(CNN) - With more than 1.2 billion people, Africa is the second most populous continent in the world. And with a growing middle class, it has become a target for an increasing number of companies and multinationals looking to grow their profits.

The potential payoff for brands is significant, with household spending across Africa worth an estimated $2.5 trillion by 2030.

But marketing products to this vast consumer base is tricky, and the rapid growth of mobile phone adoption across the continent means international advertising giants like Ogilvy have had to develop new strategies.

CNN's Cyril Vanier spoke with Ogilvy South Africa's Group CEO, Enver Groenewald, about the agency's role on the continent, and how and where advertising dollars will be seen in the future.

The following interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

Cyril Vanier: When it started in Africa, the company played a significant role in boosting South Africa's economy and South African companies. Can you talk to us about that?

Enver Groenewald: The 1990s was a period in which we established a quite significant growth. After the 1994 elections there was a lot of pessimism and negativity towards democracy coming to the fore in South Africa, particularly. And off the back of that, I think that Ogilvy really introduced a type of advertising genre that spoke to social justice, that spoke to social unity, that spoke to really celebrating the best of a democratic South Africa.

CV: Can you give us examples of something that would have been important in terms of Ogilvy's work specific to South Africa's history?

EG: One of the most seminal examples is the work done for VW ... where we told the story of management and employees coming together at a time in which there were great industrial relations tensions. At the time, that was unheard of because trade unions were in opposition to business owners and management. This piece of work for VW was surprising in telling the story of how for the success, not only of the company, but the workers in that company and the communities that depended on the success of that company, could come together.

The other was for Castle, which still remains one of the most successful beer brands in South Africa, and really positioned itself on the notion of social cohesion and the coming together of groups that up until then had been separated by Apartheid. It celebrated the very best of what I think both the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela promoted: this idea of a rainbow nation. That we were a country made up of very different colors, but put together, it made for a beautiful sight.

CV: Can you talk about the talent in your sector in South Africa and more widely on the African continent. How does that compare to other regions?

EG: We have an amazing wealth of talent across our continent. I don't think that talent in Africa, particularly from an advertising industry perspective, has to stand back for any other region. Some people may have that perspective that if the advertising doesn't come from a North American perspective or Western Europe perspective, it's not that great because those territories and regions are the benchmark. I reject that completely. When you look at advertising, communication, creativity through the lens of authenticity, then that levels the playing field.

I'm talking about African creative talent not trying to emulate any other region but remaining authentic and true to what is intimately African. And I just want to qualify what I mean when I say typically Africa, because Africa is not one country. If you're a creative in Lagos versus a creative in Accra or a creative in Cape Town, you've got very different perspectives and very different definitions of authenticity.

CV: What does it mean for Ogilvy to be a more than 50% Black-owned company?

EG: It is probably one of the most important things that characterizes Ogilvy in the context, not only of the advertising industry in South Africa, but in the context of South Africa as a country and in terms of redressing the imbalances of the past. Being 51% Black-owned is vital in terms of making sure that we are contributing to economic transformation where it's needed most.

CV: What do you want Ogilvy to accomplish in the next five to 10 years?

EG: I want Ogilvy to be a force for social change in South Africa. I go back to the idea of us not seeing brands and the power of brands only through the lens of the transactional relationship between the consumer and the product. I think brands can play an eminently powerful role in creating social cohesion and social justice. And that's not only in South Africa -- that's globally.

If we look at what we call purpose-led marketing and purpose-led brands, for Ogilvy that has to be the space that we absolutely own and occupy and take a leadership position in because that is absolutely the right thing to do.

This content was originally published on edition.cnn.com

A YEAR ago, I wrote about the Argentine Presidency of the G20.  At that time, I indicated that little had been said about Africa by the Argentine hosts, which was unfortunate.

Of course looking back, the entire Argentine presidency was somewhat unfortunate, with the least progress made at any summit since the G20 began in 2008.

This was due to a confluence of factors including Argentina’s recession, a frontal attack on globalism and the specter of spats among world leaders.  The 2018 G20 communique has exactly two mentions of Africa – and both were referencing initiatives – not the continent itself.

Now we pivot to the Japanese G20 Presidency, where Africa has returned prominently to the agenda. In part, this is because of Japan’s long and robust development and trade linkages with Africa.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency alone invests $3.4 billion in Africa annually while the Tokyo International Conference of African Development has, for the past 20 years, become a seminal event highlighting Japan’s development objectives in Africa.

It is also in part a response to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and other global forces. Just a week after the 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing resulted in $60 billion of new financing announced from China, the European Union announced a new Africa-EU Alliance with even more billions in promised investment.

The Asia-Africa Growth Corridor announced by Japan and India in May 2017 has not shown much traction, hence Japan’s presidency of the G20 provides a unique opportunity to position Japan vis-à-vis the rest of the world and Africa.

Under the Japanese presidency, the focus on Africa will include some traditionally important Japanese priorities such as agriculture, health and nutrition, as well as governance, debt and industrial development. Importantly, Japan has indicated that the G20 Compact with Africa (CwA) will remain a priority.

The Compact is an initiative of the German G20 presidency, aimed at enhancing investment in Africa. CwA countries comprise Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia, while other partners are the G20 countries themselves, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.

The CwA is governed through the G20 Africa Advisory Group (AAG), co-chaired by Germany and South Africa.  The African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) supports the CwA through peer learning, investment promotion, analysis and peer review.

The CWA was welcomed in 2017, in part because big challenges remain in Africa that will require private sector participation. While there have been periods of strong growth, most African countries have not transformed their economies, and doing so is complex and difficult.
Some countries have shown great strides in certain sectors or around a few policy areas, but not in broad economic transformation, which will require private financing, particularly for infrastructure.

While it is evident that infrastructure investment is needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Africa’s infrastructure development since 2010 has been uneven. What private investment does exist is heavily concentrated in sectors such as energy, on a limited number of projects, and largely in just a few countries such as Morocco and South Africa.

Japanese support to the CwA is positive as it will maintain momentum and policy coherence and also highlight the importance of “quality infrastructure”.  This is not new, as the G7 Ise-Shima Summit in 2016 had a strong focus on the same topic and led to the “Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure” whereby Japan pushes an all of government approach for infrastructure investment – particularly beyond Asia.

