerting for many Nairobi residents as well as for environmentalists. The criticism came to a peak in late 2020, when opposition to the ongoing deforestation led to protests, forcing city authorities to promise to relocate an iconic fig tree.

Residents left out The clearing of trees along the route of the expressway also caused harm to Marabou storks – scavenger birds that can live up to 25 years in the wild – and to other bird species that traditionally nest here. The Kenyan authorities and the Chinese contractor have promised to plant more trees to compensate for those that have been felled. Ornithology aside, city residents complain that they have been left out of the decision-making process for the city’s new infrastructure. The most glaring gap identified by urban planners like Constant Cap is the result of an elite-driven approach to public infrastructure. He says: “There seems to be an excitement in investing in hardcore concrete structures and tourismoriented thinking within government,” rather than in considering the needs of Nairobi residents. Urbanisation experts predict that the result of this will be a growth in informal businesses and informal living within the city limits, and a further growth of informality in the suburbs and metropolitan area. “The truth is, once these projects are complete, it will be better and maybe easier to live in the suburbs and come to Nairobi for work,” Kigada says.

WASTE

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Inclusive Sanitation and Waste Management Approaches Integrating sanitation and solid waste management can reduce costs, catalysing sustainable service delivery. There is not a single city not struggling with sanitation and waste management budgets and service delivery. It is expensive to keep existing systems functioning, let alone improve. Costs to improve a non-environmentallyfriendly system into an internationally approved system are incredible. Transportation and maintenance of waste disposalsites (landfill, wastewatertreatment plants) are major contributors to high running costs—key bottlenecks to sustainable business models. Further, investment costs forthese sites are huge, often requiring outside financing. What if municipalities approached sanitation and solid waste as one?

By approaching sanitation and solid waste as one, opportunities to reduce costs and open buying-markets increase drastically. Ultimately, local stakeholders must decide what direction is needed for their own cities. WASTE’s Smart Quantitative Urban Assessment Tool (SQUAT) can assist by providing insights to options and quick wins. SQUAT facilitates the

Example SQUAT visualisation being employed in cities throughout Africa and Asia.

assessment of all stakeholders who influence the two sectors, visualising and clarifying the state of, and opportunities within, a city. Solid waste service delivery and product development intertwines with that of sanitation (faecal sludge)—creating synergy for increased efficiency. Areas ripe for integration may include i.e. joint processing ofsludge and organicwastes, intensified cooperation between implementers and organisations, joint policy development, cost-sharing, etc. Synergies can truly be found at various institutional and sectoral levels. By approaching sanitation and solid waste as one, opportunities to reduce costs and open buying-markets increase drastically.

Lauren Pope, Communications Manager office@waste.nl - +31 0616146697 @WASTE-NL

@WASTENL

URBANISATION DOSSIER

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP

Prepaid meters encourage lower consumption

NIGERIA

Bright ideas for metering and accountability The Nigerian government is making moves to end estimated electricity bills, convinced that metering will encourage both transparency and payment By DAVID WHITEHOUSE Proposed Nigerian legislation that would criminalise estimated bills for electricity consumption can help improve industry efficiency and the wider economy, Joy Ogaji, CEO of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), tells The Africa Report. The APGC represents independent energy players from facility developers and operators to energy marketers. The bill has passed its third reading in the national assembly. It compels distribution companies to install prepaid metres for all power consumers. Estimated billing would be punishable by a year in prison, a fine of N1m ($2,400) or both. Progress towards metering over the years can best be described as “incremental”, Ogaji says. The most

visible advance is via the recently introduced National Mass Metering Programme, a federal government initiative that includes loans for electricity-distribution companies. In January, the central bank said that it had disbursed N47.83bn for the procurement and installation of 856,000 meters. Metered billing is supposed to encourage efficient consumption of electricity as consumers can monitor and regulate their energy use according to their budget and not feel cheated by the

N2.4trn

Amount owed by Nigerian personal and business customers for electricity used between 2015 and 2020.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

distribution companies. Businesses get better insight on their energy consumption, and the opportunity to monitor usage patterns to improve efficiency. Lack of adequate metering makes it harder for distribution companies to set the right tariff as basic pieces of information, such as the size of the consumer population and actual energy consumption, are unknown, Ogaji says. Rather than hold back their spending, consumers would rather defer payment, “thereby worsening the illiquid state of the industry”. She says the role of a viable metering programme in any electricity industry “cannot be overemphasised”.

Vicious circle Distribution companies argue that high inflation, low generation and transmission capacities, the historical backlog of unpaid bills and a lack of complete customer data are barriers to investment in metering. The government has said that N2.4trn ($5.8bn) worth of electricity consumed between 2015 and 2020 has not been paid for. The vicious circle has to be broken, and the central bank says that electricity distribution companies have been able to improve collection as a result of increased meter use. Metering still has obstacles to overcome, Ogaji says. These include the availability and stability of foreign exchange, lack of adequate manpower across the value chain and vested interests in continued estimated billing. “Efficient metering will increase the customer’s confidence in billing transparency,” Ogaji says. Metering will grossly reduce the occurrence of energy theft, if done properly with smart meters, she adds, and mass metering will also create jobs. Meter assembly plants need to be built, and, once complete, should employ on average between 40 and 100 people each.

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T Co he c vi da risis d-1 on m h 9 on b agi ad 20 th usi ng a fin 20 e c ne im To an , w on ss pa Fe p 5 cia hi tin act ct re w 00 l r ch en ivit be cov sec C esu pr t in y fo er to om lts ovi re y rs p f de th ha w an or d e d er ie th th ye al e s is e ar rea sp ran ye en dy are ki ar’ de b d, ng s d. eg bu . un t

TOTAL TURNOVER Total turnover of the Top 500 companies

2017

637

(in billions of US$) over six years

2019

620 2015

610

2018

621

2020

By PIERRE-OLIVIER ROUAUD 2016

569

After the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the financial year 2021 will undoubtedly be a period of significant rebound for most African companies. This is evidenced by the turnover of the Algerian giant Sonatrach (#1), which in 2021 soared by 70%. Meanwhile, our latest edition of the Top 500 Companies ranking, which focuses on the performance of companies in their financial year 2020, was marked by a depression. The cumulative turnover – $590bn – of this exclusive ranking by The Africa Report represents a decline of 4.8%. In absolute terms, we have to go back to 2016 to find a lower figure, namely $569bn. At that time, there were currency crises in Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. As for the peak of activity in 2012 – when the 500 companies in the ranking took in a total turnover of $757bn – it will be many years before this can be matched, and even more so in a period of international tensions created by the conflict in Ukraine. The drop in activity in this ranking illustrates the impact on Africa of the Covid-19 pandemic. The continent fared better than some other places. For example, the cumulative turnover of the CAC40 companies in France plunged over the same period by 14.7%, according to professional services firm EY.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

World Trade Organisation director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tells The Africa Report: “Africa has lost about a decade or more of growth because of this pandemic. So the continent has been hit really hard. And, even though the IMF projects a rebound, it’s actually much lower for the continent than for other areas.” She continues: “There are two determinants of this that we found […]: the fiscal space within countries to be able to fight the pandemic, to be able to stimulate demand, stimulate their economies, provide liquidity for their enterprises […], and access to vaccines.” In Africa, almost all economies felt the effects of the pandemic. The crisis has had a relatively small impact on the health of the population, but prevention and containment measures had, especially in the first half of 2020, a depressive effect on consumption and investment. Not to mention the freezing, for a time, of logistics networks. “From March 2020 onwards, suddenly everything in the business world came to a standstill. The recovery from the summer was slow even if companies were able to adapt quickly enough,” says the head of an investment fund operating in West and North Africa.

