My colleague Wale sees me return to the office from the site late one afternoon and then says to everyone, &#8220;Hey, Paul is back; let&#8217;s ask him what he thinks on our discussions this morning&#8221;.



Wale is quite witty, funny and knowledgeable about things; so immediately, my attention is spiked.



&nbsp;&#8220;If you were paid N1.5 million per month, would you be able to save up to N1 million every month?&#8221; he asks.



The response that comes out of my mouth is: &#8220;Why not N1.2 million&#8221;?



The entire room goes silent as everyone seems to expect me to answer differently



&#8220;Why do you have to spend as much as N500,000 every month on yourself? In my mind, I wondered, &#8220;One needs a plan to scale-up their financial flexibility,&#8221; I add.



I could never &nbsp;fathom why mostly young, unmarried guys and a few newly-weds, saw the need to spend N500,000 a month on living expenses, if they earned up to N1.5 million (roughly $3,947) monthly (which, by the way, is above the average income).



Well, long story short, a lot of my colleagues disagreed me, saying higher earnings mean more expenses. This sounds logical. However, do we really spend more on our needs, or on our wants? And do we find that we tend to spend more only when we have disposable cash, but spend less and still get by just fine when we’re seemingly out of disposable cash?



One fundamental factor that keeps the middleclass in the middle class is the continuous lack of self-discipline to live within their means, work with a budget, and consistently invest in well-designed schemes to scale up their financial flexibility.



I concur that saving substantially with a salary within the range of N100,000 &#8211; N200,000 ,which is the average income of Nigeria’s younger middleclass, might be tough, but not impossible. I believe that whether you earn N100,000 or N1 million monthly, with the desire to save, you will. Married or single, it all comes down to having a plan and sticking to it.



If you make irresponsible financial decisions, you will pay sooner than later. If you keep being overly generous,(when you really can&#8217;t afford it, one day, you&#8217;ll become broke, and those same people you were &#8220;helping&#8221; will accuse you of spending foolishly. Some of them might even abandon or mock you.



In personal finance, don’t cut your coat according to your size but according to your cloth. Societal pressures shouldn’t determine your spending habit. Understand that there&#8217;s nothing wrong if you&#8217;re the only one among your friends who uses an Android phone. You could also be the only one among them who can afford to make a N1 million in emergency spending. Appearances can be deceiving, and mostly are. You don&#8217;t have to look rich when you know you aren&#8217;t. There’s no wisdom in that. Create a realistic plan and work your way to real financial flexibility. And even if you make mistakes, don’t be too discouraged to try again. Put in the hard work to get it right; and you will.



Chukwubuikem Paul Anunaso, is a civil/structural engineer and writer in Lagos, Nigeria.

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OPINION: “You don’t have to look rich when you know you aren’t”  Why Nigerians should save.

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The green economy & how it could help the global economy bounce back from COVID-19

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Is SA’s mining industry too deep in the COVID-19 crisis?

How COVID-19 is rewriting how your kids will go to university across Africa

Tourism during COVID-19: An industry shift

COVID-19: How will SA’s travel & tourism industry regain its top spot?

By Miyelani Mkhabela



Covid19 an unprecedented humanitarian challenge&nbsp;for all countries. Weeks of South Africa national lockdown have given time to make a concerted effort to flatten the pandemic’s curve. South African Coronavirus pandemic spread was at 42 % and it was controlled to 4% three weeks in lockdown, which portrayed good decision making and leadership.



South African health conditions are ranked lower at&nbsp;(118th), based on World Economic Forum Global competitiveness index 2019, which is not conducive to tackling the Coronavirus pandemic. Our infrastructure and systems are not at a state to manage the complexities, we are being saved through sustainable decision making from public sector leadership at the moment.



We have observed leaders weighing up the value of life versus the value of a functional economy and trying to strike the right balance between the two, in order to ultimately protect the population from the virus, while at the same time ensuring that the economy does not suffer irreversible harm. This requires critical and analytical thinking, with high mindfulness and reflections about the life’s that can be lost overnight, when good decisions are not taken by both public and private sector leaders.



