Ramon Thomas

Keynote – Dr Pravin Gordhan: SARS and the Web

by Ramon Thomas in Economy/Events on 0505/090909/2007200720072007 • 4 Comments • Economy, Events, pravin-gordhan, sars, www2007

Dr Pravin Gordhan, commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) opened the WWW2007 conference with a keynote on SARS and the Web. More generally how government is using technology to alleviate poverty, create jobs. He asked many questions like:

What the impact of technology is on poverty?
Does it empower ordinary people?

We have huge asymmetry in the population who have very good access and the lower income groups who have poor access to technology. Even just access for to Government information is out of reach of large chunks of the population. The digital divide is not spoken about much any more but it is still there.

Another important question he asked continuously is how SARS can use technology to lower the cost of compliance and increase the incentive. Back in 1998 SARS collected about R188 billion and this year is on track to collect about R558 Billion. This will be a surplus for the first time ever in the history of post-Apartheid South Africa.

So the goal of SARS when rolling out technologies like their e-Filing solution is first to continuously improve the service proposition. Second is to educate South Africans about their obligations. The 3rd is to have a very decernable enforcement policy. This was a wonderful insight into the workings of one of the most efficient government agencies.

You may also be interested in this detailed interview of Commissioner Pravin Gordhan with Business Report from 2004 after the elections.

TEDGlobal 2007: Session 12: Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

by Ramon Thomas in Economy/Events on 0707/060606/2007200720072007 • 3 Comments • Economy, Events

Dr Okonjo-Iweala, Distinguished Fellow at Brookings Institution and former Finace Minister from Nigeria presented the final talk at TEDGlobal: Africa the next chapter. She spoke at the TED conference in Monteray, Califorian in Feb 2007. Africa the old: the next chapter. The growth in sub-Saharan Africa is strong and inflation is under control but the question is still out on poverty. External debt has come down to almost 50 billion to 12 or 13 billion. Reserves has been increasing. Foreign Direct Investment into Sub-Saharan Africa has increased from 6 to 18 billion. This all shows confidence. 62% of the population is below the age of 24. This is a clear sign the focus should be on the youth and bring them into a productive economy. A strong case can be made for supporting women by placing more resources in the hands of women – spending patters between men and women are different. Women spend more on human capital goods: household services, health, education and food.

The US and UK could not have been built without Africa’s Aid. When you situation is dire, and personal, you don’t care if it’s aid money or where the money comes from. Spain received $10 million in aid from the European Union. Ireland received $3 million in aid, and is now one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Neither of these countries felt guilty or bad in any way receiving this money.

A new set of aid entrepreneurs are emerging in the individuals who founded very wealthy foundations. They may take over from the aid received from governments one day. The question is open as to how interested they really are in helping Africa. Are they listening? Are invited to serve on their boards to help with making decisions? The answer is no!

Aid has to be a facilitator, it can be catalytic. China says Nigeria needs infrastructure and discipline to succeed. Within the private sector maybe aid can be used as a money guarantee. Her punchline is to help women get more access to resources – the research and statistics of this speaks for itself.The final question is what you will do with aid, the government, the private sector and the African as an individual.

Read this excellent interview with Dr Okonjo-Iweala here.

TEDGlobal 2007: Session 3: Idris Mohammed

by Ramon Thomas in Economy/Events on 0505/060606/2007200720072007 • No Comments • Economy, Events, idris-mohammed, private-equity, tanzania, tedglobal2007

One of those moments at TEDGlobal that made me feel jazzy inside was when two performers from the Zip Zap Circus School came on stage to entertain us. I didn’t know what to expect because I’ve never heard of them before. Rest assured I will be on the lookout for future performances back in South Africa. When I spoke to one of them during a break they told me that they lost their sponsorship from Old Mutual. So if anyone can help please contact Zip Zap through their website here.

Next up was Idris Mohammed, a Private Equity Pioneer. One of the most memorable quotes from the entire conference came from Idris, “Make Africa rich will you will make her less poor.” Idris talked about the link between GDP, multi party democracies, one party states and monarchy’s. The problem is not with the economies as such it’s with African Leadership.

Private investment in Telecoms in Africa reached $15 billion in 2005. MTN Nigeria experienced a 90% return on investment. One of the constraints it seems in Africa is the lack of energy sources and over 600 million megawatt hours are needed. A comparison was made between $35 billion in aid versus $5 to $10 billion in private equity investment. The stock market capitalisation in Africa is about $605 billion and excluding South Africa it drops to a meagre $34 billion. And every time you look the needs of Africa instead look at it as an investment opportunity as big as $200 billion currently.

TEDGlobal 2007: Session 3: Eleni Gabre-Madhin

by Ramon Thomas in Economy/Events on 0505/060606/2007200720072007 • No Comments • commodities-exchange, Economy, eleni-gabre-madhin, Events, jay-walker, tanzania, tedglobal2007

I cannot believe the first day of TEDGlobal is over. We had a dinner party sponsored by Google on Monday evening and today it’s a jam packed. Later I’m attending a lunch sponsored by Google.org where they’ll mention some projects they are involved with in Africa.

Elani Gabre-Madhin Eleni Gabre-Madhin, is an Economist, who is working to set-up the first commodities exchange in Ethiopia. This is nothing new in the West and also in South Africa as we have had a Futures exchange for a long time. She starts out her talk with a story about the people from Bhutan who decided to measure their Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product. African farmers are under-capitalised and only 7% of land is irrigated in Africa compared to 40% in Asia. And hence hunger and malnutrition goes up and not down.

Africa’s market problem is a market challenge. Price volitility in the food market is the highest. And you experience arrested development because of this. There were several examples of the extreme fluctuations of Maize pricing from season to season. And how Africa imports substantial amounts of Maize now compared to a few decades ago when it was the largest exporter of Maize. She draws comparisons with the role and impact of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the biggest in the world. Again although this may be common practise it’s a evolution for African farmers to conduct trade without seeing the goods first. Part of the solution will be to bring Internet cafe’s to rural communities so farmers can trade in real time without physically being close to the exchange.

This talk was followed by a quick re-issue of a challenge from long-time TEDster and founder or Priceline.com Jay Walker. He asked if they audience can come up with a way to create 10 million new jobs. The only proviso is to figure out what people in Africa with 10 million cellphones can offer as a service to the West.

Economy

Keynote – Dr Pravin Gordhan: SARS and the Web

TEDGlobal 2007: Session 12: Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

TEDGlobal 2007: Session 3: Idris Mohammed

TEDGlobal 2007: Session 3: Eleni Gabre-Madhin

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