LET'S BE SERIOUS ABOUT COVID-19

Professor Hugh Montgomery, speaking on the BBC this week made a very eye opening revelation.

In illustrating how infectious the Corona virus is he compared it to the common cold. A person with a cold infects about 1.5 others. Ten layers of infection down the road this one person will be responsible for 30 infections.

"A person infected with Covid-19 on the other hand, on avergage infects 2.5 other people. By the tenth layer of infection this person will be responsible for 59,000 infections!..

Going by this equation it would take only 40 people behaving irresponsibly to infect Kampala's daytime population of 2.4 million.

It is true that of the infected people less than ten percent get critically ill, that is need to be admitted to the intensive care unit. That is assuming a generally healthy population with a responsive health system. And even fewer die from complications due to the cororna virus.

It is also true that going by the Asian and European experience the older people are more vulnerable and more likely to die. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, a function of higher income or just trying to keep up with the Jones, means more of us fall in this latter bracket.

A few facts are lost in those statistics. While its initial symptoms are not unlike the common cold and can prove a minor inconvenience as we go about our everyday lives, if unchecked can progress quickly into a pneumonia-like affliction and require urgent medical attention.

That is where all hell breaks loose.

In comparing Germany and Italy the record shows that the ability to prevent the disease going terminal depends on the number of Intensive Care Unit(ICU) beds a country has.

"Germany has one and a half times more ICU beds than Italy, and beyond being more vigilant, has meant they have been able to keep the fatalities to a fraction of the Italian ones for a comparable number of infections...

If for nothing else this is why we need to be extra diligent in observing preventative measures -- washing hands, social distancing and early managment of the disease if infected, and extra vigilantin spotting the rule breakers and setting them straight or reporting them to the authorities.

When they talk about ICU beds in any country, chances are they are not empty. There are people occupying those beds and everybody else will have to wait in line to get a chancec at the bed.

That is why we saw horrific footage of victims in Spain, lying in the hospital corridors, as if in a  third world hospital. They were waiting their turn to occupy a hospital bed. It goes without saying that the bigger the delay the likelier it is that you will die.

Beyond the elderly, people with undedrlying conditions  -- hypertension, diabetes, HIV/AIDS are suscecptible to contracting the disease. So more people than we think are in danger of falling sick from covid-19.

I know that if one is reckless with his own life it is useless to invoke the danger they pose to people around them.

But yes that is a real danger. Just  because you beat the system and managed to catch one with friends at the bar or a round of golf at the club you could be bringing it home too.

In the latest release of the new infections, there was an eight month old baby in Iganga who it is suspected contracted it from her father who had recently returned from Kenya.

Thankfully people who are not adhereing to this advice are more doing it out of ignorance, believe it or not, than out of some stupid defiance of the government.

Thankfully, because if they get to know about the virus and its potential harm to the and their loved ones lives they can adjust their behaviour. Thankfully too that its ignorancec and not stupidity, because if it was stupidity there would be no hope of them learning and changing their behaviour.

And if one is not convinced yet there is one last card up my sleeve. The current restrictions of movement will go away sooner if we adhere to the protocol better. We need to keep that decision with ourselves rather than with the government.

If the infections get out of hand government will have no choice than to impose further restrictions on us.

In Wuhan and now in Italy, they have imposed total lock down. No one is supposed to move around. In parts of Italy last week to move around you needed to have written permission or be fined 200 euros.

Going by the experience of South Korea, which has been able to bring down infections dramatically after an initial fumble, lock downs are not mandatory.

Have no doubt this is a war, or at least the beginnings of one. If it escalates the rule book will be thrown out the window, the army will step in and all your heckling and  smart aleking will count for nothing. That is if you are allolwed to do so at all.
















  

COVID19 IS GOING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING

When we come out the other side of the corona virus outbreak, as surely we will, it will have changed the way the global economy operates forever.

As a result of the corona pandemic 245,916 people have been infected, 88,465 have recovered and 10,048 have died.

The outbreak, which was first recorded in Wuhan in China has swept across the global, with Europe surpassing China in deaths due to the virus, last week.

Countries are taking increasingly harsher measure to check the virus in its tracks – restricting movement of people and goods, shutting down whole cities.  As result people are being encouraged to work from home, students too. Telecommunications and online service providers are experiencing an upsurge in the uptake of their services. This pandemic maybe the trigger to tip Africa into using less cash and electronic money, reconfiguring our economies for good.

