By Chris Bishop



Slender and snappily dressed Fortune Mojapelo was bent on living up to his first name when I met him at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town; his optimism left you feeling that fate, as well as fortune, would favour the brave. The young mining entrepreneur had a dream to capture a tenth of the multi-billion dollar world market for battery metals, his only concern was that Africa would not be able to keep up with demand. Weeks later, a bolt struck from the blue – COVID-19.



There is no doubt that the disruption of COVID-19 has set back the dream, but Mojapelo is far from giving up.He says his vanadium open cast operation at Bushveld Minerals, just outside Brits west of Johannesburg, has ramped back up to full production ahead of a multi-million dollar investment to supply more battery metals to the world.



More than 90% of the world’s vanadium is used in reinforced steel, but a growing percentage is used to make batteries for electric cars and energy storage. Bushveld Minerals, which listed on AIM in London in 2017, exports to the United States, China and Europe in a market that is likely to expand rapidly over the next few years. The rush for battery metals is expected to see the world market increase 122 times in the next 20 years. An expansion likely to attract $660 billion in capital expenditure to unearth cobalt, lithium and vanadium &nbsp;



“I can say, do we have a good business: yes. Are we in distress? No. We have a lot of work to do things are going to get worse before they get better,” says Mojapelo who will appear on CNBC Africa’s Business Tomorrow virtual web discussion at 1400 CAT on May 26.



“We are bullish, yet we are cautious and realistic about the short term, but we think the world will revive and still need reinforced steel. In the post- COVID-19 world we believe it will be moving even faster towards a de carbonised future and renewable energy and we think this is fairly positive.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



&nbsp;Mojapelo, who grew up in a township near Kwe Kwe in Zimbabwe before studying actuarial science at the University of Cape Town, wants his company to spend at least $100 million over the next four years in increasing his vanadium output through cash, debt instruments and borrowing on the money markets. The plan is to treble production to 8400 mt in the next five years to capture more of the world battery metals market. The company currently supplies 3% of world demand and hopes to expand this to 10% even in the face of COVID-19.



“The only caution is, are we going to do it in the same five year ramp up? Is this going to happen? I think it is going to be impacted especially when it comes to fund raising. We are going to go to the market at a certain point, when you need money, but you can’t bank on when it is going to return to normal. Some projects we have pushed out by up to a year.”



It is a brave man who will put his money into long term investments in the world of COVID-19. Clearly, Fortune favours the brave.

Fortune Mojapelo

How Africa can corner a tenth of the world battery metals market – if being brave favours Fortune!

<h3 class="wp-block-heading">KEY POINTS</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Tiger Brands scraps dividend</li><li>Gets burnt in Nigeria again </li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image alignwide size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1110" height="860" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Noel-1-2-scaled-e1590398289735-1110x860.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-372195" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Noel-1-2-scaled-e1590398289735-1110x860.jpg 1110w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Noel-1-2-scaled-e1590398289735-300x233.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Noel-1-2-scaled-e1590398289735-1536x1191.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Noel-1-2-scaled-e1590398289735-696x540.jpg 696w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Noel-1-2-scaled-e1590398289735-1068x828.jpg 1068w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px" /><figcaption>Noel Doyle, CEO, Tiger Brands</figcaption></figure>



Food giant Tiger Brands has passed on paying a dividend as it faces job losses and cost-cutting in its operations after a bruising first half trading on the cusp of COVID-19 that saw operating income drop by 29% to R1.1 billion and a squeeze on profit margins, in the six months to March 31. A settlement in a long-running trademark dispute in Nigeria and the fall in the rand also cost the company dear in the first-half numbers.



Profit margins declined to 7% because of lower volumes, rising raw material and conversion costs greater than inflation and increased marketing investment.&nbsp; Headline earnings per share (HEPS) from operations dropped 35% to 501 cents. Tiger Brands warned before the results that it was facing a write-down of R557 million.



For more COVID-19 coverage visit: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/">https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/</a> 



“This was a challenging and disappointing performance,” says Tiger Brands CEO Noel Doyle.



“Across every category margins and operating profit is expected to decline meaning we can’t recover costs and show growth at the same time.”



Doyle said the company was starting to look through its operations at jobs and costs.



“In terms of job losses it is difficult to give a number at this stage. If the business trajectory continues we do expect as we work through each category there are likely to be job losses, but we haven’t yet engaged internally, we wouldn’t want to put any numbers,” says Doyle.



“We expect to make greater savings from other savings like value improvements, not job cuts, but they (job cuts) will be at the end of the process,&nbsp; it is not the first lever we will pull.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A second time</h2>



Tiger Brands also admitted it has burnt its fingers in Nigeria for the second time within a decade. This time it was a trademark dispute in court over brands:&nbsp; Jolly Jus drink and Benny seasoning.



“We had an ownership dispute that was tied up in litigation in court and we couldn’t export our product to Nigeria. That litigation was going to go on for years so we had to make a commercial decision. The settlement was agreed in principle and we are taking it to court. The settlement was R71 million and the profits at stake were worth more than that.”



Jolly Jus and Benny are the only Tiger Brands names left in Nigeria – a country surely the South African company wants to forget. Tiger Brands began a foray in Nigeria, in 2012, when it bought a 63% stake in struggling Lagos Flour Mills from billionaire Aliko Dangote for $182 million. It was part of a board-driven expansion across the continent.