At that time Japan committed USD 200 billion for infrastructure projects over five years.  While the definition of quality infrastructure can be debated, it centers on economic efficiency and inclusiveness.

Although infrastructure development should have low life-cycle costs, it should also align with socioeconomic development and the development strategies of the recipient country.
Ultimately, infrastructure that does not meet minimum standards of economic efficiency, safety and long-term sustainability will likely impose significant and largely unforeseen costs.

Some CwA stakeholders are embracing quality infrastructure.

For example, international organizations such as the World Bank are shifting to life-cycle cost procurement and of course Japan is leading the global community in quality infrastructure protocols and approaches.

At the same time, some members of the G20 have shown little active interest in making investments in infrastructure – particularly in Africa – cost effective and long lasting through globally recognized guidelines.

Japan’s active support for the G20 Compact with Africa, coupled with its commitment to quality infrastructure, provide a unique opportunity to strengthen a G20 initiative that can have even greater impacts than initially envisaged. Addressing Africa’s infrastructure gap is a prerequisite for its economic transformation.

Addressing Africa’s infrastructure gap with quality infrastructure is a prerequisite for more rapid, more inclusive, and more effective economic transformation. As Japan rolls out the red carpet for nine Ministerial Meetings and the G20 Summit in Osaka next month, it can also continue to make quality infrastructure a global priority – particularly for Africa.

This blog was first published by ACET as part of its African Transformation Map series, which is co-curated with the World Economic Forum. It was republished by the Business Finder newspaper and The Finder Online.

This content was originally published on acetforafrica.org

Today, a new activity takes us to Morocco, where YC-backed company Chari just raised a $5 million seed round at a valuation of $70million.

Founded by Sophia Alj and Ismael Belkhayat last year, Chari took part in the recent Y Combinator’s Summer batch that concluded two months ago.

The U.S seed-stage accelerator invested in this seed round, along with Plug and Play, Village Capital/MetLife Foundation, Orange Ventures, Airbnb executives, SPE Capital, Pincus Capital Management, The Chandaria family, Michael Lahyani and the management company of an American Ivy League university.

Rocket Internet, Global Founders Capital and P1 Ventures co-led the round, which is the largest of its kind in Morocco at the moment.

Chari wants to digitize informal retail stores in Morocco and provide credit to them. Belkhayat, ex-strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group, and Alj, an ex-strategy consultant from McKinsey, first got alerted to the shifts in Africa’s e-commerce landscape last year. On a mandatory trip from her former employer, Alj was tasked to understand how FMCGs operated in sub-Saharan Africa.

With Belkhayat tagging along, the couple discovered the pain points small shops faced in the region when they had to get their products. They never noticed such in Morocco before that, but it became evident after going back to the North African country that local mom and pop stores needed such service.

With companies like TradeDepot, MaxAB and Sokowatch bringing shops online in other African markets, the couple launched a similar platform in Morocco.

Chari operates as a mobile app allowing small retailers to order products from partnering FMCG multinationals and local manufacturers and get them in less than 24 hours.

In August, Chari received fresh competition when regional player MaxAB, who, after raising $55 million, moved into the country by acquiring another YC-backed company, WaystoCap, for an undisclosed sum.

But in an identical but seemingly unrelated move, Chari acquired Karny.ma, a Khatabook-esque application, the same month. The platform provides credit and bookkeeping services to about 40,000 merchants and now serves as Chari’s strategy to provide payment facilities.

According to CEO Belkhayat, the acquisition has enabled Chari to stand head to head with MaxAB in the country as it provides more merchants for the company to tap into. He adds that the company’s “great relationship” with the suppliers also gives Chari an edge in the still-nascent industry.

“We have exclusivity on some digital trades. For instance, P&G works with Chari exclusively. So in case any other player wants to sell P&G products, either they have to go through Chari or they have to buy the goods from the supermarket,” he added.

Chari holds distribution contracts with these FMCG companies and takes a percentage (10-30%) from every sale it makes to shop owners. The YC-backed company then employs suitable payment terms: it is not required to pay suppliers in 40 days but collects instant payments from local shops. With an average of 15 days of stock, this system allows Chari to be cash-flow positive.

“The more we grow, the more we have funding. The main reason why we raised this money is mainly to be on the radar of investors and grow outside Morocco,” said the CEO alluding to the fact that Chari is on the cusp of achieving profitability.

Image Credits: Chari
 

Unlike MaxAB, Chari doesn’t own assets; rather, it rents them. Asked if Chari will adopt an inventory-heavy model later, the CEO said it’s unlikely. There are many warehouses available in Morocco to rent, and doing so allows the company to scale faster, he said.

It’s the same process in Tunisia, its second market after Morocco. And on the logistics end, a total of 100 people work as delivery agents in both regions.

The Moroccan startup currently transacts about $2.5 million monthly, said Belkhayat. It has signed up 15,000 merchants and is growing 20% month-on-month, but just half of those use the platform regularly. When Karny is taken into account, the total number of merchants using Chari’s products extends to over 50,000.

What lies ahead for Chari following this seed round is moving into Francophone Africa; Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal top that list. Also, the company will use the funding to get licences to offer other financial services like remittances, bill payments, mobile top-up and buy now, pay later in Tunisia and Morocco.

A subtle and impressive bit of this announcement is that Chari chose to disclose its valuation which private African startups rarely do. And for a startup from a North African country that isn’t Egypt to command such lofty valuation, it’s easy to see why investors are excited about its prospects regarding B2B e-commerce retail in the MENA region. Will it translate to more investments in Morocco and the Maghreb region? COO Alj hopes so.

“We are happy to lead the way of the nascent Moroccan startup ecosystem,” said COO Alj. We hope that this seed round will be one the first of a long series of noticeable seed funding in Moroccan startups.”

This content was originally published on techcrunch.com

Google plans to invest $1bn over five years to support digital transformation in Africa, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said today.

The investment “will support the continent’s digital transformation,” Pichai said in a pre-recorded video released by the company. Google will also invest $50m in black-led start-ups, support non-profit organisations, and wants to partner with African governments, policymakers and businesses, he said.

Out of Africa’s population of 1.3 billion, an estimated 780 million people do not have access to the Internet. US big tech companies like Google and Facebook are backing cabling projects designed to improve the quantity and speed of African Internet access. Facebook is backing the 37,000km 2Africa cable, which will connect the continent with Asia and Europe. The cable will be the longest subsea cable system in the world when completed, Facebook says.