Crude prices cause freefall Continental GDP fell by 2.1% in 2020, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB). The bank declared this ‘the worst recession in 50 years’. A recession that followed the 3.3% growth in 2019, but preceded the welcome rebound in 2021, which is estimated at 3.4%. The regions of the continent suffered from the effects of the pandemic to varying degrees. In 2020, East Africa fared the best with 0.7% GDP growth. In contrast, Southern Africa’s GDP plunged by 7%. The other regions posted lower levels of growth: -1.1% for North Africa, -1.5% for West Africa and -2.7% for Central Africa. The crisis was particularly severe for certain sectors: air transport, tourism, automobiles, and, above all, energy. At $42.3 per barrel, the average annual price of Brent crude

TAR RESEARCH

590

BREAKDOWN OF TURNOVER BY SECTOR 1 $0.8bn

$11.1bn 12

6 $10.8bn

00 Agribusiness

90b n

TOTA L $5

Clothing

2 $0.8bn

Communication

$45.5bn

Retail

Construction 47

Transport

$17.5bn

Wood & paper 6

Energy

Telecoms

$95.3bn

$77.9bn Health 12

7 TAR RESEARCH

Electrical equip.

$6.3bn

Tourism

$0.9bn 3

$40.5bn 37

ENSP (#468) Driefontein Mine (#260)

Tanzania

240 000

+353%

Egypt

2 281 791

+153%

South Af.

1 832 985

+130%

Algeria

164 364

+120%

South Af.

463 521

+97%

$16.5bn

$14.5bn Water and electricity

Bulyanhulu Gold Mine (#397) Marikana (#77)

$32.3bn

$29.4bn

Chemicals

TOP CLIMBERS Qalaa Holdings (#58)

$60.1bn

Number of companies

Institutions

Automobile

Mining

$76.6bn 56

Diversified

$29.7bn 25

Technology

$5.8bn Financial services

19 $8.9bn

TURNOVER 2019 TURNOVER (THOUSAND US$) CHANGE

COMPANY

COUNTRY

Kenya Airways (#254)

Kenya

480 526

-62%

Global Telecom Holding (#183)

Egypt

709 000

-66%

Soc. Tunisienne de l’Air (#453)

Tunisia

178 280

-69%

Airports Co. of South Af. (#492) South Af.

146 826

-71%

Eterna Oil & Gas (#482)

153 248

-76%

Nigeria

TOP FALLERS

Steel

9 $8.3bn

dropped 142 places. Conversely, companies in traditionfell by 33.9% in 2020, according to World Bank data. This ally more resilient sectors, such as telecoms, rose in the is illustrated, for example, by the fall in our ranking of ranking. This is shown by the progress of Sonatel (#59, Angola’s Sonangol (#20). Its oil sales fell by 25% over the up 15 places) and most of the other Orange subsidiaries, period. The state-owned group led by Sebastião Gaspar as well as those of MTN Group (#4). Vodacom Group Martins has postponed its plans for a partial privatisation and a stock-market flotation, which are still on the table. (#12) remains in the same place as last year. Telecom Egypt (#67) moved up 21 places. The plunge was even more spectacular for Total Gabon (#275). But the fall was temporary. The company doubled “Covid accelerated the digital-transformation leapfrog. In most of our markets we saw a 300% rise in the data its turnover in 2021, thanks largely to the spectacular rebound of the price of Brent crude. throughput in our networks,” says Hardy Pemhiwa, the chief The price of non-precious metals, which are essential executive of Cassava Technologies, the holding company of Liquid Intelligent Technologies (#167), which runs for the economies of countries such as Guinea, Mauritania one of Africa’s largest networks of fibre-optic cables. and the DRC, yo-yoed throughout 2020. While aluminium fell by an annual average of 5% in 2020, according to World Bank data, other mineral NNPC has nothing to hide prices, such as those of copper (2.7%) and iron The Top 15 Companies continue to weigh heavily on the overall ranking (27.1% of total ore (16%), rose due to supply-chain disruptions in Australia and Brazil. This context benefited revenue, compared with 28.4% last year) the Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière with, as always, a strong representation of South African South African companies (11 versus 12 last (SNIM, #108), the iron-ore heavyweight in companies in the Top 15, despite the year). Some changes are notable in this Top Mauritania, which rose 44 places. In the midst impact of Covid-19 15. The Moroccan phosphates and fertilisers of the pandemic, its turnover jumped by almost 40% and its profits doubled. giant OCP Group (#15) is back in the elite Gold played its role as a safe haven. Its average price after rising four places, thanks to a year with turnover up by 4% in dirhams. On the other hand, the South African jumped by more than 27% in 2020, benefiting groups such fuel distributor Engen Petroleum (#28), a subsidiary of as South Africa’s Sibanye Gold (#9), which entered our the Malaysian corporation Petronas, dropped 14 places Top 10 after a record year. and left the Top 15, illustrating the shock suffered by the In a period where there were many logistical problems economy of the country in which it has its headquarters. and fears about supplies, agricultural-product prices almost all rose in 2020, and commodity purchases have remained Within the Top 15, we also note the return of the Nigerian high. This is shown, for example, by the resilience of the National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC, #6). The Nigerian oil company recorded a 19.8% drop in revenue Moroccan sugar company Cosumar (#137), which jumped 21 places after recording a sales rise of 5.1% in dirham in naira terms in 2020. But it is notable that the stateterms. Dangote Sugar Refinery (#226) is up 63 places. owned group has started publishing consolidated accounts Whether or not they were previously in difficulty, the again after several years of total financial obscurity that had taken it out of our ranking. The NNPC has thus reairlines have paid a very heavy price for the Covid-19 affirmed its position as the regional champion in West crisis. Top African air transporter Ethiopian Airlines (#43) dropped 10 spots, while Kenya Airways (#254) Africa. On the other hand, another Nigerian oil company,