Unfortunately for Tiger Brands, its executives didn’t understand the complexities of operating the mills, or the complications of the Nigerian market. It sold it back to Dangote, for a song, in 2015, suffering a $120 million write off.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Doyle said that the company had passed on paying a dividend for now.



“We have passed on a dividend. Should circumstances allow it could change, we are predicting&nbsp; now how we are going to declare a final dividend that makes up for the lost interim dividend.”

Noel 1 (2)

Ouch! How Tiger Brands got its fingers burnt in Nigeria for the second time in a decade

Matshidiso Moeti, the regional head for Africa for the World Health Organisation , has stood firm in the face of backlash from the continent over her advice to hold back on using herbal medicine from Madagascar against COVID-19.



Social media was alive with criticism in the days following Moeti’s cautious reaction to this a tonic produced from a plant called Artemesia blended with a collection of herbs grown on the island of Madagascar. Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina has presented it to heads of state at the African Union as a herbal prevention of treatment of COVID-19.



“Africa should believe in herself instead of waiting for approval from a foreign organization to provide a cure for COVID-19,”says one tweet this week despite the fact that South Africa has volunteered to test the elixir.



“We survived diseases with our own traditional remedies for centuries without WHO’s approval. We are Africans, the bush is our pharmacy,” say other tweets, “Rather be killed by an African drug than a western vaccine.&#8221;



In her response Moeti was diplomatic, yet firm in her response in WHO’s weekly briefing to Africa’s media. She pointed out that WHO had worked for many years with governments to help them integrate African medicine into their health systems and also supported trials of herbal cures.



“Any medicine that is to be used we advise people to take it through trials . We are in talks with Madagascar to see what we can do,” says Moeti.



“We are not at all discouraging the use of the product, but would like to advise&nbsp; that is tested so when we celebrate the use of this product in Africa is we would like to do so with some evidence from tests behind it.” &nbsp;&nbsp;



For centuries – long before pharmaceuticals factories were built – African herbs were a natural and trusted way of healing and warding off ailments. The liquid is being made by the Madagascar Institute of Applied Research and distributed door-to-door by soldiers in the capital Antananarivo. The WHO also painted a bleak picture of COVID-19 in Africa. It said there were 72,000 confirmed 2500 died in 47 countries in Africa. On top of this, there were 200 million Africans going hungry, according to the World Food Programme, with many more by the day as children missed their only meal of the day as school stayed shut.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti – WHO Regional Director for Africa

COVID-19: WHO Africa head Moeti stands firm over Madagascar medicine.

By Chris Bishop



Scores of countries across Europe celebrated VE – Victory in Europe day – today to mark the end of World War Two that saw the slaughter of tens of millions of people of all creeds and colours from the deserts of North Africa to the snows of Scandinavia.



This is a good time also for Africa to reflect on it sacrifice between 1939 and 1945 that also acted as a catalyst for change on the continent. One million people took up arms in Africa to fight the crushing power of Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy. South Africa recruited more than 300,000 men – around 70,000 of them black South Africans who fought, worked and died usually unsung. The rush to the colours was staggering in some African nations – Botswana, then called Bechuanaland, asked for a couple of thousand army volunteers from its far flung villages and saw 10,000 recruits in just over a month. When I wrote a story on those men, in 2000, most then in their late 70s, many had kept proudly their uniforms and war medals and could still salute smartly as any parade ground peacock.



Tens of thousands never came back. Many of the black riflemen who fought hand-to-hand with the enemy received little reward, maybe a new suit and a bicycle, and often died in poverty.



One such overlooked hero was Job Maseko from KwaThema, in Springs near Johannesburg. He was a delivery man in his home town and joined up in the then Native Military Corps. &nbsp;Following his basic training he was shipped to North Africa, in 1942, to face General Erwin Rommel’s tough Afrika Korps that had the allies on the run.



On June 21 1942 Rommel’s tanks swept into Tobruk capturing thousands of allied soldiers including more than 10,000 troops of the South African 2nd Infantry Division. Among the 30,000 prisoners was Lance Corporal Job Maseko.



Italian troops held the black South African soldiers under guard and by all accounts treated them poorly. This angered the feisty Lance Corporal Maseko who swore revenge against his enemy captors. They forced Maseko to work loading an Italian military supply ship. He took a milk tin and filled it with cordite and a fuse. With the help of his fellow prisoners he placed it among petrol drums deep down in the ship and blew it sky high – a big blow to the enemy war effort.



Generals recommended Maseko for a Victoria Cross – the highest award for gallantry in wartime regardless of rank – but the colour of his skin counted against him, in their eyes. Instead, they awarded him a lesser Military Medal.



“In carrying out this deliberately planned action, Job Maseko displayed ingenuity, determination and complete disregard of personal safety from punishment by the enemy or from the ensuing explosion which set the vessel alight,” said the medal citation.



When Lance Corporal Maseko came home there was little waiting for him and he died in poverty. In 1952, a train did what the Germans and Italians couldn’t – it hit Maseko and killed him.



Yet others who went to the war from Africa – from Johannesburg to Kenya to Nigeria – returned to fuel the fires of independence. They had seen how their white comrades-in-arms had bled and screamed for their mothers, too, as they died. It exploded many colonial myths of white supremacy and created a generation of battle hardened patriots ready to question and throw off the shackles of imperial rule.