Google’s investment will include the landing of the Equiano cable, which will enable faster internet speeds and lower connectivity costs. The cable will run from Portugal through Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa and St. Helena. The initial configuration of Equiano is scheduled to be ready in the second half of 2022, with extensions to be added later.

• According to research from Africa Practice and Genesis Analytics, which was commissioned by Google, Internet speeds in Nigeria are expected to increase five-fold, and to almost triple in South Africa and Namibia by 2025, as a result of Equiano.
• The research predicts that Internet prices will drop by between 16% and 21% in the three countries over the same period.
• Improved speeds and lower prices are expected to increase internet penetration by more than 7 percentage points in Nigeria and South Africa, and 9 percentage points in Namibia.
• Between 2022 and 2025, average year-on-year real economic growth is expected to increase by 0.57 points, 0.32 points and 0.56 points in Nigeria, South Africa and Namibia due to Equiano, the research says.
• It is predicted that the cable will indirectly create 1.6 million jobs in Nigeria, 180,000 in South Africa and 21,000 in Namibia during that time.

Local operators have given subsea cables a mixed response. Open Cables CEO Sunil Tagare says existing African cable investments could be damaged by the Google and Facebook projects. He accuses the US big tech companies of having a divide and rule strategy with regard to local players.

Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, says free services offered by Google and Facebook could threaten the survival of local operators.

• Adebayo argues that unlike local mobile network operators, Facebook and Google do not have tax obligations to the governments in countries where they operate.
• He also says Nigeria has sufficient capacity from undersea cables on its shore regions, and a more pressing problem is the strengthening of the country’s fibre optic backbone to extend broadband access inland.
• “If they should come with this service that is free end-to-end, it will be a significant threat to the survival of the mainstream operators,” Adebayo told Punch in 2020.
• Google did not take questions at the announcement of the investment today.

This content was originally published on theafricareport.com

International development funding to Africa has a “colonial” approach that favors Western organizations at the expense of local civil society organizations (CSOs), a new independent report funded by the Vodafone Foundation says.

Most donor resources go to intermediary non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in the northern hemisphere, the report says, describing the system as one that is designed to make African institutions forever dependent on international donors.

As an example, funding by American foundations to Africa increased 400% from $288.8 million in 2002 to almost $1.5 billion in 2012, but most of the money was directed to organizations headquartered outside Africa for direct delivery of services in the continent and as channels of funds to smaller partners in the continent. For informal and smaller organizations, this approach, fails to secure them resources needed to sustain their work.

“There is injustice going on here,” Kennedy Odede, founder and CEO of the Nairobi-based Shining Hope for Communities NGO, tells Quartz.

“There is no respect, there is no understanding on the ground. And the international donors must really understand and facilitate a level playing field,” he adds.

Calls to “decolonize” funding models for the continent are not unique to CSOs as there are similar efforts in health and tech.

To understand the barriers facing African civil society organizations, researchers conducted a literature review and interviewed 56 people from 37 CSOs in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, including executive directors, country representatives for international NGO, and program managers.

They have no say in the issues or solutions that get prioritized, even when they know better.

In Africa and elsewhere, CSOs including NGOs play a vital role in social development filling humanitarian and social gaps left by the government and private sector in key areas such as health, education, human rights, and the environment. They help advance human rights and develop policies and implement them. But the global flow of aid resources hinders the effectiveness and sustainability of local NGOs, as well as their ability to scale and build capacity.

Rose Maruru, co-founder and CEO of EPIC-Africa, an organization that works to increase the impact of philanthropy in Africa, says when international NGOs serve as intermediaries, African CSOs are reduced to “foot soldiers.”

“They have no say in the issues or solutions that get prioritized, even when they know better,” she tells Quartz. “It means that their work is donor driven, rather than community led.”

In this model, she adds, the relationship between African and international CSOs are rarely partnerships to co-create solutions but a contractor-sub-contractor relationships where the African CSOs are contracted to deliver specific outputs.
 

The Covid-19 pandemic increased the need to simplify funding systems and build resilient institutions, the report says. With international NGOs leaving, local NGOs had to continue working on the ground but without emergency resources as funding is typically meant for specific projects.

“Covid really was able to expose the inequality that existed,” Odede said.

The report found many international barriers that African CSOs face, including “racialized and colonial” funding and donor preferences and choices, complex donor systems, requirements, language and reporting mechanisms.

Donors, it says, “prefer funding INGOs because they are professionalized, urban, and have the required skills, credibility, and resources to deal with donors’ architecture.” International NGOs, “understand ‘donor jargon’, including accountability and the reporting requirements that are seen to ensure value for money and project effectiveness,” the report says

One of its recommendations to addressing these issues is for Western donors to change their grant-making processes, their guidelines and procedures, standards, and management systems to create a fair environment for local CSOs. Another is by creating a balance between core and project funding, whereby CSOs get enough funding and room to develop long-term strategies so they can invest in non-program critical issues or improve their own financial management systems. Lastly, the report recommends donors make conscious efforts to strengthen the capacities of CSOs in order to build the sustainability of the organizations.

Maruru says African CSOs should reduce their dependence on one funding source—be it local or foreign—to strengthen their financial sustainability.

“Growing their own assets, and leveraging local resources, could be a way to build the foundation for financial sustainability so that if all external funding were to dry up, a CSO would not have to shut down,” she says.

This content was originally published on qz.com

Another example of the power of the twin pillars is Singapore’s Jurong Industrial Estate, one of the premier industrial estates in the world. The late Dr. Goh Keng Swee, extraordinary “fixer” Minister of Singapore and one of the founding fathers of Singapore’s prosperity envisioned an industrial estate that would house manufacturers from overseas who would come to Singapore to manufacture and export back to their home markets and elsewhere. The vision led to the creation of Jurong Industrial Estate. In the beginning many referred to it derisively as “Goh’s folly.” However, he persisted on the course. According to Lee Kuan Yew, then First (Prime-Minister) Minister of Singapore, the late Dr. Goh used to do the foundation laying ceremony and later the ribbon cutting for every plant opening including the smallest plants with a only a handful of employees. The reason was that he wanted to get two opportunities for publicity with every new plant. 

