Connect Stories Reporter
Rwanda,Kigali-Africans should not sit on their laurels and wait for others to develop their continent when they have the natural resources and human capital available, Real Estate Developer and Construction expert Dr Tinashe Manzungu said.
He made these remarks when he made a presentation titled “Unlocking Africa’s prosperity through Investment in real estate and construction” at the fourth edition of the Jamie Pajoel International (JPI) Annual Leadership Conference in Rwanda recently.
JPI is an organisation under the Governments of Nigeria and Canada that serves as a platform for human capital development.
The organisation provides competency-based leadership trainings to individuals and organisations across diverse fields of endeavors
The four-day conference was running under the theme “Build to last”.
Dr Manzungu said Africa’s massive growing population of 2,5 billion makes it a strong market in all sectorsof the economy, hence the need for local businesspeople to support their Governments through private public partnerships to grow their countries and continent at large.
“There is a need for businesspeople on this continent to support their Governments in infrastructure development, which is an economic development enabler so that Africans have a prosperous continent they want,” he said.
“Statistics show that one in five people in Africa has electricity, 66 percent have access to water, 4 percent of African land is under irrigation, and these statistics are a clear indication of a gap that exists in terms of infrastructure development into all these sectors like agriculture so that we have the food that we want and construction. More than 60 percent lack basic infrastructure and according to data, Africa has only 25 percent of roads that are tarred and the rest are dusty unserviced roads,” he said.
Dr Manzungu said there was a need to maintain and manage the existing old and current infrastructure such as roads, dams and plants which assist in economic development.
“We know that some countries on the continent were colonized and when our erstwhile colonizers left, some poured congrete in mining shafts, some left some form of vandalism on plants and equipment. We have seen companies failing to get spare parts for plants and equipment they were getting and now we find some million dollar plants just sitting there, they are white elephants but we need to change that perspective and start looking inside to solve our challenges and develop our continent,” he said.
Dr Manzungu said another disadvantage was that the cost of doing business in Africa is expensive as compared to trading with outside African countries all because of the poor road network or poor rail network and or high costs charged on harbors.
“Do your mathematics well, you will see it’s actually affordable to trade with a country outside Africa in terms of logistics compared to a fellow African country. Africa needs US$72 billion yearly consecutively to achieve its 2030 infrastructural development obligation. Funding for projects was a barrier to African development, hence his call to the business community to intervene,” he said.
Dr Manzungu is a board member of the Africa Business Council and a director of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Business Council.
He is the co-founder of Zimbuild, a real estate business that has diversified to TM Group, an investment portfolio with interest in insurance and financial services.
Dr Manzungu is the senior vice-president of the Zimbabwe Building Contractors Association and an immediate past president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.
On the international stage, Dr Manzungu has scooped the African Achievers Award under the Excellence in Leadership and Global Corporate Enterprise in the United Kingdom.
He has also been recently honored with a Doctorate in Business Administration from California University.
JPI provides knowledge-sharing and global experiences that help individuals develop leadership competencies, improve performance, and drive strategies to promote organizational growth and profitability.
Its international leadership programmes provide a forum for C-Suite executives, directors, business owners, government officials, captains of industries, senior executives, HR professionals, management consultants, entrepreneurs, senior and middle level managers around the world to come together and explore universal leadership and business challenges and solutions, helping them lead their organisations in today’s complex and global marketplace.
JPI has facilitated international leadership programmes in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
JPI Annual Leadership Conference focuses on sustaining organisational leadership, simplifying processes, understanding leadership buy-in, leading with emotional intelligence, identifying underlying problems in business and addressing ineffective leadership practices, all of which can give rise to a dysfunctional system if ignored.