VE Day is not only a time to reflect on the ending of a world war – it is also a time for Africa to reflect on the sacrifices of its great-grandfathers, who fought toe-to-foe with fascism; and also how it led to hard won freedoms at home.

Job_Masego00

Victory in Europe Day – Time for Africa to reflect on its blood and sweat sacrifice

By Chris Bishop.



Like most hard pressed entrepreneurs in Africa, Don Scott had to cut costs and batten down the hatches in the face of the COVID-19 lockdown – like very few, he also had to worry about wild animal invasions and encroaching bush.



Scott, an engineer by trade, runs the Tanda Tula lodge, in Timbavati near the Kruger Park, in northern South Africa. Right now it is operating on a skeleton staff as most of his 62 workers are taking leave; they were paid for April, but took a 15 per cent cut. For those left, their full time job is trimming back the fast growing bush and stopping the wild animals, that live in it, from taking over the resort.



“If you let a game lodge go you will never find it again!” laughs Scott. As speak on the telephone a pride of lions has just walked across his manicured lawn- six males and four lionesses, he says, before continuing with his story.



“What the few of us left have got to do is cut back the trees and make sure there is enough human activity around the camp. If there is then usually the animals stay on the periphery.”



Scott watched the lights go out at his game lodge in a few crazy days in March. The travel ban was declared on March 15 and the resort emptied. On that Sunday, 22 of the camp’s 24 tents were occupied by tourists from the United States, France and the United Kingdom. By the following Friday, nearly all the tourists had fled to the airport. On that evening, two British holiday makers remained rattling around in the huge dining room at the lodge.



“We got all the staff together and sat down and had dinner with them so they didn’t feel lonely,” says Scott.



“But to be honest, I think we were all trying to keep each other’s spirits up.”



For now Scott spends his days hacking at the bush, watching out for lions and waiting for the travel restrictions and lockdown to subside. Until it does there won’t be a tourist in sight in Timbavati and lions will be the fleeting kings of the lawn, as well as the forest.



Don Scott will be taking part in the CNBC Africa virtual panel discussion Business Tomorrow at 14 00 CAT on Channel 410 on Tuesday May 12. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

don scott

How COVID-19 led to wild animal invasions in Africa.

By Chris Bishop



A briefing by the World Health Organisation on the fight against COVID-19 also threw up a grim view of the future of the continent’s economy.



Stephen Karingi, Director of Regional trade and integration, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa said the economy of Africa would contract by as much as 3% in 2020. The UNEC calculated every month of lockdown cost the economy $65 billion.



“We are also seeing a reduction in export earnings because markets in the northern hemisphere are also closed. On top of that governments are collecting lower revenue because people aren’t working,” he says.



Karingi was also concerned about the number of poor people in the informal sector who were going hungry because of the COVID-19 lockdowns across the continent. He said 60% off Africans live in informal settlements, which is proving a problem.



“It becomes very difficult for them to be in lockdown. They have to get in the morning, go and work to get money and then have to go back out later to earn money for another meal. To make matters worse they have seen an increase in food prices in this lockdown. At least 87% say they are skipping a meal every day or eating less,” says Karingi.



“One person we surveyed said: ‘I don’t have a dollar and you want me to wear a mask that I can’t afford in the first place.’”



Yet Addis Ababa-based Karingi agreed that Africa, where 2,000 had died from COVID-19 by May 7, needed to make sure the infection rate is falling to reopen and not take risks.



On the other side of the COVID-19 coin, the Nairobi-based Amit Thakker, the Executive Chairman of Africa Health Business said at least 42 factories in Kenya 42 had put up machinery cleaned their machines and realigned them to make masks and sanitizers.

CROPPED-Stephen Karingi

If you want to earn money in Africa – worse is yet to come says UN.

By Chris Bishop.



It was raised and tended, by hand, in the shady herbal gardens on an island amid the warm sea breezes of the east coast of Africa. It is intended to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, but the World Health Organisation says: don’t touch it &#8211; yet.



It is a balm produced from a plant called Artemesia blended with a collection of herbs grown on the island of Madagascar.



Madagascan President Andry Rajoelina has presented it to heads of state at the African Union as a herbal prevention of treatment of COVID-19. For centuries – long before pharmaceuticals factories were built – African herbs were a natural and trusted way of healing and warding off ailments. The liquid is being made by the Madagascar Institute of Applied Research and distributed door-to-door by soldiers in the capital Antananarivo. &nbsp;



Yet, in its online briefing to journalists, WHO’s regional director Matshidiso Moeti warned Africans to steer clear of the liquid from Madagascar.



“We are advising the government of Madgascar to take this through a clinical trial…So, we would caution and advise against countries adopting a product that has not been tested for its efficacy. Everything should be used only after clinical trials,” says Moeti when questioned about the elixir from Madagascar.



“We are concerned that the touting of this product as a preventative measure might stop people doing the right things to protect themselves.”



South Africa’s health minister Zweli Mkhize tweeted: “We received a call from the government of Madagascar, who asked for help with scientific research. Our scientists would be able to assist with this research. We will only get involved in a scientific analysis of the herb. We are not at that point yet.”