In 1969, the estate had 300 factories and 27,000 workers: in 1970 1400 factories and 110,000 workers. Today, Jurong Industrial Estate is JTC Corporation, manager of one of the world’s premier integrated Industrial, live work and play environments encompassing tens of billions of dollars in industrial plant investments by more than 5,000 multinational companies from around the world and providing employment for more than 1 million Singaporean workers. “More than forty years after its establishment in 1968, JTC now manages 43 estates that cover 7,100 hectares of land area, providing 3.2 million square meters of ready-built space for 5,100 customers.” It was not an easy road but the founding leaders of Singapore, headed by Lee Kuan Yew and ably supported by Dr. Goh Keng Swee, believed in their idea and persisted in its implementation. “The vicissitudes of fortune which we experienced in our quest for a decent living in a none too hospitable environment bears resemblance to the biblical journeys of the children of Israel in their search for the Promised Land. And like Moses we had to explain, exhort, encourage, inform, educate, advice—and to denounce false prophets.”…Dr. Goh Keng Swee. The result of the ideas and persistence of their founding fathers is that Singapore, today, has the eleventh largest foreign reserves in the world; the third highest per capital income in the world in terms of purchasing power parity; and the world’s highest percentage of millionaires. Not bad for a country that is less than the size on many large African cities.

Contrast the ability of leaders in other successful areas of the world, as was explored in the South Korea and Singapore examples, to turn ideas into reality by their persistence and diligence with that of the futility of African leaders to bring their plans to reality. In the 1960s, among many other post-independence goals, African leaders in then-OAU (Organization of African Unity) a precursor of the current body, the African Union, committed to a uniform gauge for rail transport to connect countries by getting rid of the multi-gauge rail legacy of colonial rule and to vigorous trade activity between African countries. More than 50 years later, both ideas are still a goal. Many countries have made little progress economically or socially since independence. Power generation is an eyesore despite available resources. The problem is simple. Leaders are not concentrating on removing the problems in their realm and are not turning over every rock, trying every idea and seeking out talented personages to deploy on the burning socio-economic challenges facing their country and people. If African leaders concentrate on their problems and deploy all the resources they can muster towards their resolution, African countries will begin to shed the burden of poverty, lack and deprivation that has been their lot for too long.

The first step for most countries is to do a detailed analysis of their strengths and weaknesses using SWOT analysis. John Hoskins created the “Why” diagram and from it devised “Stepping Stones,” a policy manifesto that the late Margaret Thatcher used to shape social and economic policy during her time in office. It seems to me that African leaders need to find and empower talented principals to design country and region-specific “Why diagrams” which will graphically illustrate the challenges and opportunities. Beyond diagraming, it is also imperative that ideas that are working elsewhere should find their way into the solutions-matrix of African countries. For instance, in the 19th century, American entrepreneurs used bond financing to build U.S. railroads as well as canals that were the initial means of interstate transport in the eastern United States. International bond markets are also available to African countries and entrepreneurs today, and the market is much broader and deeper than what was available in the 19th century. There are financial engineering models for every project that is needed in African countries.

The second step for most countries is to recognize why their environments are not attracting capital even when opportunities clearly exist and to begin to do something about it. It is arguable that it is primarily due to the undesirable nature of the social-economic infrastructure and administrative malfeasance that characterize most African societies. Ridding the socio-economic environment of capital-repulsing characteristics is therefore an important step. It includes a predominantly dirty and unkempt exterior; overt rent-seeking activities; poor public sector service delivery, etc., to mention a few. The price of admission to the seat of economic prosperity requires countries to do all they can do, and the three items referenced are in the list of things that every African country can do on their own. 

African countries can make their environments more appealing to the eye. They can stop people from strong-arming their fellow citizens and visitors by overt rent seeking, and they can certainly clean up the administrative catastrophe attendant to dispensing of public service to citizens and foreigners. There is precedence for such action. When Singapore embarked on the road show to sell the city-state to Western businesses, they made a conscious decision to make esthetic improvements to their environment in order to make it appealing to foreign businesspersons who would take up the invitation to visit and do a reconnaissance of Singapore as a potential location for a manufacturing plant. Singapore also made a conscious choice to eradicate rent seeking from every facet of the socio-economic landscape. It is arguable that success in both endeavors contributed to the economic success of Singapore because there is overwhelming evidence in support of it. African countries can do likewise. This is not a journey that one hurries to finish. Rather, it is a journey that one hurries to start. As the Chinese adage states, “ The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” 

For African countries, destiny-changing action begins with the decision and resolve to make improvements in every facet of the social-economic environment in their respective countries and societies to make it hospitable, a place where people want to come to invest and to stay.

1  https://www.jtc.gov.sg/about-us/our-journey/Pages/default.aspx#pageheader

Biofresh is the future of African exporting economies writ large. The company has a well-defined identity and modus-operandi for its success and raison d’etre. It is also the sort of business operation that deserves full-on support from governments in their home base. One of the crucial global competitive advantages of the continent of Africa is arable land. This is how the Economist put it: “IF POTENTIAL were edible, Africa would have the best-fed people on earth. The vast continent has 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, most of it unfarmed. The land already under cultivation, mostly by small farmers, could produce far more.”¹

What Biofresh offers, African countries need. An exporter that purveys high quality good and posseses the ability to communicate like a first world company. A value-added exporter of dried fruits, which is also a way to preserve its products. Over abundance of any product can be dried—preserved--for export. An employer of both direct and contract labor, thereby creating a vast network of multi-plier effects on the local and national landscape. An earner of hard currency for the substance of the business and for the national balance of payments equation. Biofresh cannot on its own solve balance of payments issues for countries but 1000 Biofresh in manufacturing, processing and service sectors will.

Biofresh Ltd is a Fair Trade exporter of premium quality fresh and dried organic fruit and vegetables. Their produce is grown by small-scale farmers from across Uganda. It appears that what sets Biofresh apart from its competitors is its commitment to Fair Trade, quality produce, and customer service. Fair Trade credentials mean that they guarantee premium prices for farmers's crops. A much higher price than they would receive in the local market. This increased income gives contracted farmers the means to better care for their families and farm more effectively. In addition to offering higher prices for their produce, Biofresh provides annual amenities for our farmers’s communities. Over the years, Biofresh has provided farming communities with a vast range of assets such as water tanks, solar panels to power homes and mobile phones to help farmers communicate.



