Belinda Anderson
South Africa’s newest media mogul believes the media landscape, once consolidated, will consist of two or three major players an independent group, an Afrikaans group and an empowerment grouping.
Recently appointed Nail CEO Saki Macozoma ended speculation that he might facilitate a large financial services merger between Standard Bank, Metropolitan and Liberty.
aloeCap analyst Attlee Masuku was the major proponent of this possibility last week when the story broke that Macozoma had been appointed Nail CEO.
“In fact, we [Nail] won’t have any dealings with the financial services. We will probably have a very small shareholding as Safika [the financial holding company in which Macozoma holds a stake] in that, but no direct involvement.”
Macozoma, who will continue to head Nail, the media group, after the unbundling of the 50% stake in Metropolitan to New Africa Capital, sees his foremost task as the bedding-down of the Kagiso Media deal. The Metropolitan unbundling is scheduled for August 7 and the market has been promised more details of the Kagiso transaction within the next week or so.
So although Macozoma’s day job will be at Nail, he will retain the position of deputy chairperson at Standard Bank.
The first phase of bedding down the Kagiso transaction will be to deal with the regulatory issues. Macozoma chaired the original portfolio committee on communication that led to the current regulations. He says it is ironic that he is now one of the proponents arguing that these rules should change. No grouping may own controlling interests in more than two AM and two FM licences in any particular region. Nail and Kagiso’s radio interests do overlap to a degree, but “it does not seem that we will have to ask the regulator to bend the rules that much in that direction”, says Macozoma.
And once the Kagiso deal has been bedded down, the possibilities for consolidation “are endless”. Macozoma squashes the suggestion that the Independent group could be a partner for Nail, but speaks of Johncom, Caxton, Naspers and the unbundling of the SABC as potential hunting grounds.
Macozoma does not see his position as an African National Congress national executive committee member as a conflict of interest. “I think I have exercised my own mind sufficiently out there for people to know that I have a certain integrity that I keep.” He says although there must be a distance between the editorial team and the media owner, he does have some ideas as to how the quality of the editorial can be improved. “But, at the end of the day, you are only as good in that direction as the people you employ.”
@Mbeki’s MAP must reach Western voters
AMERICAN NOTES
Tim Wood
One form of globalisation has been around for a long time the universal conviction that Americans are as thick as tree trunks on matters beyond the Atlantic and Pacific. Less than 5% of citizens hold passports and an appallingly large number have no idea that Africa and Australia are continents.
There is some satisfaction to be had poking fun at the collective geographic ignorance of a superpower’s citizens. But in the case of the United States it is a dangerous and unproductive stereotype when you’re trying to peddle the Millennium Africa Plan (MAP).
While the majority of Americans do not exhibit the general knowledge and awareness of their industrialised counterparts, it doesn’t take them long to get up to speed when required. The US has an unmatched media industry that dissects important issues in immense detail.
After a single week of dense coverage, everyone within range of radio, television and newspaper is a maven. What Americans lack in breadth they have in depth. And they have elephantine political recall.
Their knowledge is gleaned and analysed for when it matters casting votes. And nowhere else are politicians so at risk to informed voters.
By contrast, South Africa’s Cabinet was able to rush through its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol without engaging the electorate. Such paternalism isn’t tolerated in the US, which is why there has been so much confusion about President George Bush’s rejection of Kyoto.
Bush’s decision was not personal, but a follow-up to an earlier message passed on by the voters when the United States Senate voted 95-0 to reject Kyoto.
The voters hold politicians accountable for their actions and understand very well how local and international policies affect everyday life. Yet foreign politicians and the media consistently underestimate how enmeshed domestic and foreign policy are in the US.
Mbeki and his MAP team are in danger of falling prey to the same ignorance. Similarly, the media, in reporting MAP’s warm reception at the Genoa G8 summit, has miscued the pageant’s outcome.
It was inevitable that MAP would be well received by the G8 since it was spot on in terms of timing and political correctness. When you have rioters trashing Genoa in the name of kinder Third World treatment, no politician is going to say it is a bad idea.
That is not to say MAP is a bad idea, but its public relations need refining. Because the plan is so keenly balanced between self-help and begging bowls, giving it force means talking directly to the voters in the industrialised democracies rather than relying on the Janus-faced elites who represent them.
The absence of a rich appreciation for Africa means Western voters see things in black and white. Right now there is not a good deal of sympathy for Africa based on recent experience.
The idea of a new dawn for Africa is hardly new and dates back to Namibia’s first free election. But it was a false dawn and industrialised voters are fatigued by Africa repeatedly failing to use its opportunities wisely.
Mbeki’s characterisation of MAP as “Africans taking their destiny in their own hands” is perfectly pitched and he must never change his message. Translating that to Western voters means keeping the begging bowl out of sight.
Those voters will determine MAP’s success by giving politicians an appetite for free trade, which is the only thing the industrialised nations can actually offer. Free trade is the only issue that Mbeki can beat the G8 over the head with; and he must do so by shaming them in front of their voters.
They would be mortified to understand how their selfishness in demanding trade tariffs and subsidies reduces the opportunities for wealth creation everywhere. But the degree of mortification is directly proportionate to Africa’s own achievements and rhetoric.
Investors will want to see some hard politicking on the hoary issues corruption, tyranny, war and politically mastered poverty. Actual progress on the issues will be hard to produce, but words have meaning and impact.
Forthright denunciations of Africa’s venal politicians, business people and bureaucrats will have Mbeki at the top of the lucrative US speaking circuit. Matching the verbal thrashings with an alternative vision for the whole continent, made real in South Africa, will finally start to open wallets in a way that counts.
MAP could just as easily unravel. If it is ever mentioned in company with reparations for slavery, MAP will fade faster than the first African millennium.
Western voters will instantly tune out if Africa does not share the blame for its misery instead of whining about colonialism. If Africa can be consistently optimistic and chipper about its past, present and future, it will finally gain the ear of the people who count rather than their platitudinous leaders.