Moeti, a South African born doctor raised in Botswana, painted a grim picture of the fight against COVID-19 that has seen 2000 people die. To make matters worse, she said, 1000 health workers had fallen foul of the disease leaving a shortage of workers in treating all diseases. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“I have a lot of faith in the resilience of African people. We will not see a continent flattened and in despair. It will be difficult but I am sure we will come through this together and stronger,”says Moeti.

MADAGASCAR-HEALTH-VIRUS

The anti-COVID-19 herbal balm from the sea breezes of  Madagascar – why the World Health Organisation says don’t touch it for now.

By Chris Bishop



Oil will recover to $43-a-barrel by the end of the year.



That was the word from commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo at an online briefing by UBS that painted a slightly encouraging picture of the world economy.



The briefing heard that there had been an uptick in investment and retail interest in gold, despite under pressure central banks slowing purchases of bullion &#8211; which was a cushion for the world economy last year. Joni Teves a precious metals Strategist for UBS, said she believed the gold market would be well supported in 2021.



Oil was also likely to shake off its low price blues this year despite a drop in demand of 20%,largely because of COVID-19, in a market where supply has not fallen. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“In the short term there is downward pressure if we keep oil prices subdued,” says Staunovo.



“We will see 43 dollars a barrel at the end of the year. We will see mobility restrictions being removed and oil demand will be high, but it will still take time to recover by December. There will be a demand recovery in the third quarter and we will see more people flying than before and production is falling very quickly among OPEC and its allies.”

A second wave of COVID-19 will have ‘major consequences’ for the oil market, IEA warns

Oil to recover to $43 by December – UBS analyst

By Chris Bishop



More than half of the billion Rand fund put up by the billionaire Oppenheimer family has been lent to thousands of small businesses in just 11 days in a bid to help them weather the COIVD -19 storm, that threatens to wreck the South African economy. &nbsp;



The Oppenheimer family – that made a fortune over the last century in mining &nbsp;– was one of the first of the big family names in South African business to come forward with a relief fund when South Africa declared a state of disaster in March. It is called the South African Future Trust and it saw tens of thousands of applications from cash-strapped businesses within days..



Interest free loans worth R638 million have been disbursed, through the banks, to 5,800 small businesses. It will ensure that 55,000 employees of these companies can expect money at the end of this month in which South African business has been all but shut by the lockdown.



The Oppenheimers are trying to call their contacts to increase the billion Rand fund. Jonathan and his father Nick Oppenheimer managed to raise R40 million more for the fund by ringing around over the Easter weekend. A statement, on April 23, said those pledges had now increased to R120 million that will enable the fund to support an extra 10,000 workers. 



“We are immensely grateful to those who have already joined the Oppenheimer family in contributing to SAFT,” says the family in the statement.

_BBP7566

COVID-19 :African Billionaire family lends more than half a billion in 11 days to stop small businesses being swept away.

By Chris Bishop



The good news is South Africa’s dark load shedding days could be over as another bleak winter looms. The bad news is maybe not for long because of more than a decade of low maintenance at Eskom’s creaking, ageing, coal-fired power stations; plus design problems at the new ones.



If you are wondering why there have been no power cuts over the last few weeks, the lockdown for COVID-19 has seen a huge dip in demand, for the 30,000 MW in the national grid, of between 6,000 and 9,000 MW. That is enough power to light up three cities the size of Johannesburg&#8230;



The lockdown means Eskom has been able send more gangs of maintenance workers into power stations across the land to mend and restore some of the broken and run down equipment.



“During these past three weeks we have doubled our maintenance from more than 4 200 MW to 9 500 MW. This will put Eskom in a good place to meet rising demand and generate electricity without resorting to load shedding. Even though it is impossible to make guarantees about load shedding,” &nbsp;&nbsp;says SIkonathi Mantshantsha, the spokesperson for Eskom.



A lot also rides on changes to the new coal-fired power stations, Medupi and Kusile, in the country’s northern Limpopo province. &nbsp;Foundations were laid more than a decade ago, but the power stations were full of problems as well as being behind time and over budget. &nbsp;



“We must caution the people of South Africa always that our equipment and our generators are quite unreliable and old. So we can never give guarantees until we have fixed the design faults at our new power stations at Kusile and Medupi. Then, once we have done that, we hope never to use the world load shedding again” says Mantshantsha.&nbsp;



Yet, Chris Yelland, an electrical engineer&nbsp; who has been analysing Eskom for more than 20 years, says the maintenance is merely what is merely what is known in the trade as “opportunistic maintenance” that can be done quickly and at short notice and may not last long. He likened it to patching a bicycle puncture instead of fitting a new tyre. &nbsp;



“It will be merely fixing patching up boiler tubes and mending water and oil leaks,” says Yelland. &nbsp;



“What has not been done for years is a major overhaul; this requires a shutdown so you can open up the boilers, turbines and does what they call deep level maintenance. It is something that is expensive and takes a lot of planning. You need to bring experienced specialists from the equipment manufacturers, from around the world. You need to have spare parts on standby.”



Yelland says the maintenance that has been done is good news for the national grid, but questions how long South Africa’s creaking power stations can struggle on.   



By Chris Bishop



The good news is South Africa’s dark load shedding days could be over as another bleak winter looms. The bad news is maybe not for long because of more than a decade of low maintenance at Eskom’s creaking, ageing, coal-fired power stations; plus design problems at the new ones.