The benefits will be measured in infections avoided and in lives saved. The future incomes of those spared to continue productive working lives will be measured as part of the economic benefits realised.



Now that the attention is shifting to reopening the economy, while containing the virus, &nbsp;the challenge arises from multiple stakeholders as they are thinking for their businesses not to be wiped out from the market , while employees also want to go to work to save their jobs. South African socioeconomic imbalances are the main drivers on the context of our thinking and how we would like to do things, based on history of the country. Macroeconomic stability are lower in South Africa and our corporates and small businesses are not resilient to manage the vulnerabilities and uncertainties of Covid19.



Statistics South Africa reported that, five in six businesses surveyed experienced a drop in turnover over the reference period. 85,4% of businesses surveyed reported turnover below the normal range. Respondents in the construction, real estate and other business services, and transport industries were the most affected by lower than expected turnover.



The report further shows that 42,2% of respondents indicated that they are not confident that they have the financial resources to continue operating through the COVID-19 outbreak. When asked how long business can continue without turnover, 54,0% of respondents indicated that can survive without turnover between 1 to 3 months. The industries reporting the highest percentages of temporary closure or paused trading activity were construction, manufacturing, trade and mining. An Industrial risk mitigation is needed for winter.



 South African corporates never followed a process in reopening the economy and this will pose more macroeconomic stability challenges in the future, key industries such as Mining; Manufacturing and agriculture and it’s agroprocessing needed to quarantine workers for fourteen days; make them work for 30 days and release them for a month holiday, that will include a 14 days quarantine before going back to work as a rotating system. The industrial business continuity management approach enables the economy to keep producing while managing the complexity of Covid19 impact not to take much from the $94 billion from our top ten export products and saving the life’s of people’s or worker’s at all.



The country might be unable to maintain price stability because of future anticipated imports with high import costs that can affect the general price increases.



Business chambers are expect to provide corporates guidance to mitigate risk by introducing an industrial business continuity management reliable to avoid closing production again in between May and July 2020, by chance Coronavirus hit the nation as predicted.



Studies have shown that 40 percent of businesses struck by a serious disaster never resume operations, says Doughty. What&#8217;s more, he adds, over&nbsp;25 percent of those that do manage to reopen their doors again are so weakened that they close down permanently within three years.



Looking ahead, four considerations may shape a suitable BCM approach for South Africa



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>South African corporates mainly in Mining, Industrial Development &amp; Manufacturing and agriculture must adopt an Industrial business continuity management (BCM) approach of 14 days quarantined, 30 days work and 30 days off, rotational.</li><li>The selected industries must have a camp system to ensure no externals to the BCM teams. &nbsp;</li><li>The industrial BCM approach is a system to mitigate risks and also planning ahead should the country decides to get back to level 5 lockdown again.</li><li>Advance training is needed to South African workforce as 2020 can be a full virtual work system’s.</li></ul>



Strategy is, of course, not the only factor determining a company’s success or failure. The competence of its managerial leadership is significant as well.



Miyelani Mkhabela is an Executive Director of Antswisa Transaction Advisory Services.

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COVID19: How we can manage business to save lives and the economy – opinion.

By Chris Bishop



This week, on May 5 at 1400 CAT to be precise, CNBC Africa will be stepping into a new era by hosting its first ever virtual panel discussion that will not only be beamed live to 16 million households across Africa, but also will be on zoom.



It will be called Business Tomorrow and will focus on the revival of business in Africa whenever the COVID-19 pandemic lifts and allows commerce to breathe. Predictions are grim – more than a million jobs are expected to be lost and tens of thousands of companies are likely to go to the wall.



So, when we discussed in the newsroom this week the first topic for the first discussion it a no brainer – small business. These foot soldiers of the economy are likely to bear the brunt of the hard times – many were struggling long before the pandemic and the downgrade to junk status by the rating agencies.