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

REGIONAL WEIGHT BY TURNOVER Number of companies

Southern Africa 197 $328.6bn

North Africa 142 $151.3bn

25.64%

TOTAL

55.69%

$590bn 500 12.72% 3.72% 2.23%

West Africa $75bn 96 East Africa 39 $21.9bn

Central Africa 26 $13.2bn

(including the 88 of them with losses) had a profit and loss balance of $13.5bn and an average net margin of 3%. This compares to an average profitability of 5.1% Next in line, but following far behind, are Egypt (8.8% of in the previous edition and 7.3% in the one before that. turnover and 50 companies) and Morocco (7.7% and 56 companies). For the first time, Morocco moved Unsurprisingly, the business crisis of 2020 was ahead of Algeria (6.9% with 14 companies) also a profit crisis. The prize for the biggest in terms of weighting in the ranking, due to loss went to Sasol (#3), with a loss of more Sonatrach’s decline in activity. Nigeria (6.5% than $6.2bn, followed by Sonangol at $3.5bn. of turnover and 29 companies) completes the The 88 companies in the red suffered a total top five countries. Côte d’Ivoire (2% of total loss of $22.9bn . companies in the As for the 233 companies that were able to revenue and 27 companies) is for the first red in our Top 500, with total losses of remain in the black, they generated a profit time ranked sixth in the Top 500 in terms of $22.9bn of $36.4bn on sales of $291bn, representing revenue. This is despite the absence of the Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage, traditionally a net margin of 12.5%. Excepting Naspers (#16), where the profit was linked to asset transfers, the the country’s leading company, due to the lack of available data for 2020. trophy for the largest profit in absolute terms went to South Africa’s Sibanye Gold, at $2.1bn. In an uncertain Finally, in terms of profitability, we have up-to-date world, the yellow metal remains a safe bet. results for 321 companies in this ranking, representing *Additional reporting by Nicholas Norbrook turnover of $446bn. All of these companies taken together

Côte d’Ivoire comes sixth

Methodology This year, we sent our questionnaire to more than 10,000 companies active on the continent. After cross-checks and verification, we established a ranking of approximately 1,200 companies, which includes responses from previous years. The top-ranking 500 are published here. To allow for comparison, we apply the same rules to all our data: 1) All financial data must have a clearly defined source, generally

communicated to us by the companies themselves, and must refer to the year 2020 (in some cases 2020/2021); 2) If presented in the local currency, we converted the data into US dollar amounts according to the rate on 31 December 2020; 3) We include all companies that fall under the legal jurisdiction of at least one of the 54 countries in Africa, which is why a holding company and a subsidiary can

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

both feature in the list; and 4) Where we cannot obtain up-to-date figures, we use those of the previous year (marked with an asterisk and italics). After two years of silence, a company is struck off the rankings. The turnover change figure is based on the latest available data and not necessarily what was published in the previous ranking, as firms regularly update their financial statements.

TAR RESEARCH

Oando, is no longer included in the Top 500, as it has not published consolidated accounts for several years due to governance problems. In this edition, only one region saw its relative weight drop in terms of cumulative revenue. This was North Africa (down from 28.4% to 25.6% of the total), mainly due to the weakness of Algeria. The cumulative activity of this country fell from 10.1% to 6.9%, due to the drop in hydrocarbon prices. The weight of West African groups increased by 2.5% to 12.7%, due in particular to the return of the NNPC. Central and East Africa remained at almost unchanged levels of 2.2% and 3.7%, respectively. In terms of distribution by country, South Africa still carries an overwhelming weight. The country presided over by Cyril Ramaphosa counts for 51.7% of the total turnover of the ranking and 154 companies out of 500.

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or more than 30 years Mercy Ships has contributed to the sustainable development of local surgical, obstetrical, and anaesthesia care throughout West and Central Africa. Though Mercy Ships remained active on the ground in Africa during the pandemic, The Africa Mercy returned after 22 months to Senegal with much anticipation and celebration. Docked in Dakar since February 1, 2022 the 150-meter-long ship received its first patient, a young mother who came aboard for a maxillofacial operation for her cleft lip, only two weeks after docking. For the next 10 months, a thousand patients previously selected from all 14 regions of Senegal in a meticulous process are scheduled to take place aboard The Africa Mercy, and nearly 750 healthcare providers are expected to receive medical training in various specialties. In Senegal, Mercy Ships is partnering with the Ministry of Health to provide healthcare training to medical personnel in the country. Although Senegal has a solid healthcare system in place, there is still a need for capacity building and surgeries especially in the rural areas where approximately half of Senegal’s population (around 8.8 million people) lives and access to healthcare is still challenging for many patients. In May, the world’s largest civilian, purpose-built hospital ship, Global Mercy, will be commissioned in Dakar. Mercy Ships expects to more than double the impact of its work with life-transforming operations,

education and training of local caregivers in the poorest countries in Africa. Mercy Ships and African partners will commemorate 30 years of collaboration on Africa Day on May 25th in Dakar. Organised by the government of Senegal under the patronage of President Macky Sall - who is also the current Chairperson of the African Union - it will be an opportunity to mobilise political decision-makers and public, private, and community leaders to work together for the integration and scaling up of surgery in national health development strategies. During its missions, the Global Mercy, which contains six operating rooms, 200 beds and a laboratory, can accommodate 641 crew members. In addition to the hospital, the Global Mercy also has first-class training facilities with which Mercy Ships contributes to the sustainable development of local surgical, obstetrical, and anaesthesia care in many African countries. An international faith-based organisation founded in 1978 by Don and Deyon Stephens, Mercy Ships has worked in more than 55 developing countries, providing services valued at more than $1.7 billion and directly benefitting more than 2.8 million people. Since 1978, Mercy Ships has performed more than 105,500 lifechanging or life-saving surgical procedures. Jitze Kramer, Vice President Global Branding, Mercy Ships Email : jitze.kramer@mercyships.org

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MERCY SHIPS CELEBRATES 30 YEAR PARTNERSHIP WITH AFRICA

‘The truth is that the lack of opportunities and exclusionary organisational cultures breed barriers to entry for women.’ NATASCHA VILJOEN, chief executive of Anglo American Platinum (#8)

Rank 2020

Rank 2019

Diff.

Company

Sector

Country

Turnover (2020)

Net profits

Turnover change

Sonatrach

Petroleum

Algeria

30,012.6

-381.8

Eskom

Utilities

South Africa

13,941.2

-1,291.9

-2%

-1

Sasol

Chemicals

South Africa

12,988.7

-6,271.5

-10% 14%

-35%

MTN Group

ICT

South Africa

12,237.8

1,340.5

Shoprite Holdings

Retail

South Africa

10,801.5

230.3

Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

Petroleum

Nigeria

9,706.4

1,876.9

-24%

-3

Steinhoff International Holdings

Wood

South Africa

9,703.8

-2,906.6

Anglo American Platinum Corp.