If you are wondering why there have been no power cuts over the last few weeks, the lockdown for COVID-19 has seen a huge dip in demand, for the 30,000 MW in the national grid, of between 6,000 and 9,000 MW. That is enough power to light up three cities the size of Johannesburg&#8230;



The lockdown means Eskom has been able send more gangs of maintenance workers into power stations across the land to mend and restore some of the broken and run down equipment.



“During these past three weeks we have doubled our maintenance from more than 4 200 MW to 9 500 MW. This will put Eskom in a good place to meet rising demand and generate electricity without resorting to load shedding. Even though it is impossible to make guarantees about load shedding,” &nbsp;&nbsp;says SIkonathi Mantshantsha, the spokesperson for Eskom.



A lot also rides on changes to the new coal-fired power stations, Medupi and Kusile, in the country’s northern Limpopo province. &nbsp;Foundations were laid more than a decade ago, but the power stations were full of problems as well as being behind time and over budget. &nbsp;



“We must caution the people of South Africa always that our equipment and our generators are quite unreliable and old. So we can never give guarantees until we have fixed the design faults at our new power stations at Kusile and Medupi. Then, once we have done that, we hope never to use the world load shedding again” says Mantshantsha.&nbsp;



Yet, Chris Yelland, an electrical engineer&nbsp; who has been analysing Eskom for more than 20 years, says the maintenance is merely what is merely what is known in the trade as “opportunistic maintenance” that can be done quickly and at short notice and may not last long. He likened it to patching a bicycle puncture instead of fitting a new tyre. &nbsp;



“It will be merely fixing patching up boiler tubes and mending water and oil leaks,” says Yelland. &nbsp;



“What has not been done for years is a major overhaul; this requires a shutdown so you can open up the boilers, turbines and does what they call deep level maintenance. It is something that is expensive and takes a lot of planning. You need to bring experienced specialists from the equipment manufacturers, from around the world. You need to have spare parts on standby.”



Yelland says the maintenance that has been done is good news for the national grid, but questions how long South Africa’s creaking power stations can struggle on. 



“You are talking about old plants, in pushing that plant you really are doing damage…For the past decade, this maintenance has not been done by the book. It is like servicing a car, the cost of not servicing costs more in the long term than servicing it.”

A baptism of fire for new Eskom boss Andre de Ruyter

No more power cuts?  Yes, but for how long?

By Chris Bishop &nbsp;



He was the personable and avuncular hard worker who sweated his way to a fortune in a 40-year journey from the shop floor to the penthouse suite.



Marc Wainer, who has died aged 71, interviewed me on television, back in 2017,  for one of his pet projects – the Mentorship Challenge for CNBC Africa. I found him to be a polite and humble soul who was passionate about the quest to help others. The next time he spoke to me was to invite me to Poland with a South African delegation to help convince investors that South Africa was open for business.



“We need strong, credible, voices from the business world out there. We have to fight for the future of this country,” told me down the telephone with passion. Sadly, I could not make it.



It was a world away from where Wainer started his working life in the grocery and  fish shop owned by his parents, in Yeoville, in downtown Johannesburg. He went into property as a developer and investors and spent 40 years building Redefine Properties into a top 40 listed company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange worth more than R100 billion.



Wainer was as astute deal maker and transformed Redefine Properties into a global REIT with interests in commercial property in  Poland, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. He retired from the company in August.



“I am at a loss for words and deeply saddened by Marc’s passing away. He leaves a void in the lives of people in the entire property sector who did not escape his characteristic wit, infectious laughter and his genuine love and concern for those he worked with,” says Andrew Konig, the CEO of Redefine Properties.



“Marc was a true family man and our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult time. His passing away is also a huge loss to the sector and we will all miss his guidance and encouragement. Marc always said that people are the only thing that matter. Our tribute to him will be who we say we are and continue to grow the business he founded, and manage and create our spaces in a way that purposefully changes lives.”



Wainer’s wit was legendary and will recalled by most who met him. When once asked about how to make it in the property game he replied: “It is not rocket science, which is why we can do it. We don&#8217;t have MBAs, we have MBWAs &#8211; Management By Walking Around.&#8221;



Farewell the sage of simple common sense. &nbsp;

Marc Wainer

From selling fish to a making a fortune in Africa – farewell the king of the property castle

By Chris Bishop



“A hungry man is an angry man,” says the former guerrilla fighter with a steely glare followed by a shake of the head as he gleaned the thin pickings of a dry maize field on communal land just outside the capital Harare. As Zimbabwe turned 40 this weekend, I harked back to his soulful, disappointed, eyes on independence day, April 18,back in 1994, a few weeks after I had landed in Africa as a television journalist.



I will never forget Israel Mandere, who must be in his sixties now, yet clearly the internet – if ever it knew his name – has. I can still see him sweating in that field under the bright autumn sunshine as part of a struggling cooperative of war veterans scratching a living in the dust.



“No money, little food, tattered clothes,” says Mandere shaking his head in anger and stuttering with emotion.



“Ï am very embarrassed about that one.”



Two decades earlier, Mandere strapped an AK47 on his back to fight operations in eastern Zimbabwe from guerrilla camps, in the bush, across on the other side of the border in Mozambique as part of the ZANLA guerrilla forces that helped put President Mugabe in power. He joined, as a teenager and trained with thousands of comrades in Ethiopia to fight a small, yet tough, Rhodesian army bristling with modern weapons and vast firepower. The promise from his leaders – many of whom ended up in the cabinet – was a brighter tomorrow for the black majority.



