Bangalore-based Indian company, Karuturi Global, the world’s largest flower producer, couldn’t get enough land in India to compete with rivals. So the company went to Ethiopia early this year and leased 1,200 square miles of land—larger than the State of Rhode Island—to grow flowers. After a few years, the land will become useless due to heavy use of fertilizers. Millions of Ethiopians are facing food shortage and yet the World Bank-financed dictatorship leases huge tracts of land to foreign agribusiness to grow and export flower.
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Corporate India Finds Greener Pastures—in Africa
By Mehul Srivastava and Subramaniam Sharma | BusinessWeek
Indian billionaire Ravi Ruia has flown to Africa at least once a month for the past year and a half. He’s invested in coal mines in Mozambique, an oil refinery in Kenya, and a call center in South Africa. Soon, he may also have a power plant in Nigeria. “Africa looks remarkably similar to what India was 15 years ago,” says Firdhose Coovadia, director of African operations at Essar Group, the $15 billion conglomerate headed by Ruia and his brother, Shashi. “We can’t lose this opportunity.”
Faced with increasing competition and a welter of bureaucratic obstacles at home, Indian companies are looking to Africa for growth. Since 2005 they have spent some $16 billion on the continent, vs. at least $31 billion for the Chinese, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Heritage Foundation, respectively. Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile-phone provider, in June paid $9 billion for the African cellular operations of Kuwait’s Zain. In 2008, India’s Videocon Industries paid $330 million for two coal mines in Mozambique, and India’s state-run fertilizer maker bought an idled Senegalase phosphorus producer for $721 million.
Beyond those big deals are dozens of smaller acquisitions and investments by Indian companies. “Compared to India, valuations [in Africa] are quite attractive,” says Anuj Chande, who heads the South Asia Group at accounting firm Grant Thornton in London. “We’re expecting to see a lot of midsize deals across a variety of sectors.”
The Indians view Africa as a place where they can replicate the low-cost, high-efficiency business model they have honed at home. Like India, Africa has hundreds of millions of underserved consumers eager to buy products tailored to their needs. Consumer spending in Africa may double, to as much as $1.8 trillion, by 2020, McKinsey & Co. predicts, an increase that would be the equivalent of adding a consumer market the size of Brazil. As a pioneer in sales of single-use sachets of soap and shampoo (along with Unilever (UL) and Procter & Gamble) for lower-income Indians, Mumbai-based Godrej Consumer Products understands “low-cost, value-for-money products,” Chairman Adi Godrej said in a May interview. In June his company acquired Nigerian cosmetics maker Tura, and in 2008 it bought South African hair-care company Kinky. “We want growth. Whether it’s from inside or outside India, we are agnostic,” Godrej said.
Indian companies also see Africa as a hedge against a possible slowdown at home. “If tomorrow the Indian economy was to take a U-turn, then at least you have other markets which are growing,” says Neeraj Kanwar, managing director of Apollo Tyres, India’s No. 2 tiremaker. His company bought South Africa’s Dunlop Tyres for $62 million in 2006, giving Apollo two manufacturing plants on the continent and brand rights in 32 African countries. Apollo aims to triple sales, to $6 billion, by 2015, with 60 percent of revenue from abroad, vs. 38 percent today. “Africa is going to give me growth,” says Kanwar.
Essar has endured endless squabbles with Indian landowners who refuse to make way for steel mills. Like other Indian companies tired of regulatory headaches at home, it moved into Africa and now has 2,000 employees there. Bangalore-based Karuturi Global, the world’s largest rose producer, couldn’t get enough land in India to compete with European and African rivals. Many times flowers wilted on the tarmac as cargo flights were delayed or canceled, including a big Valentine’s Day shipment. So in 2004, Karuturi bought a small plot in Ethiopia, and sales have since grown elevenfold, to $113 million in the year ended Mar. 31. Karuturi now leases 1,200 square miles of land—larger than the state of Rhode Island—in Ethiopia and sells more than half a billion roses a year. “Africa offered us a scale we could never reach in India,” says Managing Director Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi. “I’d love to do more in India, but getting even 1,000 acres near Bangalore took years.”
Friends and family of Ali Ahmed Mohammed gathered outside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District on Monday to protest prosecutors’ decision to drop charges against the five men accused of beating Mohammed outside DC9, a popular nightclub.
Mohammed, 27, of Silver Spring, died later at a hospital. Authorities say the District’s medical examiner’s office has not found injuries consistent with a brutal beating.