Into this discussion will be throwing one word that is my pet topic – industrialization. I think this is a good way to create wealth on the way out of a desperate spot by making goods and parts and pieces that the world needs and can be exported to earn hard currency.



Now politicians throw the word industrialization around all the time, after all, it sounds good in speeches – I often wonder whether policy is as good.



A new generation of industrialists is scarce, but more scarce is the investment and backing from the banks to make it happen and maybe also the will among entrepreneurs to get their hands dirty.



I have been interviewing and studying entrepreneurs in Africa for more than a quarter of a century and I have often wondered whether is the lack of will on the side of many entrepreneurs to get down into the grimy world of industry. After all, it is not as sexy as IT, or the digital world, and it is less likely to get you into the glossy magazines on TV chat shows.



But it is rewarding and long term and people will always need fashioned metal until the day you can email a machine to a factory or 3D print it.



A distant part of my family is a testament to this and has been fashioning metal profitably for the nearly 200 years.



My great-great-great grandfather Stephen Grainger started out, with virtually nothing, in his poor back yard in a place called Dudley in the Black Country in the English midlands – so called because, even when I was a child, most of the buildings were blackened with industrial smoke. It was a hive of steam, tapping and welding and out of the Black Country came the world’s machines, tools, grinders, smelters, guns, cars and motorcycles



Stephen Grainger had little education, but a burning desire to make it as an industrialist and started out by dragooning his family into swinging hammers all day to make nails in the back yard. The family worked hard to build the wealth down the generations. My great-grandfather William worked as a striker – the skilled man who swings the sledgehammer for the blacksmith – in the Grainger factory.



All along the profits were invested to build small factories – one of which is working away as I write this in the Black Country nearly 200 years after the family made its first nail.



I went to see the family factory about 25 years ago and my relatives showed me proudly the many boxes full of little metal clips for shop shelves everywhere from Hong Kong to Sydney. It lacks glory, maybe, the family is never likely to make the cover of a glossy magazine, but they’re always likely to make money. The industrial enterprise has fed thousands of people in the last two centuries. Maybe many entrepreneurs and families in Africa can turn the same humble beginnings into a solid industrial base that is probably needed more now than ever.

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Opinion : Could Industrialists lead the way up and out of COVID-19?

By Miyelani Mkhabela



The COVID-19 crisis is disrupting supply and demand at the same time, with severe financial consequences. To not only survive the crisis but also rebound swiftly, companies must protect their liquidity position and focus on their core competencies and businesses



Leaders can better prepare for the next shock by observing lessons emerging from the current crisis. Shutting down was hard, but opening up is going to be harder. Your workers are always your most valuable asset and it’s not the best times to lose them during the crisis, as rebuilding your operations is going to be even more difficult, you want to maintain your ability to rehire your best workers when the world is open for business again.



&nbsp;Statistics South Africa reported that Four in ten businesses feel that they cannot continue to operate: When asked about financial resources, 42,2% of respondents indicated that they are not confident that they have the financial resources to continue operating through the COVID-19 outbreak and 54,0% of respondents indicated that they can survive without turnover between one to three months. The doors of Tourism &amp; Hospitality; Sports; education, Retail; Entertainment are closed while manufacturing; Mining; Cargo and Logistics will also suffer in 2020.Small businesses based on their investments cannot manage the complexity of Covid19; large corporates are also struggling, yet risk can be minimized.



To set the scene, large numbers of small businesses have shut down and laid off huge numbers of workers; most are extremely cash strapped. The majority think they will be able to reopen by the end of 2020, but others are less certain. Small businesses disagree, a lot, about how long the crisis will last. Small businesses needs business continuity management, adaptation to technology and talent retention



&nbsp;It will be years before we fully comprehend the economic impact of the coronavirus, but one thing is painfully clear right now: Small businesses across South Africa and the rest of Africa markets are facing an existential threat. It will get a lot worse before it gets better for the African continent.



Here are a few tips for survival:



1. Carefully the prospective impacts of government plans to help small and medium enterprises (SME).



2. Help the business by deciding how to work with customers.



3. Regularly reassess credit worthiness: companies should continuously monitor the financial health of all but the safest customers.