In the early, euphoric, days this seemed so for many black Zimbabweans who found rights in a country where they had grown up feeling like foreigners. Black Zimbabweans took up top jobs in the land the commanding heights of the economy on a &nbsp;secure bedrock of robust infrastructure. Investment and flowed in the wake of the first elections in and land with universal suffrage.. Politically Zimbabwe campaigned for change in Africa as part of the Non Aligned Movement in the former frontline states.



Yet the economy was mismanaged and struggled to increase the standard of living for the growing population. In the early 80s the government turned on its own people in Matabeleland and more than 20,000 people died – as a journalist, I saw some of the shallow graves with my own eyes. More than a decade on, it choked me that relatives knew where their loved ones were buried but were merely too afraid of authority to go and visit them.



I was so angry that the crew and I went to a church in Bulawayo to question one of the politicians who oversaw the killings, the late Enos Nkala, who has become a pastor. &nbsp;Seriously, his people said the man himself was praying and couldn’t talk to us right now. We waited and Nkala slipped from the building and his accountability. &nbsp;One of many examples I saw of how the people of &nbsp;power in &nbsp;Zimbabwe often had that air of impunity. &nbsp;



Then there was the ham fisted way productive farm land was taken over and often left in ruins. It is a shame that Mandere’s grandchildren can only hear stories about Zimbabwe being the bread basket of southern Africa. It is a bitter irony also that many children &nbsp;and grandchildren of those who risked their lives fighting to free Zimbabwe were on the streets to howl President Mugabe out of power in November 2017.



I called one of my old friends and colleagues in Harare on independence day to see how it went. He admitted it hadn’t been a very celebratory 40th birthday party with the economy down after 20 days of COVID-19 lockdown.



“Zimbabwe at 40?” says he,” It is like you have gone to school, grown up, got married, had children and then you wake up at 40 to find you are undernourished.” &nbsp;



Now, I worked in Zimbabwe, as a journalist, and for years I travelled to almost every corner, small town &nbsp;and village to report stories and talk to people. I drank masese, danced in shebeens and met tens of thousands of Zimbabweans of all creeds and colours – good and bad, &nbsp;For every bad person there were a hundred good.



“This one is free,” people used to say in the dance halls late at night when they were asked why I was there.



&nbsp;All I want is the best for Zimbabwe, but I fear how the country will be when it turns 50.

Zimbabwe tightens coronavirus lockdown in capital Harare as cases hit 203

Comment :Zimbabwe at 40 subdued and disappointed

Zimbabwe turned 40 on April 18. Amid the economic struggles of this week there was talk of the country phasing out the US dollar – a move denied by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on its website.



CNBC Africa asked John Robertson, an independent economist based in Harare who has spent more than half a century studying the economy, for some background on currency issues in Zimbabwe. We also asked him was the old Zimbabwe dollar really stronger than the US dollar at independence in 1980? These were his thoughts:



“The value of every currency in the world is supported by, and dependent on, the productive capacity of the country in relation to the productive capacity of its trading partners. The capacity measurement has to properly take into account the volume and quality of the goods and services produced as well as their cost competitiveness. In Zimbabwe, in those first years after 1980, we used to produce commodities efficiently enough to make profits from their sale abroad, even though the revenue we could get for them was set by international market price mechanisms. For our consumer goods exports, such as clothing, footwear, a wide range of processed foods, transistor radios, school textbooks and dozens of other things, we successfully competed for sales on foreign markets. We also exported processed raw materials, such as steel sections, cotton yarn, shredded and blended tobacco, roasted coffee beans, sawn timber, dimension stone, irrigation pipes and couplings, plus lots of other components, all in competition with other suppliers.



However, government interference caused lots of cost increases. Minimum wages were doubled and frequently adjusted, devaluations were necessary to permit the Zimbabwe dollar earnings to continue covering rising costs, license fees were charged and project approvals were needed for any company wanting to make a change to its mix of products. Import licenses were confiscated and given to emergent business people, who re-sold them to the companies from which they had been taken, adding to costs. The whole investment climate became difficult. The IMF tried to intervene with its Structural Adjustment Programme, but that supported retailers much more than manufacturers as, after ESAP, whatever anyone wanted could be imported?



Then we had Land Reform. The collateral value of farmland was reduced from billions of dollars to zero. Skilled farmers were dispossessed, small-scale farmers were given the land free, but land with no market value, over which the farmers had no security of tenure, was of no value as collateral for bank loans. The small-scale farmers were occasionally lucky enough to feed their families and have small surpluses for sale, but they never grew enough the feed the country. We have had to meet a big bill for imported food every year since Land Reform.



&nbsp;Even now, nothing has been proposed that offers the slightest improvement to our shocking investment climate. Government vigorously protests that it is making major policy changes, but they absolutely refuse to accept that it has brought productive capacity to its knees and has destroyed the country’s relationships with the rest of the world. We cannot pay our debts, cannot attract investment and can now meet very few of our own needs.



