At a gathering of senior policymakers and developments experts hosted by
UK’s leading foreign policy institute, the Chairman of Heirs Holdings,
Tony Elumelu, spoke on a panel alongside United Kingdom Minister of State,
Department for International Development (DFID), Rory Stewart, OBE, where
he condemned the pervasive stereotypes in the media around Africa and the
resulting negative narrative as “Africa’s greatest challenge.”
“I believe that the greatest challenge Africa has as a continent when it
comes to attracting investment is in the way it is portrayed. Information
presented about Africa is neither holistic nor properly contextualized,
and has led to the kind of narrative that we have had for so long on
Africa. As an investor, when all you have heard about Africa
is corruption, how would you pass a positive investment decision to go and
invest in the continent? The result is that the vicious cycle of
neglect continues and is even reinforced.”
The Chairman of Heirs Holdings, a pan-African investment firm with
interests in financial services, power and oil & gas, called for an urgent
“reset of mindset” to attract the level of global private capital that
will drive job creation and reduce poverty on the continent. “We must
reset the way we see and discuss Africa. People do business with people
they are comfortable with. Investors who repeatedly hear horrible
things about our people and the continent will never invest here. We will
continue to host national gatherings and seminars to discuss unemployment,
poverty and income inequality if we do not fix the existing information
asymmetry, the poor quality of information that is put out.”
The Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation also rallied public and private
sector stakeholders and the development world to increase support to
African SMEs, describing them as “the lifeblood of our economy”. Elumelu,
who has committed $100m to African entrepreneurs, emphasized the critical
importance of mentoring and funding for the survival of small
businesses. In a continent where only 700 companies generate over $500m in
annual revenue, half the number in other regions, Elumelu called
for targeted support to grow these small businesses into scalable
companies capable of becoming big corporates in the future. According
to Elumelu, SMEs are known to be the largest job creators and should be
prioritized because of the inverse relationship between security and
prosperity – “when there is prosperity, security is not an issue, but when
there are fewer jobs, insecurity heightens.”
Elumelu whose Transcorp Power Plc has invested $2.5b in President Obama’s
Power Africa Initiative and is also currently the largest thermal
generator of electricity in the country, called on local and foreign
investors to invest in electricity, stating that this more than any other
investment “will encourage the creation and growth of businesses of scale
in Africa.” According to him, “long term private investment in
electricity infrastructure will create an enabling environment for
business growth.”
Also at the event, a new Chatham House report, “Developing Businesses of
Scale in Sub-Saharan Africa” which referenced Elumelu’s economic
philosophy of ‘Africapitalism’ was launched. Africapitalism calls on the
private sector to invest in strategic sectors for the long term to
transform the continent. The report outlined the policy issues Africa must
address to support the private sector to enhance job creation, encourage
innovation and drive industrialization.
Rounding up his address, Elumelu charged multilateral institutions and
developed nations in the West to rethink the effectiveness of sanctions
and other policies meant to serve as a deterrent to certain leaders but
instead harm innocent lives. “Developed nations must look at the efficacy
of sanctions and who truly bears the brunt of these policies. You will
find that the masses are the ones who suffer most.”