4. Strictly monitor supply inventory through support functions to assess the cost of supplies and support functions that have access to a digital marketplace.



5. Recommendations to business on how to adjust the product offering. Companies should aim to deliver fast-selling products to priority customers for as long as possible, but they should also assess their product offering.



6.&nbsp; Investment and credit will be attractive



7. Adoption of an active operations management systems



8.&nbsp; Figure out how the needs of your customers needs have changed.



9. Don’t rush your decisions, but do make plans.



Finally, this is a time to be more client centred. Small businesses are highly required to meet customer expectations or satisfactory levels, while operating virtually has many disadvantages and misunderstandings, however, client’s service delivery standards still needs to be achieved. Generosity during a crisis can make a relationship far stronger. Small businesses are facing unprecedented struggles, and banks and policymakers must step up to help SME&#8217;s.



Miyelani Mkhabela is an Executive Director of Antswisa Transaction Advisory Services.

Nine ways you can try to save your small business post COVID-19.

&nbsp;By Peter Burdin



Fake news and scams have risen dramatically since the outbreak of the Coronavirus. As the number of Coronavirus deaths increases every day around the world – so has the number of conspiracy theorists and hoaxers seeking to use social media to exploit or profit from this terrible crisis.



Populations desperate for news and potential vaccines have clicked their way into a minefield of lies, false information and deliberately malicious posts designed to undermine society’s best efforts for whatever reason.



This deepening addiction to “hearsay” or “gists”, as Nigerians would say, has been mounting rapidly in Africa in recent years as the power of social media grows. And these weeks of lock down and national emergencies have created an eager audience keen to share the latest rumours.



In many ways we’re facing a fake news pandemic which festers alongside the global health pandemic and feeds off it.&nbsp; And it’s also costing thousands of lives.



Now so much fake news activity has switched onto WhatsApp it’s increasingly easy to share and difficult to track or pin down the source of this misinformation. To make matters worse, it is often deliberately undermining government actions for political gain, or for profit by spreading fear and trashing commercial rivals.



According to Kroll’s annual fraud report some 84% of businesses feel threatened by fake news about their products. It’s particularly worrying for African businesses where the practice of targeted misinformation designed to harm a company’s reputation has been more acutely weaponised than on any other continent.



In South Africa, fake news went viral that a company’s covid-19 testing swabs were infected and were being used to spread the virus. That was quickly debunked by the Eastern Cape Health Department but how much damage had already been done to that company’s reputation. And how many people will believe it and refuse to be tested in the future?



There are also widely-shared posts claiming that African people are being used as guinea pigs to test a new Coronavirus vaccine. Such claims are false – there is no vaccine for Covid-19 and only a few tests are taking place, and none of them in Africa.



The danger is sometimes people want to believe this kind of misinformation and it goes viral – and without proper counter measures the damage is lasting. Bad reputations are easy to get but hard to shake off – and in the corporate world that can be the difference between prospering and bankruptcy.



The global pandemic has presented opportunities for criminals. A group of scammers in Nigeria have tried to profit from the desperate shortage of protective face-masks. They’ve been exposed for trying to sell hundreds of thousands of them online – the only problem is they don’t actually have any masks, they only want to take your money and run. Apparently people have lost millions already to these online tricksters.



Corporate entities across the world are familiar with the impact of fake news, with many firms being damaged by misinformation.&nbsp; A prominent case in Nigeria was an attempt to hit the Nigerian Immigration Service and Contec Global, a multi-sector technology and sustainability firm which assists the Nigerian government to deliver its resident permits and process fees. Fake News was spread that the fees for the permits were to be increased without approval, almost certainly generated by individuals or companies who felt they would be disadvantaged by any increase.