&nbsp;Government wants to be completely in charge of all investment decisions and seems to believe that it can direct business sectors to simply produce more. As a result, we now have an economy that cannot support a currency, the value of which is stable and worthy of respect. The black-market rate for the US dollar is now Z$49 to one, the inter-bank market rate is Z$25:US$1. It seems that the currency deals carried out are to externalise US$, not place orders for imports that might be impossible to sell. March inflation has just been published &#8211; the annual rate is 676,4% and prices went up 26,6% in one month. We need dramatic changes to restore confidence, but ZanuPF has no intention of changing anything.



&nbsp;On your last question, the value of a Zimbabwe dollar in 1980, it is true that you needed US$1,60 to buy one Zimbabwe dollar. That exchange rate is often misinterpreted as evidence that the Zimbabwe dollar was stronger than the US dollar. That is not true. The size of a unit of measurement does not indicate strength or weakness. An inch is not stronger than a centimetre, a metre is not stronger than a yard. When Rhodesia was in the Sterling Area, the Rhodesian pound was worth the same as a British pound. The pound weakened during some difficult years for the UK in the 1970s, and Rhodesia was overcoming sanctions so well that the Rhodesian dollar, which started off as equal to ten shillings, appeared to be strengthening against a weakening pound. So relative values come into it. The pound soon recovered under Margaret Thatcher and at that time, you needed US$2,40 to buy one pound. Today you can buy a pound for US$1.24.



&nbsp;The question of how practical it is to put our faith in our own currency calls for recognition of all these points. What we have done, and the policies are still being vigorously defended, has destroyed any chance of getting the confidence and investment inflows needed to rebuild productive capacity, so a currency based on such a weakened economy will remain weak as well. And a weak currency will simply keep falling in value. Now that the whole world is in trouble and many other poor countries deserve help much more than we do, Zimbabwe is going to have to wake up to the need for self-help and self-sufficiency very quickly. If we don’t, we will soon be in much more trouble than ever before!” &nbsp;&nbsp;

The birth of Zimbabwe 40 years ago-the days when the Zimbabwe dollar cost $1.60 US Dollars

By Chris Bishop



He was tough world cup winner feared and respected by the finest players on football pitches around the world. Yet COVID-19 felled him in a week.



Norman Hunter, a tough tackling defender for Leeds United and England 1966 World Cup winning squad, died in hospital after testing positive for COVID-19 on April 10.



&#8220;He leaves a huge hole in the Leeds United family, his legacy will never be forgotten, and our thoughts are with Norman&#8217;s family and friends at this very difficult time,&#8221; said Leeds United in a statement.



Hunter was&nbsp; a tough-tackling centre back nicknamed &nbsp;“Bite your legs” by the fans – an epithet he didn’t like and certainly didn’t do him justice – feared few in the days when the professional game was full of mud and flying career ending tackles.” He will long be remembered in Africa by fellow 1966 World Cup winner Terry Paine who forged a broadcasting and football management career in his adopted home of Johannesburg, South Africa.



“Apart from being a hard man he also had a great left foot. He was a great footballer and what they would call these days an out- and- out defender,” says Paine a dashing winger who played 713 games for Southampton and made the 1966 World Cup squad even though his club was in the second division.



Paine and Hunter may have been in the England squad in 1966, but not in the eleven that lifted the World Cup. It meant they were not given medals as is common practise these days where even the coaches and physios get a prize. This wrong was righted, 43 years later, when the British Prime Minister presented the rest of the surviving squad with their medals.



Hunter, born on Tyneside near Newcastle, kissed his glittering medal outside Number 10 Downing Street; he was not so gentle with those who opposed him on the pitch.



On a grey afternoon amid the mud of a wet Derby County, in 1975, the referee &nbsp;sent &nbsp;Hunter off for a toe-to-toe fist fight with his old friend and England roommate Francis Lee. Hunter threw the first punch, off-the-ball, yet the referee dismissed both. The two threw more punches as they trudged off for an early bath.



“He was a lovely guy, but he could be a Jekyll and Hyde character on the pitch,” laughed Paine who remembered a day of daggers on the pitch during training for the 1966 World Cup at the Football Association headquarters in Lilleshall.



“We were playing 11-a-side and I put the ball through Norman;s legs and ran past him. He turned to me and said: ‘Don’t you ever do that again!’”



Did he, I ask?



“Did I hell!” replied Paine with a laugh that rode a thousand tackles.



But one day at the Dell in Southampton, against Leeds United, Paine found it hard to laugh after jumping for an aerial challenge with the towering Hunter.



“He hit me hard with something and I thought he had knocked all my teeth out; my whole mouth went numb. I think it was his elbow.”



You can be sure that the referee didn’t even caution Norman Hunter in those robust, often brutal, days- a hard man, born of an even harder game, taken from the world by COVID-19. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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By Chris Bishop



The holding back by President Donald Trump of US taxpayers’ money for the World Health Organisation will have a “significant impact” on its work in Africa at a time when the continent battles the COVID-19 outbreak with thin resources.



President Trump held back the money, which makes up about 15% of WHO funds, in protest against what he claimed was poor advice from the organisation in the early days of what is now a world pandemic.



Matshidiso Moeti, the regional director for Africa for WHO, said in a web briefing that the holding back of US taxpayers’ money would hurt a number of health projects in Africa including the highly successful campaign against polio.



“The impact will be quite significant,” says Moeti.



Billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates, who already fill 10 per cent of WHO’s coffers, says the Trump decision makes no sense and has upped their contribution by $150 million to help the continent fight COVID-19.