Mable Nsereko is a 25-year-old farmer who was contracted by Biofresh to produce organic Pineapple. Here’s what she has to say; “We started with 1.5 acres of pineapple fields, and now there are 2 acres. So far, I have bought three indigenous cows and ten piglets, and built a new permanent house. Four of my six children are attending school and have not missed a single term. They also met their health and clothing needs,” Another farming family, the Kaboggozas, have used their returns to renovate their house, meeting basic needs, paying children school fees and having some petty cash. In addition, they have also benefited from interest-free loans, farming inputs, and a 3,000-liter water tank provided by BioFresh to farmers. We constantly strive to improve the livelihoods of our farmers while providing our customers with the highest quality produce and first-class service. Our Organic Fresh Fruits include:-

In addition to fresh fruit, Biofresh also produces dried fruits.  Like fresh produce, Biofresh produces dried fruits with the same commitment to organic farming and fair trade for the farmers who make it all possible. Biofresh takes fresh fruits straight from the field. The fruits are dried under the highest hygiene and food safety standards. After which, it is then processed and packaged for export customers.

Like they do in fresh fruit, all of Biofresh’s dried fruits are 100% organic and completely natural. They are the perfect solution for those looking for a healthy snacking and recipes alternative.
Biofresh’s dried fruit range includes:

• Pineapple
• Apple Banana
• Papaya
• Jackfruit
• Mango

2.4 Concluding remarks

The magnitude of trade mispricing in Africa based on a range of estimates varies from $30 billion to $52 billion per annum. The scarcity of available geological information in Africa and the resulting information asymmetry between mining companies that have the means to acquire private information about reserves and Governments makes the extractive sector particularly prone to illicit outflows (UNECA and African Minerals Development Centre, 2017). There are only rough estimates of potential reserves available on the continent, as significant information gaps impede robust data collection on mineral and metal resources in Africa (World Bank, 2017b). As noted for gold, high-value low-weight commodities are especially prone to smuggling (UNCTAD, 2016). With rapidly rising demand, the risk of smuggling of rare earth minerals is increasing and their improved governance should be a policy priority for well-endowed countries and requires comprehensive geological surveys.

There is uncertainty with regard to the quality of African trade statistics, especially for intra-African trade. The United Nations Comtrade metadata survey, which could shed light on what is covered in international trade statistics, lacks a comprehensive and consistent database. The frequency of reporting and quality of trade data is linked to institutional capacity and so is the probability of trade-related illicit financial outflows; thus, there is a downward bias in the estimates in this chapter, since countries that have the highest probability of incurring trade misinvoicing also have the highest probability of low-quality trade reporting, of being excluded from the sample due to non-reporting or of missing too many years of data (only countries with at least 10 observations between 2000 and 2018 are included).



Informal cross-border trade is estimated to be as large as officially recorded trade for some country borders and specific products in Africa (Morrissey et al., 2015). This renders the partner-country trade gap method less significant for the detection of systemic trade misinvoicing for intra-African trade as errors and variation in the data is more prevalent, which hinders the scope for inference about trade-related IFFs with a reasonable confidence interval. Nonetheless, the method adds value to the analysis of intra-African trade patterns because it helps identify gaps in trade recording and, together with production or resource endowments information, could be used to identify potential rules of origin violations.

The partner-country trade gap method cannot capture the origin of IFFs but reflects a channel through which funds leave a country. Even when trade misinvoicing can be clearly recognized, it does not facilitate the identification of the underlying crime (for a critique of the method, see Forstarter, 2017). This may be due to the circumvention of capital controls, the evasion of taxes, the laundering of proceeds of crime, bribery or the financing of terrorism. However, the method can identify industries with a high risk of IFFs or at least alert government officials to areas in which trade is not being properly recorded as a good first line of defence, as it is based on publicly available data.

These limitations bring to light the necessity of a triangulated approach to identify IFFs, including information on other criminal activities that generate cross-border financial flows and evasive intrafirm trading that can drain countries’ financial resources without the necessity of fraudulent invoices, to generate a comprehensive picture of the scale of IFFs. Even if trade misinvoicing can be clearly identified, customs fraud will only be captured by the mirror trade gap if smuggling or misinvoicing is only one sided. However, if trade partners at both ends of the transaction collude, the trade value reported in both countries will be equal. Other non-commercial pathways of IFFs are more opaque and it is thus more difficult to quantify their magnitude.




Chapter 3
Global enablers of illicit financial flows
IFFs have multiple origins and ways of crossing borders. Chapter 2 focuses on trade mispricing as one of the core mechanisms supporting IFFs. It shows the complex layers that lie behind the tracking of related practices, from data architecture, to historical legacy, to the current capacity of customs across the continent. Moving into the realm of the international legal system, this chapter highlights key foundations of the international taxation system (section 3.1), surveys selected mechanisms for tax evasion and tax avoidance (section 3.2) and sheds light on some of the system’s global actors (section 3.3). The exposé does not cover ongoing reforms of international corporate taxation as these are addressed in chapter 7. Rather, taking stock of the shortcomings in the international taxation system, section 3.4 discusses the global movement for tax justice and the engagement of African stakeholders in reform processes, followed by some concluding remarks.

3.1 Key foundations of the international taxation system

From the Westphalian system to the international corporate taxation system
The foundations of the principles that underline the international taxation system are anchored in what has become known as the Westphalian system. Based on a scholarly body of work that dates back to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, the Westphalian system core characteristics of territoriality, sovereignty, equality and non-intervention have come to prevail in the international legal system despite debate on and criticism of their adequacy (Osiander, 2001; Picciotto, 2013). As argued in this chapter and in chapter 4, these principles have come to prevail and explain both the dominance of unilateral taxation systems and the complexity of multilateral reforms.

In 1923, at a time when African countries were still under colonial rule, four economists, professors Bruins, Einaudi, Seligman and Sir Josiah Stamp worked under the auspices of the League of Nations to lay the ground for the first model tax conventions. In what has become known as the “report by the four economists”, their proposal was that income from business activities should be taxed by the country of source while in return the country of residence should have the primary right to tax income from investments such as dividends, royalties or interests.