Facebook has attempted to tackle such attacks by going local in their fact checking efforts. Their third party fact-checking program in partnership with Africa Check, an independent fact-checking organisation has expanded into Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa in Nigeria, Afrikaans, isiZulu, Setswana, Sotho, Northern Sotho and Southern Ndebele in South Africa, Swahili in Kenya and Wolof in Senegal. It is technology firms like Contec Global and Facebook that are well placed to provide successful solutions for turning the tide against this flood of fake news.



At this time of this global pandemic, it’s understandable that people are desperate for news, however, it’s important that people learn to distinguish between what is true and what is an attempt to deceive, frighten or profit from their anguish. Frankly it’s not always easy to tell the difference.



We need more honest journalism in Africa that audiences can trust to help create a healthier media environment and provide concrete tools to identify fakery and demand greater transparency.



We can all start by remembering the proverb: “If it sounds too good to be true – it probably is.” &nbsp;



Peter Burdin, is a former BBC Africa Bureau Chief

Clarification on COVID-19 “hotspots” as SA moves to level 3 lockdown

COVID-19: Opinion – Fear the fake news that spreads like wildfire and hurts us all

By Moky Makura



&nbsp;You may have seen them; violent videos of black people being punched, kicked, trodden on and spat at. These images are being passed around on social media platforms on a phone near you.



The Nigerians, Egyptians, Malians, Ugandans, Kenyans and Congolese in Guangzhou, the manufacturing centre of China, are being discriminated against because of fears they might be spreading the Coronavirus. They are being thrown out of hotels and apartments, forced to undergo mandatory testing and compulsory quarantine, refused entry in to shops and left on the streets to fend for themselves – all in the name of Covid-19 containment policies aimed specifically at Africans.



Rightfully, these official acts of blatant discrimination are being highlighted and challenged in the greatest public court of all – Twitter and Facebook. Eventually, they were addressed by African ambassadors in Beijing who came together to send an official complaint to China’s foreign minister. Their protest should carry weight &#8211; there 100, 000 or so Chinese owned companies operating in Africa and an estimated 1 million Chinese people there. The incidents could also impact China’s soft power tactics in Africa, which has led to it becoming the continent’s most important economic and trading partner.



Although the connections between China and Africa run deep, covid-19 has unearthed old, persistent, harmful storylines about Africans and validated the negative narratives. These storylines continue to be a stark reminder that what we read, hear and see, shape our thinking and behaviour.&nbsp; Narrative matters and lingers.



Scan stories and commentary about Africa on social media and in global and African media outlets &#8211; it won’t take you long to see the prevailing sentiment is negative. The University of Southern California’s Media Impact Project analysed 700,000 hours of US entertainment and news and 1.6 million tweets in 2018.It confirmed that when references to Africa were not neutral, they were more likely to be negative.



In his book Factfulness, the Swedish academic and statistician Hans Rosling, wrote about the danger of selective media reporting which prioritizes the negative and often extreme sides of any story. Sadly, ‘if it bleeds it leads’ is still a principle in some newsrooms, especially during this pandemic.



We have allowed these negative and harmful storylines to define us as Africans – the belief that we are somehow ‘less than’ is not just an external message it is also permeating the minds and hearts of African youth.



The horrific stories of African migration, conflict, insecurity, poor governance, poverty and disease are true, but they are not all we are.



The truth is that most Africans are not on migrant boats to Europe. According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) the top three countries by origin of asylum seekers to the EU since 2014 are Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.



Most Africans live under elected governments in relative peace, with only six out of 54 countries &#8211; Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan &#8211; considered hot spots of armed conflict.



And with the world’s help, Africa has made significant progress bringing poverty rates down; two out of three Africans live above the global poverty line. According to 2011 AfDB report, the continent has the fastest growing middleclass, expected to reach 42% of the population by 2060.



But these are just facts, data points; despite their importance they get lost in the narrative.&nbsp; As Rosling’s book and global studies reminds us, deeply held beliefs are not based on facts and data doesn’t matter when it comes to how people see the world.



And that’s why the stories we tell and those that are told about us have a cost. They inform the narrative, the resulting behaviour and the power dynamics. And right now, no one knows or feels the impact of this more viscerally than the Africans in Guangzhou.