Mining

South Africa

9,402.4

2,074.4

33% 69%

Sibanye Gold

Mining

South Africa

8,692.0

2,089.3

-1

SPAR Group

Retail

South Africa

8,479.4

133.5

-3

Bidcorp Group

Food & Drinks

South Africa

8,226.8

77.6

-11% 4%

Vodacom Group

ICT

South Africa

6,707.1

1,164.8

Pick N Pay Stores Group

Retail

South Africa

6,350.8

66.0

NLNG*

Gas

Nigeria

6,314.9

-8% 12%

OCP Group

Mining

Morocco

6,237.3

376.5

Naspers

Media

South Africa

5,934.0

3,404.0

48%

-6

Massmart Holdings

Retail

South Africa

5,919.9

-119.6

-11%

-2

-13

Suez Canal Authority

Ports

Egypt

5,600.0

-3%

Kumba Iron Ore

Mining

South Africa

5,465.5

2,036.1

20% -42%

Sonangol

Petroleum

Angola

5,332.2

-3,599.8

Vodacom South Africa

ICT

South Africa

5,235.8

-2

The Bidvest Group

Diversified

South Africa

5,222.5

-12.8

-3%

Motus

Auto industry

South Africa

5,009.2

12.6

-12%

Woolworths Holdings

Retail

South Africa

4,926.8

38.1

-5%

South Africa

4,765.9

1,124.7

38%

-5

Impala Platinum Holdings

Mining

-9

Sappi

Wood

South Africa

4,609.0

-135.0

-20%

-5

Transnet

Transport

South Africa

4,590.0

-572.2

-14%

-14

Engen Petroleum

Petroleum

South Africa

4,554.5

-256.7

-28%

Anglogold Ashanti

Mining

South Africa

4,427.0

971.0

26%

-4

Pepkor

Retail

South Africa

4,299.7

-3

Datatec

ICT

South Africa

4,109.5

5.7

-2% 8%

Groupe Maroc Telecom

ICT

Morocco

4,082.1

602.1

-3

Mediclinic Corporation

Healthcare

South Africa

4,066.4

283.8

ONEE*

Utilities

Morocco

3,911.1

61.2

Gold Fields

Mining

South Africa

3,892.1

745.4

31%

-7

Remgro

Diversified

South Africa

3,734.4

449.2

-8%

Multichoice Africa

Media

South Africa

3,639.3

278.2

MTN Nigeria

ICT

Nigeria

3,514.1

535.6

10%

-8

-16%

42 43

Barloworld

Diversified

South Africa

3,389.9

-170.5

Orascom Construction Industries

Construction

Egypt

3,371.1

97.1

-7

Naftal

Petroleum

Algeria

3,283.3

-17%

-3

Imperial Logistics

Diversified

South Africa

3,164.5

-15.4

-10

Ethiopian Airlines

Air transport

Ethiopia

3,118.2

-22%

-1

MTN South Africa

ICT

South Africa

3,102.6

-4%

Telkom

ICT

South Africa

2,949.0

178.9

-4%

Elsewedy Electric

Electrical equip.

Egypt

2,943.3

209.7

Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon

Construction

South Africa

2,939.4

-34.7

Afriquia SMDC

Petroleum

Morocco

2,832.8

88.8

-4%

Dangote Cement

Construction

Nigeria

2,699.3

720.5

10%

-4

Transnet Freight Rail

Rail transport

South Africa

2,691.5

-15%

2020 results in millions of US dollars; *in italics 2019 results; ND: no data

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

Safaricom (#56)’s 4G network covers 77% of the Kenyan population, and its 3G network covers 94%. The company is trialling 5G in 150 sites across the country.

Rank 2020

Rank 2019

Diff.

Company

Sector

Country

Turnover (2020)