"After the second world war with Europe burnt to the ground, the US assumed dominance of the world economy because their industrial capacity was largely untouched and only needed to be rejigged to producing for civilian use...

China last week announcing that they had not got no new infections in Wuhan, the early epicenter of the outbreak, suggests they may get back to work just as the western economies are shutting down their economies.

Already the factory of the world, we can expect China will scale up its capacity to produce to meet the world’s post Corona needs. Not China alone because South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are making significant progress in containing or rolling back the pandemic and they too will be ready to roll in a few.

The move towards the fourth industrial revolution in western economies will be sealed with this event. While the trend towards flexible hours was gathering momentum, it will be difficult to reverse the current practice especially as it is cost effective for both employers and employees.

This is interesting because it’s just like after the second world war, when people moved off the farm and into industry. As a result agriculture became mechanized, capital intensive and more productive. It needed to be, to feed the huge urban concentrations that emerged...

This time around as day time populations move away from the commercial business districts to the suburbs, one can expect a reconfiguring of commercial properties away from office to residential space.

Interestingly, Domino’s the giant pizza delivery chain the US is looking to hire an additional 10,000 delivery workers as people are going out less. Will we see in the future, staying in more as all goods and services can be delivered to hem – even interpersonal relationships?

Countries like Uganda, already struggling to get into the industrial revolution will buffeted massively by these new changes and may find themselves falling back rather than making progress in a post-corona world.

The reinstatement of borders is hampering trade, it is likely that the interest groups that will benefit from a return to economic nationalism will resist any attempts to throw borders open again. While this will benefit a powerful minority, while reversing the hopes of the majority of small economic actors for who the free trade across borders has thrown up numerous opportunities.

Keeping borders closed will also make industry nonviable, cementing a reliance on goods importation.

We will also be the poorer from the restrictions on labour movement. We get a lot of experts coming in from all over the world to fill gaps in our systems. Their inability to come here, because they can’t leave home or because we will impose restrictions on their entering the country, which is our right under the circumstances, means necessary technology transfers will not happen or at least not as smoothly as if they were here.

Relatedly the thousands we send out as immigrant workers will very well find nowhere to go. This will be a double loss because we will miss their remittances and they may very well become a nuisance here if they fail to find work.

One too can expect that development aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows will collapse in coming weeks, making it impossible for ongoing projects to continue.

This may be the silver lining that comes out of this whole crisis. That starved of foreign funds we are going to have to exercise our minds on how to mobilise local resources. While the economy is going to be depressed for a while and attempts to widen the tax base will not be met with open arms but clenched fists, the urgency of this will be more clear now.

"With enforced travel bans to our favourite foreign hospitals, the urgency of shifting resources into the health care system will become very evident now. The fat cats who fly out on tax payers’ money to have their niggling pains checked out will have to make do with our local health system....

We don’t know the half of what will happen to the economy after the dust settles on the corona virus pandemic. We can be sure things will not be the same again.

MTN RESULTS AND THE FUTURE OF TELECOMMS

South African telecom MTN last week released their 2019 results, with the Ugandan figures rebounding strongly from 2018, the envy of any CEO in this trying economic environment.

Revenues were up 22.9% to sh1.54trillion from sh1.248 trillion in 2018. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) jumped 59% to sh725b from sh455b the previous year. Last year revenues managed a 4.4% growth form the previous year. This was amazing growth by any measure.

But all this paled in comparison to the growth in data revenues. That subscribers spent about 70% more on data services in 2019 than in 2018. To put this number in perspective it means that in under two years, data revenues will double again.  One can expect growth to continue strongly as barely 3.4 million or a quarter of MTN subscribers consume data services.

Those kind of growth numbers are an indication that the business in Uganda is still in its growth stages. This leap was facilitated by the increase in smart phone users who now account for one in five of MTN  13 million subscribers. And this is despite the alleged protest against the social media tax. In South Africa smart phone penetration stands at above 80%. 

But even more interesting was that revenues from fintech – a lot of which is mobile money, grew 25% to sh382b from sh304b in 2018. The previous fintech revenues grew 10.3%. Digital services also nearly doubled to sh437b last year from sh230b the previous year.