The African proverb which speaks most directly to the power dynamic of narrative (for there is an African proverb for every situation) is this one: until lions learn to write hunters will tell their stories for them.



It’s time for us to shift the narrative and start writing our own story about this progressive and dynamic continent. We should be drawing attention to our African innovations, our history, culture, music, fashion, design, literature, art and film.



African storytellers should not forget that Africa brought the world coffee, Nelson Mandela, Afrobeats, Nollywood and Jollof Rice. We gave the world the last remaining wonder of the ancient world; the Pyramids of Giza, we are home to one of the world’s first universities, in Timbuktu, Mali. We are the largest supplier to the world of cocoa, platinum for cars, cobalt for batteries, manganese for steel and of course Gold.



Our musical pioneers from Fela Kuti, Youssou N&#8217;Dour, Salif Keita to&nbsp; Burna Boy, Cassper Nyovest, Sauti Sol and WhizKid; our writers; Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and our entertainers Trevor Noah, Lupita Nyongo, Idris Elba are just some of the icons that have helped redefine and shift the narrative about who we are.



What we need is for more lions to roar! Let’s shift that costly and harmful narrative about Africa &#8211; one story at a time, if not for us, for our brothers and sisters in Guangzhou.



Moky Makura is the Executive Director of Africa No Filter working to shift African narratives by crowding in new, progressive stories about the continent.

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Let the lions roar and change the way the world sees Africa

Flattening the COVID-19 Curve: How multilateralism & PPPs can tackle pandemics

Flattening the COVID-19 Curve: How multilateralism & PPPs can tackle pandemics, lift economies

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Rwanda’s agriculture sector

The economic impact of COVID-19 on trade in East Africa

How Rwanda is investing in sports as a viable revenue stream

Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development, Sustainable Debt: Finding The Right Balance

Debates

OPINION: “You don’t have to look rich when you know you aren’t” Why Nigerians should save.

The green economy & how it could help the global economy bounce back from COVID-19

Is SA’s mining industry too deep in the COVID-19 crisis?

How COVID-19 is rewriting how your kids will go to university across Africa

Tourism during COVID-19: An industry shift

COVID-19: How will SA’s travel & tourism industry regain its top spot?

COVID19: How we can manage business to save lives and the economy – opinion.

Opinion : Could Industrialists lead the way up and out of COVID-19?

Nine ways you can try to save your small business post COVID-19.

COVID-19: Opinion – Fear the fake news that spreads like wildfire and hurts us all

Let the lions roar and change the way the world sees Africa

Flattening the COVID-19 Curve: How multilateralism & PPPs can tackle pandemics, lift economies

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Rwanda’s agriculture sector

The economic impact of COVID-19 on trade in East Africa

How Rwanda is investing in sports as a viable revenue stream

Sustainable Development, Sustainable Debt: Finding The Right Balance

NCDMB: Highlights special of 9th Practical Nigeria Content Forum

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Debates

OPINION: “You don’t have to look rich when you know you aren’t” Why Nigerians should save.

The green economy & how it could help the global economy bounce back from COVID-19

Is SA’s mining industry too deep in the COVID-19 crisis?

How COVID-19 is rewriting how your kids will go to university across Africa

Tourism during COVID-19: An industry shift

COVID-19: How will SA’s travel & tourism industry regain its top spot?

COVID19: How we can manage business to save lives and the economy – opinion.

Opinion : Could Industrialists lead the way up and out of COVID-19?

Nine ways you can try to save your small business post COVID-19.

COVID-19: Opinion – Fear the fake news that spreads like wildfire and hurts us all

Let the lions roar and change the way the world sees Africa

Flattening the COVID-19 Curve: How multilateralism & PPPs can tackle pandemics, lift economies

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Rwanda’s agriculture sector

The economic impact of COVID-19 on trade in East Africa

How Rwanda is investing in sports as a viable revenue stream

Sustainable Development, Sustainable Debt: Finding The Right Balance

NCDMB: Highlights special of 9th Practical Nigeria Content Forum

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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