Net profits

Turnover change

Aspen Pharmacare Holdings

Pharmaceuticals

South Africa

2,636.9

314.6

Clicks Group

Retail

South Africa

2,463.3

128.3

Ezz Steel Company

Metals

Egypt

2,450.0

-197.8

-14%

Middle East Oil Refineries*

Refining

Egypt

2,429.0

57.0

15%

Foschini

Retail

South Africa

2,428.0

-127.0

-11%

Safaricom

ICT

Kenya

2,402.6

625.0

-6%

-1

Super Group

Transport

South Africa

2,359.3

-11.0

-12%

145

Qalaa Holdings

Financial services Egypt

2,281.8

-607.2

153%

Sonatel

ICT

Senegal

2,255.4

376.4

21%

Maroc Telecom

ICT

Morocco

2,252.5

693.7

RCL Foods

Food & Drinks

South Africa

2,162.1

67.9

Al Ezz Dekheila Steel Company

Metals

Egypt

2,153.4

-10%

Masscash

Retail

South Africa

2,153.3

Etisalat Morocco

ICT

Morocco

2,125.6

-2%

Masswarehouse

Services

South Africa

2,088.6

76.2

Tiger Brands

Agribusiness

South Africa

2,033.0

71.0

Telecom Egypt

ICT

Egypt

2,024.2

308.1

26%

-11

EgyptAir Holdings

Diversified

Egypt

2,014.7

-164.4

-24%

Flour Mills of Nigeria

Food & Drinks

Nigeria

2,013.9

67.1

28%

Harmony Gold Mining Company

Mining

South Africa

1,995.4

-58.0

Exxaro Resources

Mining

South Africa

1,973.5

716.1

-1

STEG

Utilities

Tunisia

1,948.8

-22.2

-4

Vodafone Egypt

ICT

Egypt

1,887.9

332.9

16% 12%

Dangote Cement Nigeria

Construction

Nigeria

1,878.9

Petrojet

Petroleum

Egypt

1,840.3

25%

103

Marikana

Mining

South Africa

1,833.0

947.0

130%

Dis-Chem

Pharmaceuticals

South Africa

1,793.0

46.9

-1

Life Healthcare Group

Healthcare

South Africa

1,732.1

2.6

-5%

-31

STIR*

Refining

Tunisia

1,683.3

ArcelorMittal South Africa

Metals

South Africa

1,681.4

-332.6

-43%

Hassan Allam Holding

Construction

Egypt

1,666.6

75.7

16%

Royal Air Maroc*

Air transport

Morocco

1,659.5

-13.5

-4% -7%

101

-4

AECI

Chemicals

South Africa

1,645.1

10.9

The Arab Contractors

Construction

Egypt

1,619.1

-17

EgyptAir Airlines

Air transport

Egypt

1,602.3

-153.8

-22%

Pioneer Foods Group*

Food & Drinks

South Africa

1,584.0

65.1

14%

Mr Price Group

Retail

South Africa

1,557.5

180.7

-5%

Kansanshi Mining

Mining

Zambia

1,539.0

-3%

118

-11

106

-1

-16

Distell Group

Food & Drinks

South Africa

1,526.3

26.9

-18%

Gold Fields Ghana

Mining

Ghana

1,516.7

278.1

31%

Cevital

Agribusiness

Algeria

1,508.0

Airtel Nigeria

ICT

Nigeria

1,503.1

342.9

17%

Ghabbour Auto

Auto industry

Egypt

1,478.6

70.8

-6%

Kap International Holdings

Diversified

South Africa

1,473.2

-146.4

-19% -13%

-9

Blue Label Telecoms

ICT

South Africa

1,442.1

14.9

124

Kibali Gold Mine

Mining

DRC

1,440.0

194.0

28%

-21

Aveng

Diversified

South Africa

1,424.5

-76.1

-22%

Murray & Roberts Holdings

Construction

South Africa

1,421.8

-25.3

-1%

Rustenburg

Mining

South Africa

1,393.9

35.3

87%

100

102

Katanga Mining Ltd*

Mining

DRC

1,386.3

-923.3

10%

2020 results in millions of US dollars; *in italics 2019 results; ND: no data

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

‘Our fibre network is 100,000km. We’ve done the heavy lifting’ The president and CEO of Cassava Technologies talks about building scale on the continent, the company’s goals, and the role of Liquid Intelligent Technologies in African integration Interview by NICHOLAS NORBROOK or Liquid Intelligent Technologies (#167), the pandemic has produced yet another example of Africa leapfrogging. “We saw a five-times increase in data throughput,” says Hardy Pemhiwa, the chief executive of Liquid’s holding company, Cassava Technologies, recalling the huge demands suddenly placed on its vast fibre-optic network on the continent in 2020. Many companies were forced to digitalise to survive. Cassava Technologies was created to house the new ambitions of Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean founder of Econet Wireless and elder statesman of African tech. Masiyiwa now wants to “create a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind”, Pemhiwa says. Cassava separates Econet Wireless from the digital infrastructure and digital services business – essentially the fibre network, cloud services and data centres. The Econet Wireless ecosystem, comprising the mobile-money business in Zimbabwe and mobile-phone networks in Zimbabwe, Burundi, Lesotho and Botswana, produces around $250m of annual earnings before deductions, says Pemhiwa. “And that is really because of exchange rates – otherwise, that is easily half a billion dollars in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation,” he adds. He estimates Cassava Technologies to be “a circa $800m-revenue business”. That is enough to get plenty of investors knocking at its door. In December, Cassava

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

was in talks with an outfit run by US tech investor Betsy Cohen, whose proposition valued Cassava at $4bn. While some African start-ups are under pressure to sell out early – sparking a debate on Africa’s tech sovereignty –, Cassava is in a position to pick and choose its partners. On the capital side, “we have long-only investors”, Pemhiwa says, which include development finance institutions like the UK’s British International Investment and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation. For the rest, strategic partners, such as Mitsui for data centres and Google for low-cost internet, help Cassava to meet its goals.

The super-app challenge “Africa has never really had a technology business on a global scale,” says Pemhiwa. “We’ve invested $2bn in building the Cassava Technologies ecosystem. Our fibre broadband network is today over 100,000km, from Cape Town to Cairo, from Port Sudan to Lagos, from Dar es Salaam to Manda on the west coast of the DRC […], and 300 towns and cities in between. And we’ve had to power all of it. We’ve already done the heavy lifting.” Having built the network, Cassava now wants to create more demand for it. The group’s original pivot into

ALL RIGHS RESERVED

media was unsuccessful, with Econet’s Kwesé TV shuttered in 2019. “I think the thesis still holds,” says Pemhiwa. “The production and consumption of African content is a nascent and growing opportunity.” He points to the “5,000 hours of video” that are being uploaded to Cassava’s ‘super-app’, Sasai – an attempt to emulate the Chinese behemoth Tencent’s WeChat app, which brings together entertainment, payment platforms and messaging. Beyond the simple mobile-money services, a variety of platforms can be built, says Pemhiwa. One trial just concluded in Togo allows tractors to be connected with farmers. This ‘Uber for farm machinery’ model is already out there – but, with Sasai, “the owner knows they are going to be paid because it is intermediated by a trusted third party. The government is happy because there is real transformation of the agricultural sector,” says Pemhiwa. Sasai’s uptake has not been rapid, however – user downloads from the Google Play Store number a few hundred thousand, which is a far cry from WeChat’s one billion users. It faces competition from other operators like MTN that have also launched super-apps. A Cassava representative says: “Customers on

the super-app are minimal; the app will be commercialised over the course of the coming year.” Cassava also wants to use the app to drive digital inclusion: “We’re going into these villages and saying: ‘How do we make sure that we bring that school, that clinic, these kids, the farmers into the economic value chain so that we can drive economic transformation?’” He concedes that the motivation is not just altruism: “If those people become economically empowered, they will consume a lot more of our services, and that way we have an inbuilt sustainability engine.” He continues: “If you think about a country as large as the DRC, Lubumbashi had never been connected to Kinshasa before we finished that link. […] We are running a cable all the way from the border with Rwanda, through Kinshasa to the west coast. And you can imagine the transformation that happens, because it’s now proven, right?” Research shows that access to the internet boosts per capita GDP.

Keeping it continental

Pan out to 35,000 feet, and the continent needs exactly that kind of digital integration – not just between economic actors in a village, but between African countries. This is one of the reasons why the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was created. “People forget that when we started to build cross-border fibre, 95% of Africa’s voice traffic was switched [in] Europe,” WIRELESS WONDERBOY says Pemhiwa. “So, literally, somebody sitting in Nairobi who was making a call to 10 March 1968 Born in their counterpart in Kampala, that call was Marondera, Zimbabwe switched in Greenwich in the UK before it 1991 B.Eng. in computer came back. When I’ve met with those policyengineering from Queen makers, I’ve said to them: ‘We built the Mary College, London, UK enabling infrastructure for you before you had the political will to do [the AfCFTA].’” 1993-2002 Director, Pemhiwa considers Cassava Technologies project finance, PTA Bank, to be a key chapter in the story of African Nairobi, Kenya economic integration, “because today we can manage somebody’s digital presence sited 2003-2015 Co-founder in a network operation centre in Jo’burg, and director, Amana Capital/Amana Advisory, and we can see that network all the way to Nairobi Kenya Kinshasa [or] to Juba.” As a result, Cassava is attracting global cor2015-2021 Group CEO porations that need to work across multiple and MD, Econet Global, African countries, particularly for its cloud Johannesburg, SA services. “Anybody that has core location of their infrastructure in various data centres Nov. 2021 President and would be looking for a seamless interconnect CEO, Cassava that is open access,” says Pemhiwa, pointing Technologies to airlines as an example.