"Voice revenues are fast coming to a plateau growing a relatively slow 3.4% despite a 12.2% growth in subscribers and a high average usage per person....

The telecom operator, which is only just recovering from a tumultuous two years, in which its top managers were deported and the start-stop-start again negotiations to renew their licenses seemed to have drained the giant of its usual vibrancy, obviously still enjoys the confidence of its subscribers.

Last year MTN boss Wim Vanhellputte was deported before being reinstated as the company’s CEO. This was after the deportation of three other top managers – chief marketing officer Olivier Prentout, manager sales and distribution, Annie Tabura nd, Elsa Mussolini, the head of mobile money.

No official communication has gone out from government or MTN but the finance ministry it was reported, confirmed that the South African based firm had agreed to the $100m (sh380b) license fee demanded by government and that has delayed the renewal of their license which expired in October 2018.

"People familiar with the proceedings say it is hard to justify the $100m license fee, a suggestion by an overzealous official who has since left his office...

The previous figure, $58m, which MTN seemed to have settled on with the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) had far sighted provisions to ensure the sustainability of the industry.

It will be interesting to see what happens when rival Airtel’s license negotiations come up for mention when their current license runs out.

The mobile telephony industry is still relatively new and its explosive growth in the last two decades has not allowed regulators to catch their breath.

On the one hand do you allow them unfettered growth, with the hope that the ripple effect across the industry and economy will more than compensate for the perceived money left on the table? MTN paid $5m for its Second Network Operator license when it entered the market in 1998. Expectations were low at the time.

Or do regulators try to grab as much as they can at the beginning before the operators become ungovernable behemoths, hoping too that they don’t stymie the industry’s growth and innovation in the process? This is a real concern because falling behind on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is not something we should do knowingly.

The government seems to have gone for the latter.

That being said it’s a sector, with its crucial role in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), is set to drive economies and the Uganda economy in particular in coming years.

MTN, serving as the industry bellwether we can see where the action is going to be.

Voice is going to totter along, the technologically challenged supporting that revenue stream. Industry experts had predicted years ago that one day it will be an add on to data services, being given away free. That day is fast approaching.

But in a country where 80% of the population is under 35, data services are going to catch up and far outpace voice revenues as this youthful population seek their information, education and entertainment online more and more. Especially as smartphones become less expensive and more widely available...

One outcome of the Corona Virus outbreak is that remote working will become more of a reality and very attractive to businessmen for whom it could mean major cost savings. The data needs for such a shift in working will be enormous.

Fintech too is going to continue growing at prodigious rates. Uganda is still far behind Kenya where mobile money is more a tool for carrying out transactions than money transfer. They have almost totally become a cashless society, their mobile phones doing all the buying and selling.

As an indicator of where the industry is going MTN’s results are a good indicator.

THE RICHEST MAN IN ZAIRE

Former Democratic Republic of Congo President Mobutu Sese Seko was said to have accumulated a massive fortune from plundering his mineral rich country’s coffers. He continued where the Belgians left off, expropriating billions of dollars while condemning his countrymen to a sub-human existence.

The way he blew his country’s fortune took on some very bizzare forms.

In Gbadolite his home town, he built an airport with a runway that could land the biggest jumbo jets. The story goes, he would drive out of home saying he was leaving for Kinshasa and head around the corner to the home of his mistress, who was the sister of his wife. She lived in the ministers’ village in Gbadolite.

After a reasonable time he would tell the pilot to take off for Kinshasa, calculating that his wife would know he had left Gbadolite. When he wanted to go back home he would call the pilot in Kinshasa and tell him to fly back to Gbadolite.

"Money was no obstacle for “the cock who left every chicken in his wake sated”....

Soon after his overthrow another urban legend grew out of the Congolese attempts to explain Mobutu. That he was not the richest man in Zaire, as it was called during his reign.

As the story goes when he wanted money from the central bank, he would give his personal assistant a chit, on it a request for say $10,000 from the central bank. The PA would add a zero to make it $100,000 and hand it over to the governor. The governor in turn would add another zero to make it a million dollars.

So when the money was withdrawn the governor pocketed $900,000, the PA $90,000 and Mobutu would get his $10,000.