The men, initially charged with murder, had been scheduled to appear in court today for a preliminary hearing on aggravated assault charges.
Mohammed’s mother, Sashie Bule, carried a sign that read “We want justice now” The sign also had Mohammed’s picture on it. Bule said her son “deserved justice.”
“I need answers,” she said. “I want to know what happened to my son. He didn’t deserve this.”
Police say Mohammed had been denied admission to the club and later came back after closing and threw bricks through the window. Authorities said the five men, who were employees of the club, chased Mohammed, held him down and punched and kicked him.
Mohammed, an Ethiopian immigrant, had worked as a security guard and sandwich maker at a local deli.
Protesters also chanted “Where is the justice America?”
Nunu Waco, Mohammed’s cousin, said her family was “appalled” by the decision by prosecutors to drop the charges.
“Our family deserves better. American citizens deserve better,” she said.
On Friday, when the charges were dropped, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said in a statement that his office needed more information, including a final conclusion by the medical examiner, before moving forward. He said the investigation would continue.
“Our work is not done,” Machen said. “The tragic death of Ali Ahmed Mohammed demands that we undertake a careful and comprehensive investigation to determine precisely how he died. . . . The search for justice cannot be rushed, and we will continue to pursue an active and vigorous inquiry.”
Inside the office of 555 4th St. NW, employees were seen gathered at the windows of their offices looking out at the protesters. Some employees, lowered the blinds. After the 45-minute demonstration, the protesters marched to the Justice Department to hold a similar protest.
Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, gave an impassioned speech about the atrocities of the Meles regime in Ethiopia during a public meeting in Washington DC that was held to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Ethiopian Election Massacre. Dr. Stanton urged Ethiopians around the world to get organized and work to bring change in Ethiopia. He discussed the experiences of the Ukraine and Ghana communities abroad who helped brought change in their countries and that Ethiopians can do the same. He also sent an unequivocal message to Ethiopians of Tigrean ethnic group in whose name the Meles regime is brutalizing Ethiopians and committing genocides in some regions of the country, such as Ogaden and Gambella. Dr Stanton said he is worried that eventually it will be the Tigreans who will pay the price for Meles Zenawi’s crimes. Watch the speech below:
The EU mission released a 41-page report today in which it stated that the May 2010 elections in Ethiopia did not meet international standards. The report is an impeachment of the Meles regime as illegitimate that has no mandate to govern. Members of the mission were denied visa by Meles to enter Ethiopia this week where they had planned to present report. Read the report below:
The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) was present in Ethiopia from 14 April to 21 June 2010, following invitations from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). The EU EOM was led by Mr. Thijs Berman, Member of the European Parliament. The Mission deployed 170 observers from 25 European Union Member States, as well as Norway, Switzerland and Canada to all the country’s regions to assess the electoral process against international and regional commitments for elections as well as the laws of Ethiopia. The EU EOM is independent in its findings and conclusions and adheres to the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation commemorated at the United Nations in October 2005. On Election Day, EU EOM observers visited 815 polling stations in every region of Ethiopia to observe voting and counting… [read the full text here]
Statement by The Alliance for Liberty, Equality and Justice in Ethiopia
November 7, 2010 is the 5th anniversary of the November Massacre, a massacre in which over 200 innocent Ethiopians were brutally killed and thousands more were wounded. We are a forward- looking nation of hope, but as much as we want to be a forward-looking people, in the month of November, Alliance for Liberty, Equality & Justice in Ethiopia (ALEJE), urges all Ethiopians to look back and reflect on the sacrifice of men and women who gave their life for the freedom of our people and great nation. ALEJE also emphasizes that as we remember our heroes; let us not think of them as everyday people who once lived and died. Let us remember that each one of the victims was an individual with a sense of prosperity and a dream of living a fulfilled life, but chose to make great sacrifice so that Ethiopians can live with freedom and democracy.
Those brave men and woman knew very well that a demonstration against Zenawi’s brutal regime could cost them their life, but without freedom, they believed that their life was worth giving for the freedom of the rest of the Ethiopian people. The November Heroes were true givers who sacrificed their life for others in a country where political sycophants always sacrifice principle to hold on to their ill gotten position of power. This November, our thoughts and prayers should go out for these heroes and to all past victims of Zenawi’s brutal regime as we continue to commemorate November 2005’s memories. Those brave men and women were robbed of their futures, but they gave us love, peace, and the hope of a better tomorrow.