The Financial and Fiscal Commission of the United Nations carried forward the work until 1954, when the Commission was dissolved. Two years later, the predecessor of OECD, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), established a Fiscal Committee with the aim of inheriting the role of the dissolved United Nations Commission.²⁷ Archives from OECD also show that the creation of the Fiscal Committee initially encountered opposition from some members due to their wish to focus on the use of a bilateral treaty strategy and avoid an international treaty binding OEEC member States. By 1959, the OEEC Council recommended for adoption the proposals made by member States in their bilateral conventions, namely on: (a) avoidance of double taxation on income, capital and estates of deceased persons; and (b) avoidance of double taxation on indirect taxes such as turnover taxes. The OECD Model Tax Convention, first published in 1963 as the Draft Double Taxation Convention on Income and Capital, subsequently became the industry standard (Picciotto, 2013). OECD estimates that by 2017, it had been used as the basis of more than 3,000 tax treaties around the world (OECD, 2017)²⁸.

Permanent establishment and the arm’s length principle

The OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (OECD Model Tax Convention) includes the same compromise between country of source and country of residence as the United Nations Model Double Taxation Convention between Developed and Developing Countries (United Nations Model Tax Convention). In effect, it means that the country of source has the right to tax active income while the country of residence has the right to tax passive investment.²⁹ In other words, both the United Nations and OECD tax conventions imply that the country of source is not entitled to tax income from foreign corporations even when such income originates from business activities in its territory (OECD, 2017).³⁰ Both models grant countries flexibility in defining corporations’ country of residence using formal registration, place of management or any similar criterion. It is this flexibility that allows multinational corporations to move their residence to countries with preferential tax regimes even when they do not have any significant business activities in those countries. It is also this flexibility that sets the basis for BEPS.

Both the United Nations and OECD conventions stipulate that corporations not only pay taxes to the country in which they have legal residence but also to the countries in which they have a permanent establishment, a key legal concept in the determination of the source of income, whose definition was originally laid out in article 5 of the OECD Model Tax Convention. The list of the types of establishment that qualify for permanent establishment is broad and is based on an actual physical presence in the territory. Exceptions include facilities that only serve the purpose of storage, display or delivery. Permanent establishment is of critical relevance in the services economy as the taxation of services provided by foreign companies is growing in importance as a tax treaty issue.

The United Nations Model Tax Convention, in its most recent version, provides two options that allow developing countries to tax service providers. The first is the service permanent establishment provision, which expands the definition of permanent establishment to include foreign companies if they have a physical presence providing services in the country for more than a certain length of time. The second is a new article permitting developing countries to impose withholding taxes on management, consultancy and technical service fees, regardless of whether the provider of those services is physically present at all in the country. Both provisions are popular in Africa. However, in a study covering 149 tax treaties in force in sub-Saharan countries, only 33 per cent were found to include the service permanent establishment provision and 36 per cent, the service withholding tax (Hearson, forthcoming). The prevalence of tax treaties that omit both provisions is considered by taxation specialists to be a major constraint on the ability to increase integration by Africa into the global service economy (Hearson, forthcoming).

Both the OECD Committee on Taxation and Fiscal Policy and the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters have endorsed the arm’s length principle, another core pillar of international taxation. It stipulates that transactions between entities of the same MNE are priced as if they happened between independent enterprises. In practice, the application of the principle should require the ability to identify a comparable product and price. While for standardized products this is relatively easy, it is difficult if not impossible for highly complex products or intangibles such as intellectual property or trademarks. As markets are thinner in developing countries, there is consensus that even with the best intentions, the arm’s length principle is difficult to implement (Waris, 2017).

Zimbabwean media reports suggest that the Group’s operation of the concession in Marange appears to have been less successful than hoped. In May 2011, The Herald, Zimbabwe’s state-run (and ZANU- PF-controlled) newspaper, reported that Sino Zim was concerned that its diamond mining concession may not contain economically viable deposits and, as a result, the company halted operations and laid off the majority of its workers at Marange. In January 2012, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC)—the country’s state-owned mining firm—announced that it would take over “day to day management and operations of [Sino Zim].”³¹⁴

Sam Pa was apparently able to export a large quantity of Zimbabwean diamonds purchased through his connection to Bonyongwe and, in the process, circumvent the Kimberly Process. Several reports indicate he did so through his private jet,³¹⁵ a VIP-configured Airbus 319CJ. “We don’t know where the plane goes, what the routes are, or even who is involved,” said Farai Maguwu, an award-winning Zimbabwean activist who has campaigned against abuses in the Marange diamond fields. “But we know that VP-BEX A319 [Sam Pa’s private jet] was identified as playing an important role in facilitating this secretive system that is causing Zimbabweans to lose diamond revenue.”³¹⁶ According to a March 2011 report in the Times LIVE, in 2010 alone (before Sino Zim officially acquired its stake in the Marange diamond fields), Sam Pa transported at least 60,000 carats of gem-grade diamonds in addition to 69 kg of industrial grade diamonds out of Zimbabwe on his private jet.³¹⁷

In September 2013, The Zimbabwean reported it had uncovered CIO documents revealing that “Angola and China were key players in the smuggling of at least 36,800 carats of diamonds removed from the Marange mining field in a space of less than two months.”³¹⁸ The documents indicated that General Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior “Kopelipa” (Queensway’s key ally within Angola’s military), Sam Pa, Veronica Fung, and several other Chinese citizens routinely carried millions of dollars’ worth of Zimbabwean diamonds to Luanda, Dubai, and Hong Kong. The documents also reportedly showed that Sam Pa and senior Angolan officials routinely made multimillion-dollar payments to Zimbabwean military and government personnel in exchange for diamonds, including “a cheque [delivered by Sonangol] guaranteed by Mr Pa...for the supply of stones worth $41 million.”³¹⁹

According to a February 2013 investigative report by 100Reporters, VP-BEX A319 regularly evaded any scrutiny:

The Airbus appears to enjoy a remarkable lack of scrutiny, seemingly flying in a perpetual no-oversight zone. In the South African airport that was the plane’s home base, unless cargo and goods were self-declared, the plane and its passengers were not normally subject to inspection by customs, police or civil aviation authorities.³²⁰

In response to the article by 100Reporters, China Sonangol denied any involvement in the trade of Zimbabwean diamonds. “China Sonangol has not purchased a single carat of diamond from Zimbabwe,” asserted J.K. Wee, China Sonangol’s General Counsel.³²¹

The same Airbus A320-214 painted in the colors of Air Tanzania in 2009 (left), Air Guinée International in 2010 (center), and Air Zimbabwe in 2013 (right). (Source, from left to right: Stuart Scollon, Sylvain Gourheu, and Charles Joubert via Planespotters.net.)