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

LOGISTICS DOSSIER

Fixing

South Africa’s

inefficient ports

Superbly situated Cape Town port is one of the world’s great underperformers

Port problems from Cape Town to Durban are making South Africa’s imports and exports more expensive. Will a new round of reforms have an impact?

PIERRE GLEIZES/REA

By DAVID WHITEHOUSE South Africa’s ports rank among the most inefficient in the world. Cargo volumes were steadily falling, even before the Covid-19 pandemic began. A World Bank report in 2021 put the port of Cape Town at 347 out of 351 in terms of global container-port performance – the lowest on the continent. All of South Africa’s container ports, including Durban, Gqeberha and Ngqura, were near the bottom of the World Bank ranking. Cargo ships entering Cape Town currently have to wait up to 14 days to berth. Hopes of progress reside in the overhaul of state-owned Transnet, which is a port landlord as well as having a monopoly on South Africa’s railway infrastructure and freight services. In June 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced reforms to Transnet. The overhaul seeks to encourage private investment and to make the Transnet National Ports Authority a separate operating company. “We anticipate that a clear separation will improve efficiencies,” says Seelan Gobalsamy, chief executive of South African chemicals and explosives company Omnia. More initiatives will be

N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

FOCUS /

ANTON NOVODEREZHKIN\TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES

ANGOLA FOCUS OCUS

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

Has JLo made Angola more business friendly? President João Lourenço came into power in 2017 promising to turn a page on corruption and state predominance in the Angolan economy. Now up for re-election in August, he says he needs more time By ESTELLE MAUSSION Angola’s President João Lourenço (JLo) started off both 2022 and his presidential term in 2017 by saying that he would reduce the roles of the state, the armed forces and the national oil company Sonangol in the national economy. “The state wants to divest itself of many assets, and the space freed up must be occupied by the private sector,” JLo told local media in early January of this year. This sentence sums up the ambition of a president who promised in 2017 to be “the man of the Angolan economic miracle”. He is up for re-election this year, and says that he needs more time to change Angola’s model, which has been in place since independence in 1975. This means diversifying an oil-centric economy, liberalising and privatising, encouraging foreign investment and local entrepreneurship: in short, making Angola more business-friendly. In a difficult context of low oil prices and Covid-19, the

government’s record has been mixed. It is in terms of discourse that the change is most significant. “The leitmotif of my governance is the diversification of the economy and the creation of jobs,” Lourenço insisted in early January. “But to achieve these goals, we need an attractive business climate, which includes good governance and the fight against corruption.”

Sales pitch This message of openness and reform has been repeated during presidential visits to Europe and the United States, during roadshows for investors and at every exchange with donors, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Aware of the need to improve his country’s image, Lourenço is playing the role of Angola’s chief salesman. This is illustrated by his meeting schedule. Just since the beginning of the year, he has had talks with the African Development

Bank and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, strengthened cooperation with South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Cabo Verde, Senegal and Rwanda, and met with with the Dubaibased DP World for an update on the progress of work on the port of Luanda. This communication effort has been accompanied by reforms designed to improve the country’s attractiveness. Breaking with the distrust of the IMF shown by his predecessor, José Eduardo dos Santos, Lourenço agreed to talks with the institution in 2017, coming back with a three-year support programme worth $3.7bn in 2018 – which increased to $4.5bn in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of 2021, the IMF praised the stabilisation of the economy and the consolidation of public accounts, citing the monetary policies implemented, the reform of the banking sector under way (with the enshrinement

THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

ANGOLA FOCUS / Has JLo made Angola more business friendly?

Kwanza revaluing The move to a floating regime resulted in a sharp devaluation of the currency to a low point at the end of 2020, at nearly K700 to the US dollar, compared to around K200 in 2018. Since then,

“At first, the banks resisted and preferred to pay fines rather than grant credit. Then they […] ended up playing the game, with some devoting more than 5% of their assets to the programme in 2021,” notes the entrepreneur. Admittedly, the process was slow, and many of the projects presented lacked credibility. But the results are positive. ‘As of September 2021, there were about 287 projects financed under Aviso 10 for […] K528.9bn – about $1bn, or 1.5% of the gross domestic product in 2020,’ the IMF reported in early 2022.

the currency has been revaluing, with the rate at around K500 to the dollar in February. “It’s very positive,” the businessman says. “We now have a transparent system in which the exchange rate is dictated by supply and demand. This is essential for conducting business with peace of mind.”

‘It’s very positive. We now have a transparent [exchange rate] system’

Slow progress up rankings

The government is also making progress on supporting finance for the private sector, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. Help came in the form of a 2018 presidential decree launching Prodesi, a programme to support production, diversify exports and replace imports. A central bank notice, Aviso 10, then forced commercial banks to devote 2.5% of their balance sheet to the financing of projects that meet Prodesi criteria. The financing is at an interest rate of 7.5%, compared to market rates of about 18%.

DP World is investing $190m in Luanda port

100 THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

APM TERMINALS

in law of the independence of the central bank), and progress made in financing local private players. These reforms have been accompanied by other measures that have had an impact on the assessment of ‘Angola risk’: the creation of a chamber dedicated to commercial disputes in the Luanda court, the opening of a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs, the adoption of a law on bankruptcy, and the launch of a credit bureau. For the Angolan private sector, there are two main successes. The first is the painful reform of monetary policy, with the liberalisation of the kwanza exchange rate, which was previously fixed, with an official and an unofficial rate. “Access to foreign currency depended on the goodwill of politicians. There was speculation and no visibility on the purchase price of foreign currency,” says a businessman with a long history in the country.

Despite these efforts, the country has made little progress on some global indicators. On the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking it only went from 183rd position in 2015 to 177th in 2020. The government has also failed to reverse the trend in foreign direct investment, with the annual flow remaining negative since 2016. “The results of [Lourenço’s] investment missions at the beginning of his term were mixed – in any case not up to expectations,” says Daniel Ribant, a former banker and author of books on Angola. “The Angolan president then turned to less demanding regions of the world in terms of compliance, strengthening his ties with countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. The country is undoubtedly more open, but structural difficulties remain: energy supply problems, a lowskilled workforce. And it will take time to improve all this.” The IMF’s assessment of the business environment is similar. Progress is too slow, especially on three points: access to credit, modernisation of the administration and the opening up of the country. ‘In relation to gross domestic product, credit to the private sector has declined in recent years,’ the

FOCUS /

VANESSA VICK/THE NYT/REDUX-REA

Lourenço wants to reduce oil dependency

IMF said on the first point. ‘And most of the funds granted, benefiting from state guarantees, are used to finance commercial activities, which only weakly stimulate national production.’ On the second point, the IMF regrets the slowness of administrative procedures and the inertia of bureaucracy, a problem that the Agência de Investimento Privado e Promação das Exportações, created in 2018, has not been able to resolve. On the third and final point, the IMF notes the lack of openness to cross-border trade. There are cumbersome customs procedures, despite the adoption of a new customs clearance management system.