The South African government has also protested the President Trump decision and called on him to reconsider. &nbsp;



“It is alarming that this very regrettable decision is announced as this deadly virus strikes Africa and the poorest and most vulnerable states,” the South African government said in a statement on April 16.



Moeti said WHO was going to spent $300 million in the next six months fighting COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa and Algeria; a land mass with 47 countries and nearly a billion people. She said she hoped any shortfall in the money would be covered by the new cash injections like the one promised by Bill and Melinda Gates.



Money is likely to be a growing issue in Africa when its paralysed economies emerge from a lockdown that is going to cost millions their livelihood. On the economic, front, the WHO web briefing heard that a third of African workers were likely to lose their jobs and that the World Bank was predicting the first continental recession for 25 years. The African Union has asked the donors for a debt standstill.

COVID-19: How Bill and Melinda Gates rode to the rescue for Africa after Trump pulled back the cash.

By Chris Bishop



As South Africa completed three weeks of lockdown the World Health Organisation hinted that the country is turning the tide against COVID-19. On the other side of the coin officials warn that the outbreak is only likely to peak, in Africa, in September.



Sub-Saharan Africa has around 17,000 cases and has suffered more than 900 deaths and the numbers increase every day, a weekly web briefing by WHO heard Thursday. South Africa has the most cases on the continent and along with Algeria and Cameroon it has half of the total.



&nbsp;South Africa, with its mobile testing, road blocks, complete shutdown and close tracking of contact tracing has been seen as the most aggressive, of the 47 nations in the region, in fighting the outbreak..



“I think South Africa is bending the curve.. .We think what they have done is starting to make an impact, but we have to continue to monitor it. They have taken a very aggressive attitude to testing” says Matshidiso Moeti, the regional director for Africa for WHO.



“Even before the outbreak, the South African government already had a public platform in place. It had carried out strong work in contact tracing a isolating and physical distancing. It too was early with closing schools, prohibiting sporting and social gatherings.”



Yet many other, less travelled, parts of the continent are likely to struggle with this. There were fears raised by journalists they it may be easier to carry out social distancing in an air-conditioned supermarket in Johannesburg, with hand sanitizer on tap, than it is in a teeming open-air market in Goma.



“The size of dwellings, the size of families, even the weather in many places is going to make it ery difficult. When people are going to outside markets, where we buy a lot of our food, it is very &nbsp;difficult to keep people apart , if you stay away from people you might disadvantage what you are going to earn for the day… People should be wearing masks when they go shopping. People should have sanitizers and soap,” says Moeti, who added that the outbreak was expected to peak in Africa in Semptember.



“I think it is a very good reminder that our response to COID 19 needs to be put in the context of many other issues.” &nbsp; South Africa has extended its 21-day lockdown for a further two weeks until the end of April.

SA “bending the curve” in the fight against COVID-19 – WHO

By Chris Bishop



A million jobs lost and a contraction of GDP of between 8 and 10 per cent this year. This was the bleak picture of the South African economy painted by the business-driven action group in the front line of the battle against COVID-19.



South Africa’s economy has been struggling for the best part of a decade against problems compounded by the downgrade to junk by Moody’s on the first day of the country’s lockdown on March 28. It has made the country’s goal of around 5 per cent GDP growth – the figure needed to keep up with new employees coming into the job market – a mere pipe dream.



“Our view is there is going to be a very significant 8 to 10 per cent contraction in the economy for 2020 depending on the length and extent of the lockdown and also the lockdown in our trading partners. Capital flow is going to be restricted over the year…Shifts in commodity prices are also going to fuel the number of people going into the ranks of the unemployed. A million people added to the unemployment numbers is what we expect and we are looking at the appropriate safety nets that business can provide,” says banker Martin Kingston of Business for SA COVID-19 a group made up of Business Unit South Africa and the Black Business Council.



Business for SA said it was unclear how long the lockdown in South Africa may last or how it could be relaxed, but was in discussions &nbsp;about how money could be used to limit the damage.



“We are in discussions with banks about injecting liquidity into the system. Economic recovery, 2021 and beyond we are going to need more liquidity. We are also in discussions with the Reserve Bank about how to manage risk in the future,” says Kingston.



Stavros Nicolaou, who is heading up the health section for Business for SA, said the country would know in the next two weeks more about how serious the outbreak is going to be. It is equipped to carry out 25,000 tests- a-day. &nbsp;



“Ï think the next two weeks will give us a good measure of how the patterns are emerging,” says Nicolaou during the online briefing. He said 10,000 volunteers were working with the nationwide screening process.



Business for SA was also procuring 1.2 million gloves and six million surgical masks as well as looking to ease the import of much needed ventilators to help fight the pandemic. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Chris Bishop

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Chris Bishop

How Africa can corner a tenth of the world battery metals market – if being brave favours Fortune!

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Comment :Zimbabwe at 40 subdued and disappointed

The birth of Zimbabwe 40 years ago-the days when the Zimbabwe dollar cost $1.60 US Dollars

How the soccer hard man felled by COVID-19 will be remembered warmly in Africa

COVID-19: How Bill and Melinda Gates rode to the rescue for Africa after Trump pulled back the cash.

SA “bending the curve” in the fight against COVID-19 – WHO

COVID-19: SA economy to shed a million jobs and shrink by up to 10 per cent.

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