A both serious and fun look at why Joburg will always do better in the long-run than Cape Town
Africa
A deep-dive into President Ruto’s first year in office following his election in August 2022 Kenyan presidential and parliamentary elections. Focus on President Ruto’s economic record and foreign policy scorecard.
A look at the secretive Liberian Corporate and shipping registry that continues to be a tax haven, especially for the shipping industry. And alludes to the ultimate beneficiaries behind the scheme.
There has been a lot of negative coverage about the forthcoming gen elections in Kenya on 9th August 2022.
The Economist's article below a few months back is typical:
It fairly cites a lack of a viable choice and focuses on the cynicism of Kenyan politics; Where politicians change allegiances and political parties - usually one-election vehicles for whatever frontrunner is in current fashion - more often than they change their expensive imported Versace and Armani suits; Of which they can easily afford a warehouse-load on a Kenyan politician's ludicrously-inflated salary when compared to even those in the most powerful countries in the west.
Sure, the curse of tribal politics is nowhere more visible than in Kenya on the continent. A curse that always comes at the cost of actual viable social and economic policies that are almost an afterthought and hard to discern between the two current frontrunners - Raila Odinga and William Ruto:
Both candidates aspire to "bottom-up economics", whatever that actually means, and a vague promise of subsidies on fertilisers. Ultimately they both inspire nothing more than apathy in the Kenyan electorate.
But that is missing a trick.
A 4-day 1000-mile trek through Cape Town’s hinterland for the Cape 1000 vintage car rally in early March 2022. A journey that took its participants through old, Dutch, colonial towns that time forgot through to epic mountain passes.
A focus on Russian interference in the southern African region reveals it is deeper and more ingrained than many might realise.
And how the underhanded tactics of disinformation and the targeting of weak undemocratic leaders might pose a problem for South Africa itself – exacerbating an already, increasingly unstable region.
A deep-dive into how the Russian-Ukrainian war will affect South Africa’s economy and how it might act as a boon giving the already-battered country sustained tailwinds
A conversation looking at Greece’s recent foray into the African continent seeking to strengthen long-neglected ties.
On the 16th December 2021, I had a fascinating chat with Shuaibu Idris, a Nigerian development economist and MD of Time-Line Consult, a Lagos-based financial consultancy and management firm, about the state of infrastructure spending and general investment levels on the continent for an article for the weekday South African media outlet, Business Day.
An edited version of this article appeared in the Opinions and Analysis section of Business Day (South Africa) on 23/12/2021: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2021-12-23-george-philipas-infrastructure-spending-in-africa-is-at-a-crossroads/
The pandemic has certainly not been kind to investment prospects in Africa. Lead by a slowdown in infrastructure investment from China, foreign direct investment (FDI), already heading south before the onset of the pandemic, fell by 18% in 2020. More ominously, greenfield investment, investment in new projects, fell precipitously by 63% according to the Global Investment Trends Monitor released by UNCTAD in Jan 2021, the largest regional fall on the globe last year. The proverbial onslaught culminated with the announcement earlier this month at the recent Forum of China-Africa Cooperation conference (FOCAC) in Dakar, Senegal that plots Sino-African relations for the next three years, of a vertical drop in investment from China from US$ 60 billion to US$40 billion.