The SADC promise “For a long time, the executive has been talking about joining the Southern African Development Community free-trade area, which is a logical and natural market for Angola, but it has not yet been done,” says Carlos Rosado, an economist and a professor at the Catholic University of Angola. “In Angola, the difficulty has always been to move from theory to practice, and this is more than ever the case today,” he adds.

Indeed, while a number of reforms in favour of the private sector have been initiated, it is hard to know whether they will produce the desired effects. For some, including the promised series of privatisations, it is too early to tell. The process, led by the Instituto de Gestão de Activos e Participações do Estado, has already resulted in the sale of 73 assets or companies for a total of nearly $1.7bn. But the hardest part remains: concluding the first major asset disposals (including the insurance company ENSA and the bank BCI); listing entities, including the bank BIA, on the stock exchange; and begining to open up the capital of three national behemoths – Sonangol, the diamond company Endiama and the airline TAAG. Other reforms, such as the promise of better governance, are proving difficult to implement. Although Angola moved up six places in one year in Transparency

‘In Angola, the difficulty has always been to move from theory to practice’

102 THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 119 / APRIL-MAY-JUNE 2022

International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, from 142nd in 2020 to 136th in 2021 (out of 180), problems remain: contracts awarded without competition, claims of conflicts of interest, and the opacity of contracts with China.

Foreign investors still shy “Foreign investors are still cautious, having had their fingers burnt by previous experiences or [because of] the country’s reputation,” notes Ribant. “And certain recent events – for example, the awarding of important contracts, such as the strategic food reserve, to companies close to the government – are not likely to convince them that things have changed.” Even JLo, who made his mark with thunderous declarations against corruption at the start of his term, is quiet on the subject, as it divides his camp and forces it to change its old habits. Aside from the two pillars of his economic policy – José de Lima Massano, the governor of the central bank, and Vera Daves, the finance minister –, Lourenço seems to lack allies. For example, he is on his fourth economy minister since 2017. Change may be coming, but not at the snap of his fingers.

ANGOLA FOCUS /

INTERVIEW

Vera Daves de Sousa ‘We look to our creditors for space to breathe and grow’ Angola’s finance minister sets out her plans to rebuild the economy in the wake of the pandemic and commodity crash, and urges caution on the oil-price hike Interview by PATRICK SMITH and ZOE EISENSTEIN Juggling an onerous burden of public debt, market demands for fiscal discipline, and the ruling party’s bid to win another term in office in national elections in August, finance minister Vera Daves de Sousa faces a year of finely balanced decisions. So far, she has been winning, against the odds. The Angolan economy, the fifth biggest in Africa, is growing again, and the prospects of a debt-servicing crisis have receded. For the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), shoring up the economy after several years of austerity is vital ahead of the elections. Facing budgetary pressures in 2020 and 2021, the government has had to pare back spending, cutting several subsidies. This year, it is likely to open the taps a little. With 95% of its foreign exchange coming from oil exports, Angola, like Africa’s other oil and gas producers, could be a net beneficiary of the price hikes triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But Daves de Sousa warns that the market is too volatile to allow Angola to relax. She also wants to press ahead with structural reforms

to speed up the diversification of the economy away from oil and diamonds. Through the economic and social mayhem of the pandemic, Daves de Sousa has led her team at the finance ministry to push tough policy reforms against a backdrop of some of the direst economic conditions the country has known since the end of the civil war. Now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a slew of commercial banks forecast that Angola will consolidate its recovery after five years of recession. Its economy should bounce back strongly this year with growth of around 3%, and then more than 4% in successive years, according to their figures. Daves de Sousa has scored some successes in her efforts to restructure some of Angola’s foreign debt. Her team agreed a new arrangement

‘WE STILL HAVE A HIGH DEPENDENCY ON OIL. SO IT’S GOOD TO BE PRUDENT AND CREATE BUFFERS’

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with a Chinese bank and took advantage of the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative to delay about $3bn in payments in 2020 and 2021. That helped the treasury to manage its resources and reach the end of 2020 with no fiscal deficit, despite plummeting export revenue. Last year’s receipts improved, and the IMF positively reviewed Angola’s performance under its $4.5bn aid programme. But there are more difficult bilateral negotiations to come as the government’s programme with the IMF winds up. Although the IMF commended the government for improving budgetary discipline, it urged Luanda to move faster on the sale of state assets. TAR: How fast do you expect the economy to recover? VERA DAVES DE SOUSA: We are expecting 2.4% growth this year. We need more than 3% to compensate for the growth of our population. But 2.4% is a good start because we are coming out of five years of recession. If we see more growth, it will be a good surprise. How will higher oil prices this year help Angola? It’s such a volatile market that we need to be very careful about this price. We keep a kind of buffer if we see more coming in compared to the reference price in our budget. We will also be ready if we see a turnaround and the market moves against us, because we are working a lot on diversification, the non-oil sector. But we still have a high dependency on oil. So it’s good to be prudent and create buffers, to avoid what we had to deal with when the pandemic was at its worst. As you diversify, what are your priorities? We are expecting a lot from agriculture, which we’ve seen grow in the past four years,

ORLANDO ALMEIDA/GLOBAL IMAGES

despite all the other problems. If we keep investing in infrastructure, roads, electricity and water to ensure farmers can transport their goods I think we will see even more interest in this sector. Also, we are expecting to see a lot happening on fisheries. The informal economy is growing strongly, but we are putting efforts into formalising it to create space to see growth coming from that. Tourism has a lot of potential, as soon as we put in the infrastructure and services in those areas where it could develop. The IMF says that many of your policies have made ‘significant progress’ but advised you to do more on diversification and developing business. Yes, we are quite under our potential and still have a high dependency on the oil sector. […] So the IMF and the government know we need to keep working hard to ensure that we have a strong private sector, a local one, but also a foreign one that plays a key role and contributes to our GDP and fiscal revenues.

