East Africa: Our Survival is Pegged On Our Thirst, Hunger, And Loose Lips

Source from:  The East African (Nairobi) 7 September 2008 09/09/2008

One of the most awaited business events in East Africa of recent years is the unveiling of the results of the PricewaterhouseCoopers-managed Most Respected Company awards. The winners at both national and East Africa-wide level love these awards. They take out advertisements to thank everyone who made them winning companies, splash the accolades on giant billboards, and talk about it until they are knocked off the pedestal at the next round of awards. While the awards are intended as a celebration of corporate glory, they actually say something deeper about East African countries, our societies, and our future. And it's not all good news. Generally, three types of companies have dominated the awards: The beer companies, airlines (Kenya Airways), and lately the mobile phone companies -- Safaricom in Kenya, MTN in Uganda, and Vodacom in Tanzania. With Burundi and Rwanda joining the East African Community, MTN Rwanda will definitely be up there as Rwanda's top performer. If the Most Respected Companies awards had been there 15 years ago, they would have been dominated by fuel companies (the Shells and Totals of this world), and tobacco firms (BAT). The beer companies would also have been there, though. You can never separate people from their bottles. The fact that these are the companies that are not only most respected, but pay the most taxes to the Treasury tells us volumes. First, they are built around our appetites (for booze, cigarettes); to yak and gossip endlessly (what Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph once controversially called "peculiar talking habits" which has allowed him to turn the company into the most profitable in East African corporate history); and to travel (fuel, airlines). NONE OF THE GREAT EAST AFRICAN companies of today manufactures anything in the traditional sense of the word. The phone companies use someone else's technology; the beer and cola companies use a standard formula to make their drinks and don't change a thing; the oil companies mostly sell fuel they aren't refining in East Africa. The success of these companies depends on who of them is best at managing costs, marketing, and distributing products. One of the few companies in the respected leader board that generates its raw materials, processes them, and so on, and thus can lay claim to being a manufacturer, is Bidco. It was not always this way. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were serious big manufacturers all over East Africa. They fell by the wayside as global trade grew and we could import cheaper products that were also of higher quality than the locally made stuff. EAST AFRICA HAS THEREFORE become a region where most of our taxes, the best jobs and, therefore, survival don't depend on our creativity and industry, but on our thirst, hunger, and loose lips. This is definitely not the way we shall survive in the years to come. In other parts of the world, companies contributed to the future by building things that outlived them. Kodak saw its lucrative film business killed by digital technology, but it had built some excellent research laboratories that have had impact way beyond its core business. Kellogg's, the chaps who bring us our breakfast cereal, have a fairly good university. Western and Japanese companies have left footprints greater than them. With the advances in technology, experts are predicting that mobile phone companies as we know them today will be obsolete in less than 25 years. If MTN is no more, at least doctors from an MTN-sponsored centre for waterborne diseases could still be saving thousands of lives. The time to build is now, when talks still pays. And our societies and governments need to ask themselves whether we have an economic future, if all we are doing is waiting to tax chaps who are trading rumours over the cellphone, and drinking their sorrows away because they had a bad day at the office. Enditem