This week the payout of $600,000 instead of the requested $60,000 for Ugandan students in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Corona Virus outbreak in China, reminded me of the Mobutu tale.

The government decided last month they would not evacuate our students in the blockaded Wuhan city, but would instead send them $61,800 to tide them over the period. Somewhere between the decision and wiring the money to our embassy in China $538,200 was added to the sum and we all exchanged knowing winks at this sleight of hand.

The finance ministry realizing the “error” wrote to China ordering the officials there to refund the extra money.

This episode was disturbing for many reasons but two particularly stand out for me.

The first was that knowing the processes of getting payment out of government it is not as if this money was pulled out of drawer and handed over. There is a paper or electronic trail that has to be satisfied for this money to be paid out. Several levels of authority would be needed. So even if there was a “slip of the pen” someone would have caught along the line. Or so we think...

For us mere mortals we can only conclude that many people were in on the deal, it was not a solitary figure sneaking around the corridors, working on his own. That scenario would be too scary to contemplate.

Secondly, that us the unsuspecting masses’ natural reaction was to assume someone or some people were trying to “eat”. That our confidence in our government is so low that we did not even give it the benefit of doubt. Isn’t that why government struggles to explain itself when it wants to move on an initiative, which in their wisdom they think is good for the country from vaccinations to pest control to building a hospital.

Trust makes progress easier and smoother. Mistrust causes friction, that costs time, energy and resources to overcome. Is it no wonder that beyond the slowness of government bureaucracy we can’t get anything done in a timely manner?..

But even more worrying given the Mobutu analogy is that these kind of shenanigans obviously happen all the time. The boldness to inflate a figure by a thousand percent can only come with long practice. It makes you wonder, who is the richest man in Uganda.

THE INTERESTING CASE OF ALIKO DANGOTE

Last week Nigerian conglomerate, The Dangote Group started testing their $2b fertilizer plant in Lagos.

The plant, with the capacity to churn out three million tons of fertilizer annually is the biggest in the world and will not only sate Nigeria’s demand but also leave a lot more over for export to the region and beyond.

The plant has powerful backward and forward linkages to the Nigerian oil and agriculture sectors .

The plant is part of a $15b complex that will include 650,000 barrels a day oil refinery and extensive pipeline infrastructure from the oil fields of the Niger Delta.

Nigeria, a nation with a $450b economy and a population of about 200 million can absorb such numbers.

"As if Aliko Dangote still needed to stamp his mark on history, this project will be testament to his penchant for thinking scale. Until the next project, of course....

His company has extensive interests in cement, sugar and flour in the process turning a trading company into the largest industrial concern in West Africa and on the continent.

In explaining his wealth the critics will point out that he had a head start in life. His great grandfather Alhassan Dantata was the richest man in West Africa at the time of his death in 1955. That was useful I am sure, but it takes a special kind of individual to build a multibillion-dollar empire, more so if he doesn’t start from scratch.

They say wealth is built in one generation and squandered by the third generation, Dangote has flipped that script.

To accumulate that kind of wealth requires two essential factors, a large economy, which Nigeria is and government support.

The complex mention above is situated in the Lekki Free Zone Corridor, situated on 60,000 hectares with ambitions to a modern industrial megacity. Its development is a collaboration between the Chinese and Nigerian governments.

By locating it in the free trade zone, the Dangote group projects benefit from numerous concessions, which some critics would thumb their noses at as subsidies to a man who does not need charity.

"The issues of subsidies to big business is an emotive issue wherever you look. If done properly can stimulate economic growth and development and if not, become an avenue for political patronage and crony capitalism...

Dangote employs 11,000 people across the breadth of his empire – mostly Nigerians. A drop in the ocean in relation to Nigeria’s joblessness figures but a commendable achievement in itself.

For government and business to work together there first has to be credible business entities.  We have seen it before. Attempts to seed or prop up some connected individuals have ended in tears – for the tax payer. If you are lacking in business acumen this inadequacy is magnified by money. The more money pumped in, the bigger the disaster...

Another necessary ingredient is that the government officials need to understand business beyond the theory of their high school text books. But also that the government has a well thought out strategy to intervene in businesses. A strategy robust enough to ensure positive results while flexible enough to be adjusted to whatever sector is in need of support.

In Uganda one gets the sense that concessions are dished out to individuals rather than to industries, their output, if any goes unmeasured and there is no framework for determining what is too much or when to stop supporting an enterprise.