At this stage we are able to pay salaries, wages and shortterm expenditure with our fiscal revenues. But we need more: for example, to progressively decrease the amount of money from nonfiscal sources used to service debt. What would speed up the development of local companies? We did a lot on the legal framework – private investment law, competition law, trading rooms – so we have the legal infrastructure and institutional package to attract investment. What we need to keep working on is the mentality of the public servants to ensure we are less bureaucratic, not involved in acts of bribery, and very strict with any acts of corruption. Also, to keep investing in infrastructure. How are the privatisation plans going, especially of the two biggest state companies, Sonangol and Endiama? First, their balance sheets need to be clean and transparent. All the legal processes regarding the assets of those companies need to be resolved before starting the due

diligence. This will ensure that the final value that the government gets from this sale is as good as possible. It involves prosecutors, judges and international cooperation to recover some assets, so it’s a lot. We have the Banco de Comércio e Indústria, a state-owned bank, that we’ve privatised. We have started the privatisation of the state-owned insurance company, Empresa Nacional de Seguros de Angola, which will end this year. How can you bridge the gap between implementing good policies and getting positive change on the ground? All the government, all the public and private institutions, need to be totally committed to the quality of expenditure. It’s something that we need to keep working on. That’s my flag as minister of finance: open procedures, transparency, saving money, choosing projects well, putting the people first. That’s my role doing this. As I mentioned, I’m only one, but I can shout loud. For the full interview, visit www.theafricareport.com

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LAST WORD

RUSSIA’S WAR AND AFRICAN LIVES O AD DEBAYO Writer

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a tragedy. Millions displaced and thousands dead in the space of a few weeks. Children being murdered in a war they have absolutely no stake in. Those who do survive, traumatised by the displacement of a war, will be trying to make sense of it for the rest of their lives. A tough ask. Because this war, despite all the geopolitical takes, is, at its core, senseless. There’s no justifying the loss of innocent lives. I hope that, by the time this goes to print, some kind of ceasefire will be reached. Even should this happen, the world as we understood it has been irreversibly changed. Like many, I watched in horror the devastating scenes of civilians fleeing and leaving behind a life they know they can never return to. What made it worse, though, was hearing news of African students being stuck there, too. My phone became inundated with WhatsApp broadcasts with information on how we could support Nigerian students stuck at the Poland-Ukraine border. At first I was impressed at the ingenuity of the diaspora – once again using social media to disperse information, share resources and

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raise funds. But then the videos from African students started to make the rounds. Awful scenes of Africans facing the sort of racism that should make anybody shudder: told they weren’t allowed to get on buses or trains; being called all sorts of profane names and some even being attacked! Young Africans who went to Ukraine to study screaming that they were students, trying to appeal to the humanity of others, while they watched white Ukrainians being ushered in. More than 16,000 Africans were studying in Ukraine in 2022, according to the Brookings Institution. At the time of going to press, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had not responded to the outrage of their treatment in the refugee crisis. So, as admirable as his speeches are about the Ukrainian people, as a Black person and watching the treatment of Black people by Ukrainian officials, I can’t help but wonder if in his mind we simply don’t matter as much, if at all. That said, it’s not the European leadership or Western media dog-whistling that I think truly matters. What truly matters is what lessons African leadership are going to take from this. African leaders need to wake up to the fact that it’s not just in a crisis that their citizens’ lives aren’t deemed to matter. African people in Western countries are still not taken seriously. If this is to change, it’s high time these leaders showed solidarity and demonstrated to the world that Africans and the African continent does, should and will always matter. And to the rest of the world, maybe it’s time to consider that these African refugees could be you one day, and that the only way we will be able to share this world peacefully is if we recognise the humanity in every single life, no matter what they look like, what accent they have or where they happen to be born. We all deserve the right to a peaceful life, as do our children. For the full article, visit theafricareport.com

EXPERTISE IN PORTS, LOGISTICS AND INDUSTRIAL PROJECTS BUSINESS SECTORS Nasser TLASSELLAL MANAGING DIRECTOR

PORT & MARITIME

Can you present Tanger Med Engineering ? Tanger Med Engineering, is Tanger Med Group subsidiary, and an independent consultancy firm that accumulates more than 13 years of engineering expertise in ports and maritime facilities projects, logistics and industrial zones development, industrial plants as well as commercial and logistics buildings construction projects. Our expertise and qualifications cover engineering, design, planning, project management and asset management. We offer diverse services through innovative solutions and modern technologies in order to meet the expectations and requirements of our customers and partners.

LOGISTICS & INDUSTRY

FIELDS OF EXPERTISE FEASIBILITY STUDY, CONSULTING AND PROJECT TIMELINE DESIGN, ENGINEERING AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT ENERGY TRANSITION AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSET MANAGEMENT, MODELING AND TRAINING

Since the inception of Tanger med, which is the first port in the Mediterranean and Africa, our experts have been involved in the development of all marine structures and other port infrastructures. That is how the engineering and consultancy services were born.

KEY FIGURES

During the last five years, TME has carried out more than 100 missions in more than 15 countries across the African continent.

EXPERTISE DEPLOYED IN

Ports

Currently, TME’s office in Morocco deploys a team of more than 200 technical experts and engineers from a wide range of disciplines.

SEZs

200

Engineers & Experts

What is your development strategy and ambitions ? Tanger Med Engineering’s development strategy focuses on providing a “one stop shop” approach for total project delivery, offering efficient solutions that satisfy the cost and time requirements of clients which range from ports authorities to terminals operators, customs, logistics operators and other stakeholders of ports community. TME has extended its services to include the design and construction supervision of industrial zones and logistics platforms. Our strategy aims to also provide consultancy services that mobilize scientific and technological expertise to promote practical solutions for sustainable development, including environment protection and energy efficiency improvement. Our ambitions are to set up a regional leadership in port and maritime engineering activities and to establish TME as one of the most recognized engineering service providers in the continent.

What are your contributions to infrastructure projects such as ports and economic zones in Africa ?

Regarding our training services, we carry out annual training sessions for pilots, captains of ships and tugboats for many African ports such as Abidjan Port in Ivory Coast, Dakar Port in Senegal and Kribi port in Cameroun.

Being the leading engineering company in Morocco in the maritime and engineering sectors, our main objective is to share with our African partners our knowledge and acquired expertise.

We were also in charge of the design and the implementation of more than 2000 hectares of industrial and logistics zones, which hosted more than one thousand industrial and logistic companies in Morocco.

We have provided technical assistance for other ports authorities in west and east African countries and are conducting technical studies for other port projects such as the development of an Oil and Gas Terminal in Ivory Coast, a container terminal in Nigeria and a cargo terminal in Guinea Conakry. Last year, we finalized another project with the same port that aims to elaborate the master plan of Kribi port development during the next 10 years. We have also provided technical support for other ports development in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Madagascar.

Tanger Med Engineering offers an opportunity for African Ports and SEZ to implement best practices and provides high added value to the projects. As such, we intend to put our country’s successful results in favor of other African businesses to further support their growth. Today we contribute by developing information, highlighting the need for better statistics and indicators as well as boosting intraAfrica trade, all while enhancing Africa’s global trade performance ormance and supporting regional and continental value chains.