On that “Cold” November day, death rate on the streets of our nation’s capital and elsewhere in Ethiopia soared as the fearless torches of democracy stood face to face with a the blazing guns of a brute force unleashed by the fascistic and ethnocentric regime of Meles Zenawi. We must raise the torch of these fallen heroes and carry it all the way to victory. While we grieve for the fallen and as we start the month long commemoration events worldwide, we must never forget the urgency and the magnitude of the tasks ahead of us.
As we pay homage to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in lives and limbs for our freedom, there is a debt that must also be paid; and there is only one choice and one path ahead to pay this debt. Our choice is freedom and the path to freedom knows no surrender or submission. So, as we take few minutes during this busy month and solemnly remember and thank our patriots, here are few things that they want us to do from now onwards:
* The victims of the November massacre lived and died to ensure freedom and democracy for the people of Ethiopia. Let’s honor their sacrifices by living a life worthy of the ultimate price that they paid and worthy of us Ethiopians, to make a resolution to ourselves to live a life of liberty and justice;
* To be part of the struggle for freedom and equality, it is imperative that every person joins ALEJE, any of the ALEJE member organizations, or any other democratic organization of his/her choosing. Liberty Equality and justice in Ethiopia could only be attained through organized struggle. Therefore, let us all be organized in the various organizations of our choice;
* Let us resolve to ensure that everything we do [our actions] and everything we don’t do [our in-actions] must help the struggle in Ethiopia;
* The media—Local radios, shortwave radios, and ESAT- has the power to influence the lives of millions of ordinary people who are fighting tooth and nail against the brutal dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi. Therefore, helping all pro-democracy media outlets constantly is an integral part of the struggle for freedom and justice to prevail in Ethiopia;
* Every member of the Ethiopian Diaspora must join the diplomatic part of the struggle and influence their elected representatives not to use the tax payers’ money to support and prop a brutal and corrupt dictatorship in Ethiopia;
* We usually condemn donor nations for financing dictatorship in Ethiopia, but we ourselves are party to financing the TPLF dictatorship by using their companies and formal channels when transferring funds to our relatives and friends in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Diaspora transfers more than $3.2 billion annually to Ethiopia through both formal and informal channels such as banks and money transfer institutions. Through formal channels–money transfer and banks– the regime gets more than 1.2 billion annually in foreign currency. It is our moral duty to help our relatives who are neglected by the regime, but let’s never and ever use the TPLF companies and formal channels such as banks and money transfer institutions around the world so that the foreign exchange does not get into the TPLF coffers to further strengthen its repressive state apparatus and used to prop the instruments of repression by and corruption of the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia. We therefore call on all Ethiopians in Diaspora to find creative ways and means of sending remittance to friends and families in Ethiopia;
* The Ethiopian Diaspora must stand as one person and speak in one voice to foil TPLF’s design and campaign to control Churches, Mosques, and civil society organizations in the Diaspora.
The struggle of the Ethiopian people for Liberty, Equality and Justice shall triumph!
The international aid system has a dirty secret. Despite much rhetoric to the contrary, the nations and organizations that donate and distribute aid do not care much about democracy and they still actively support dictators. The conventional narrative is that donors supported dictators only during the cold war and ever since have promoted democracy. This is wrong. … As for US foreign aid, despite all the brave pronouncements… more than half the aid budget still went to dictators during the most recent five years for which figures are available (2004–2008). … And there are still modern-day counterparts to Mobutu and Bokassa. Paul Biya, the dictator of Cameroon, is marking his twenty-eighth year in power in 2010 by receiving the latest in a never-ending series of loans from the International Monetary Fund with imaginative labels like “Poverty Reduction Growth Facilities.” Biya, whose government also enjoys ample oil revenues, has received a total of $35 billion in foreign aid during his reign. There’s been neither poverty reduction nor growth in his country: the average Cameroonian is poorer today than when Biya took power in 1982. In February 2008, Biya’s security forces killed one hundred people during a demonstration against food price increases and also against a constitutional amendment that will extend his rule to 2018. Many of the victims were “apparently shot in the head at point-blank range.” The IMF justification for the newest loan in June 2009 noted laconically that these “social tensions” have not recurred and “the political situation is stable.” Helen Epstein recently described in these pages the support that aid donors give to Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi, who has roughly matched Biya in aid receipts in a shorter period of time… [continue reading here]