Constraints on Use of Diamond Revenue Compromised

Despite ZANU-PF’s having physical control over the Marange diamond fields, the party faced several constraints on the sale of these resources. Here, again, Queensway appears to have provided a lifeline to the isolated regime.

First, ZANU-PF’s opaque partnership with the Queensway Group helped the party bypass the Ministry of Finance, led by MDC appointee, Tendai Biti. Queensway’s willingness to deal directly with senior military and ZANU-PF officials meant that extremely little diamond revenue was actually passing through formal channels. Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Mines appointed by ZANU-PF, disputed these claims. “It is not possible in Zimbabwe to stash away anything by anybody.... The systems are so tight. Everything that has been mined in this country, sold in this country, is accounted for.” However, most informed observers reject this assertion. “We hear very detailed reports of how sales are made through suitcases full of cash and antisanctions units in local banks,” one Harare-based diplomat noted. “By those sales and revenue details not being conveyed in treasury figures, it leads many to believe that real sales are higher, possibly much higher.”³²⁸ According to Biti, $800 million worth of diamonds were mined from Zimbabwe in 2012 but only $45 million in diamond revenues entered the country’s treasury.³²⁹

Second, the Queensway Group constituted a major source of funding and material support for elements of Zimbabwe’s security forces.³³⁰ As a result, activists and policymakers began to call for Sam Pa to be placed on sanctions lists in the United States and the European Union. In July 2012, Peter Hain, a UK parliamentarian, spearheaded this call. “There is a real risk that any money given by Sam Pa...and Sino Zimbabwe Development to the security forces will fund human rights abuses in the run-up to next year’s election,” said Hain, who called on the European Union to impose asset freezes on “Sam Pa...so [Zimbabwe’s] security forces cannot build a war chest before the [2013 general] election.”³³¹ Ultimately, none of ZANU-PF’s foreign collaborators were added to any sanctions list prior to the country’s general election in July 2013. Belgium, a major hub for the international diamond trade, adamantly opposed expanding sanctions.³³²

Third, investigations by journalists, civil society organizations, and members of parliament (both opposition and disgruntled ZANU-PF officials) sought to expose misappropriation of the country’s diamond wealth. However, these investigators were routinely blocked. For example, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy—a 13-member bipartisan committee responsible for overseeing the extractive industries—was denied access to Marange mining data and the diamond field itself on two separate occasions.³³³ Even for ZANU-PF insiders, probing too deeply into the use of diamond revenue is considered dangerous and, in one case, may have even been deadly. Edward Chindori-Chininga, a former Minister of Mines in Zimbabwe and one of the few ZANU-PF officials willing to openly criticize senior officials in his party, released a report in June 2013, highlighting discrepancies between royalties paid by diamond mining companies and the amount of revenue that ultimately made its way into Zimbabwe’s treasury. A week after releasing the report, Chininga died in a mysterious car accident.³³⁴ Many believe Chininga, who had previously spoken out against human rights abuses in Marange, was assassinated.³³⁵

Finally, the Kimberly Process ban on the export of Zimbabwe’s diamonds was controversially lifted long before the country’s 2013 election. Human rights and transparency activists across the globe had hoped that the suspension of Zimbabwe in 2009 would be extended until the human rights situation improved considerably and that its extension would deprive ZANU-PF of the resources needed to rig the elections or wage campaigns of violence and intimidation. However, following a Kimberley Process meeting on June 23, 2011, Mathieu Yamba Lafpa Lambang of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then chair of the process, issued an administrative note announcing that KPSC “endorses exports of production from the compliant mining operations of Marange Resources and Mbada [two mining companies active in Zimbabwe] with immediate effect.”³³⁶ The announcement immediately sparked controversy.Many claimed that KPSC members had not, in fact, reached consensus and that Yamba had acted unilaterally. The U.S. Department of State expressed that it was “deeply disappointed” and that the meeting “did not reach a consensus text.”³³⁷ Global Witness, a founding member of the Kimberley Process, announced in December 2011 that it was leaving the Kimberley Process. For Global Witness, the failure of the Kimberley Process in Zimbabwe illustrated the broader shortcomings of voluntary initiatives. “We now have to recognise that this scheme, begun with so many good intentions, has done much that is useful but ultimately has failed to deliver,” wrote founding Director, Charmian Gooch. “It has proved beyond doubt that voluntary schemes are not going to cut it in a multi-polar world where companies and countries compete for mineral resources.”³³⁸

At the center of the debate over the KPCS was its definition of “conflict diamonds.” Under the current framework, the Kimberley Process is designed to ensure that diamond sales do not fund civil wars or rebel movements. For critics, this definition fails to account for abuses committed by sitting governments that are not engaged in a civil war. “Updating the definition will make the KP more credible, relevant, and effective and able to anticipate the challenges of the future,” said Michael Posner, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.³³⁹ The issue was raised at the KPCS’s August 2012 intercessional meeting in Washington, which was chaired by the United States. However, the closed-door meeting yielded no concrete decision about updating the definition.³⁴⁰

None of the major structural deficiencies of KPCS has been addressed in the years since the Washington meeting, prompting many activists, experts, and retailers to lose confidence in the certification system altogether. “The very system set up to eradicate the trade in conflict diamonds is now giving the industry a perfect cover story, as it continues to operate in the same opaque way it always has,” David Rhode, a London-based jeweler, wrote in The Guardian (UK) in March 2014.³⁴¹

Campaign Financing and Reelection, Mugabe-Style

Flush with cash from diamond revenue and emboldened by the secured loyalty of the security forces, ZANU-PF’s campaign of violence and intimidation continued throughout early 2013 as elections drew near. In February, officers from the police and CIO raided the offices of two election monitoring NGO coalitions—the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network and the Zimbabwe Peace Project—seizing records, cell phones, t-shirts, and other items considered to be “subversive material.”³⁴² On March 17, Beatrice Mtetwa, a prominent Zimbabwean human rights lawyer, was arrested when she demanded that the police produce a warrant during the raid of the home of one of her clients—Thabani Mpofu, a senior aid to Morgan Tsvangirai. She was later charged with “obstructing or defeating the course of justice.”³⁴³