Governments’ slap dash attempts at supporting the private sector then fall flat on their face and they do the next worst thing, government decides to go into business on its own.

The thinking being that they shouldn’t be enriching the private sector and that the government should have all the benefits accruing to them. The promoters of such schemes slide in justifications like job creation, foreign exchange saving and technology transfer to win over the gullible politicians.

The fallacy of this thinking soon show themselves in poor project design and white elephants. Needless to say disaster falls close behind but not before a few technocrats who managed to skim off the top on every procurement.

There are very valid concerns for supporting the private sector grow to create more jobs and provide more and more goods and services. A few of the supported cases can become spectacularly successful. Two things happen then, they get more and more support, you want to keep betting on the winners and very soon they become lightening rods for criticism and their success a hot political potato for the powers that be...

It’s funny how governments don’t suffer for throwing money down the black holes of state enterprise but when a supported business or industry succeeds all the detractors come crawling out of the wood work.

Dangote’s story is a fascinating one, which should be studied in greater detail by students of development and business.

CAN EVERY UGANDAN BE PRESIDENT?

A few years ago a long term leader of an organization stepped down from his perch. At the time of his departure he had been at the organization for coming to two decades, to the point that in the eyes of the public the organization was him and he was the organization.

There was an initial panic about the company’s prospects. The competitors even threw parties thinking they would now overhaul the market leader, seeing as the head of the snake had been loped off.

They say if you want God to laugh tell him your plans. As fate would have it his replacement was a total disaster, lacking in strategic thinking, operational competence and an atrocious judge of talent. That the competition failed to win any market share,  was an indictment on them.

But “the disaster’s” short tenure – Thank God for that, demystified the position, which people had long thought was customized for the original leader.

Is that what is happening in Uganda today?

"I was shocked to read that there are 24 people gunning to be CEO of Uganda at the next election...

Every Ugandan citizen of sound mind, appropriate qualifications and age has a right to be president of the country. And standing for the presidency should not be left to those who have a realistic chance of success. But that being said, is it possible that we can have 24 alternative views of how to run this little African nation?

Abraham Lincoln said if he was given six hours to chop down a tree he would spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.

I can count on my index finger the number of potential candidates who have been preparing to run for presidency in 2021. And I am not talking about over the last 12 months but over the last few decades at least. They have been actively involved in politics, their visibility is better than average and they have some credible believers in their cause.

Then there are others who clearly are trying to take the country’s ethos of Okuliira omukavuyo (smash and grab) a bit too far.

I am convinced these types have watched too many movies, where the underdog comes to a gunfight with a disposable knife, builds a groaning, cringing, broken pile out of the badies, with nary a scratch or bruise on his person. And the disposable knife too, still intact.

"What would be one’s motive of getting on the ballot when you have no chance of making an impression, which is not a crime, but not even making an effort to run a credible race?...

Can it be the money? Each presidential nominees is entitled to sh20m to aid in the campaigns after paying a nomination fee of eight million shillings.

Can it be the fame? Each candidate is supposed to at least canvass two thirds of Uganda’s 100-plus districts, which can rocket their visibility from zero to 100 over four months set aside for campaigns.

As earlier said we may be a nothing country in the greater scheme of things, but surely contesting for the highest position in the land should be taken more seriously.

Alleviating those same issues of poverty, disease and hopelessness should be top of every candidates agenda. The differentiator maybe how each candidate hopes to achieve this. Upsetting President Yoweri Museveni can be part of the strategy but not the strategy. Knowing our fickle public it maybe the best strategy to personalize the election but can you seat through 23 candidates badmouthing Museveni before you nod off?

It occurred to me that President Yoweri Museveni has the hardest campaign to run because everyone else is focused on removing him. So his may be the only issues based campaign?

Beyond the hundred signatories to the nomination from two thirds of all districts set as a condition for nomination, each candidate should have a functioning organization in those same districts. This shouldn’t be a condition of nomination but would determine whether a candidate is going along for the party or can be a serious contender.

"This also will ensure that the candidates are not only heard in Kampala, ceding the countryside to the NRM, but should have a real presence all over. Playing to the foreign press from Kampala just doesn’t cut it...