Despite repeated appeals from regional and international bodies to delay the elections until constitutional reforms were adequately implemented (as specified in the power-sharing agreement), elections were held on July 31, 2013. Unsurprisingly, Mugabe and ZANU-PF won resoundingly. After the elections, The Sunday Times (UK) revealed that ZANU-PF solicited assistance and donations from numerous international partners to help rig the election.³⁴⁴ Sam Pa, the report states, “provided Zanu-PF with [2 million] campaign T-shirts and other election regalia.”³⁴⁵ An investigation by the U.S. Department of Treasury later concluded that “Among other actions, Sam Pa has given more than one million dollars, as well as supplies and equipment, to senior Zimbabwean government officials in support of the Central Intelligence Organization.” Accordingly, on April 17, 2014, the U.S. Department of Treasury placed sanctions on Sam Pa and Sino Zim Director Jimmy Zerenie “for their role in undermining Zimbabwe’s democratic processes and institutions or facilitating public corruption.”³⁴⁶

Reached for comment shortly after the designation, Sam Pa dismissed allegations about his activities in Zimbabwe as “baseless.” “People are writing without grounds and without base,” he said, declining to comment further.³⁴⁷ The move bars Sam Pa and Zerenie from traveling to the United States, owning U.S. property, or doing business with U.S. citizens and businesses, including banks. However, by this point, significant damage had already been done in Zimbabwe. The ZANU-PF victory dislodged the opposition and tightened Mugabe’s grip on power. Rather than being forced to accommodate demands for greater transparency and accountability, the party was given new life.

For Mugabe and ZANU-PF’s leaders, the discovery of diamonds at Marange was a timely blessing that led to continued self-enrichment and facilitated a crucial electoral victory. For average Zimbabweans, the find has been a curse. “The discovery of significant alluvial diamond deposits...should have been a means of salvation for the virtually bankrupt country after ten years of chaos that saw world record inflation and the nation brought to its knees,” one Zimbabwean rights group noted. “Instead, it has led to greed, corruption and exploitation on a grand scale, the use of forced labour—both adults and children—horrifying human rights abuses, brutal killings, degradation of the environment and the massive enrichment of a select few.”³⁴⁸

The depth of corruption and mismanagement of the country’s natural resources underscores that the problem facing Zimbabwe extends beyond just the tight circle surrounding Mugabe. Zimbabwe’s prospects for transforming its natural resource wealth into sustained economic and human development gains ultimately depend on establishing a system of institutions and laws capable of holding whoever is in power accountable.

to be continued in next Month’s Unleash Africa Newsletter

314 Takunda Maodza, “ZMDC takes over Sino-Zim operations at Chiadzwa,” The Herald, January 7, 2012. 315 Swain (March 2011). Khadija Sharife, “Disappearing Diamonds,” 100Reporters, February 20, 2013. 316 Sharife (February 2013).
317 Swain (March 2011).
318 “Gem Deals Listed,” The Zimbabwean, September 11, 2013.
319 Ibid.
320 Sharife (February 2013).
321 A letter from J.K. Wee was posted to the comments section below Sharife’s February 2013 article.
322 “Snakes on a Plane,” Africa Confidential 55, no. 7 (April 2014).
323 “Air Zimbabwe trying to secure French planes amid sanctions,” The Africa Report, October 26, 2011. 324 Jama Majola, “Biti distances himself from Airbus deal,” Times LIVE, October 30, 2011.
325 Africa Confidential (April 2014).
326 Ibid.
327 “Air Zimbabwe’s A320 deal negotiated without board consent,” CH-Aviation, February 24, 2014.
328 John Eligon, “Millions From Diamonds Go to Mugabe, Observers Say,” The New York Times, December 16, 2011.
329 Tendai Biti, “Prospects for Regional Cooperation and Investment Opportunities in Zimbabwe” (speech given at Chatham House, London, United Kingdom, April 24, 2013).
330 Global Witness (June 2012), 10, 13.
331 Aislinn Laing and Peta Thorneycroft, “Call to Extend Zimbabwe Sanctions,” The Telegraph (UK), July 15, 2012.
332 Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, “The flawed diamond sale: Sanctions lifted on gemstones from Zimbabwe,” The Independent (UK), December 15, 2013.
333 Farai Maguwu, “Marange Diamonds and Zimbabwe’s Transition,” Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 8, no. 1 (2013), 75.
334 Peta Thornycroft and Aislinn Laing, “Zimbabwean politician behind diamond royalties report killed in car crash,” The Telegraph (UK), June 21, 2013.
335 “Zimbabwean politician dies in mysterious car crash,” The Africa Report, June 20, 2013.
336 “Marange diamonds get KP greenlight,” The Herald, November 1, 2011.
337 “No Consensus at Kimberley Process Intersessional,” U.S. Department of State Press Statement, June, 24, 2011.
338 “Why we are leaving the Kimberley Process - A message from Global Witness Founding Director Charmian Gooch,” Global Witness Press Release, December 5, 2011.
339 Alex Bell, “KP rift expected to deepen over reform calls,” SW Radio Africa, June 7, 2012.
340 Ibid.
341 David Rhode, “The Kimberley Process is a 'perfect cover story' for blood diamonds,” The Guardian, March 24, 2014.
342 “Zimbabwe: Arrest of peaceful protestors casts doubt on possibility of credible referendum,” Amnesty International press release, February 14, 2013.
343 “Zimbabwe police arrest PM’s aides,” Agence-France Presse, March 18, 2013.
344 Miles Amoore, “Diamonds ensure Mugabe is forever,” The Sunday Times (UK), August 4, 2013.
345 Ibid. Other African leaders also contributed to Mugabe’s reelection slush fund, as Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang contributed a total of $177 million.
346 “Treasury Sanctions Persons for Role in Undermining Zimbabwean Democracy,” U.S. Department of Treasury press release, April 17, 2014.
347 Author interview, April 2014.
348 The Marange Diamond Fields Of Zimbabwe: An Overview (Harare: Sokwanele, 2011), 2.