I think we deserve a more serious airing of our concerns as an electorate. Wheeling out the clowns every five years in the name of presidential elections maybe damaging the credibility of the process. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day, someone asks, “Whats the point?” and we – God forbid, contemplate scrapping presidential elections.

Maybe we should actually. Let’s have a parliamentary system like in other mature democracies, where the party with the winning majority in parliament chooses the president. It would spare us a lot of amateur theatrics that threaten to make the presidential race a farce.

IT STARTS AND ENDS WITH JOBS

Last week the World Bank released their Jobs Report on Uganda it had some very enlightening findings, many sobering and clearly we cannot continue with business as usual given the potential crisis looming ahead.

"If the management of the economy is about improving the living standards of a population then you can’t get away from a discussion about jobs – the quantity and quality of jobs....

The current state of jobs flatters to deceive. The report says that 77% of the population aged between 15 and 64 is employed, which is high compared to the average for low income countries, which stands at about 70%.

However, the quality of jobs is falling as people are working longer hours for less pay.

This is not hard to explain as 64% of Ugandans are employed in agriculture. Our agricultural practices are rudimentary, our farm yields are among the lowest on the continent and we then lose almost half of our produce after the harvest.

To add salt to injury as an economy we are still stuck in a rut, producing raw materials for export. We not only get a fraction of the finished good but it also means we do not control the price that we sell at.

As if that is not enough we are a young population, the second youngest population in the world with a media age of 15.9 years. What this means that for the next few years or decades there will be more people joining the workforce than leaving it, which means the speed of creating jobs has to be accelerated.

According to the Jobs Report the economy must create up to thrice as many jobs than it did between 1992 and 2006 in order to keep up.

As it is now more than 500,000 people enter the job market annually and this number is expected to double again within a decade or so.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that millions of youth without a job or incomes. will be forced into crime and other anti-social behavior, and it is not a stretch of imagination to see that national stability will come under threat.

So what to do?

The World Bank has some recommendations.

For starters they counsel that macroeconomic fundamentals have to be just right.  Galloping inflation, lack of economic growth and an exchange rate out of control will not allow for any of the initiatives needed to tackle the problem to take root....

Develop agro-processing industries and facilitate their exports, promote Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), create an environment that will encourage more investment buy big firms and support domestic firms to transition to medium and larger entities are the other suggestions. 

Given these, it makes sense that any real transformation will have to start with the agriculture value chain seeing as seven in every ten Ugandans derives a livelihood form the land. Not only should we increase farm yields, but can we also improve marketing, incentives the set up of agro processing firms and promote exports abroad.

At the bare minimum farm get prices will rise but also employment will be created when the value chains are better developed.

However, I think the real game changer would be to facilitate small companies to grow into larger entities...

The world over the biggest employers in any economy are the small and medium enterprises. 

However, the biggest case of business failure comes from these same sectors. On closer scrutiny its not that there are no markets for their products or they have run out of raw materials or the Ugandan economy is a particularly harsh environment to do business, most business failure is because the people running the business don’t have the capacity to run a business.

The promoters of these failed business, don’t know how to raise capital, don’t know how or neglect to do market research, fail to forge the relationships that will grow and sustain the business, don’t or can’t be bothered to strategise for their business.

Doing business is a skill that is learnt over time, however we can help our businessmen with training and other capacity building initiatives to help them along. We are the most entrepreneurial country in the world, which means that in our case there is a necessity for most of us to start a business. Well-tailored training will ensure we can go beyond the initial excitement for business and build bigger businesses.

Indigenous business owners are more beneficial to local economies than businesses taking orders from far off headquarters. Out of a responsibility to their local communities they are more likely to find ways to make the business work than hack the payroll and they give more back to the community in social causes.

It follows therefore that bigger indigenous concerns will magnify these benefits.

The government programs to dish out money to the youth are more a hit or miss operation, based on the flawed analysis that our entrepreneurs biggest challenge is lack of finance.

A more systematic attempt to build our entrepreneurs’ business skills, some hand holding to ensure they grow beyond he teething pains and a proactive program to create market access for them home and abroad are urgently needed.

I put little faith in the already bigger firms hiring more and more people, as our current circumstances demand. After all the bigger firms are becoming more automated and therefore not hiring as fast as we want.

The SME sector’s growth will more likely create the needed jobs.