Frank Buyanga, a businessman says he is on a mission to educate young African entrepreneurs to shun “begging for funding” and instead concentrate on creative ideas on how best they can generate value from the resources on the continent.
Buyanga, the executive director for Small Medium Enterprises Strategy for the Pan African Business Forum (PABF), this week said he believes Africans can do more on their own through “strategic thinking.”
The PABF is a private initiative, devised by Africans to accelerate the socio-economic development of the continent, through a combination of carefully considered programmes and projects developed both by Africans locally.
He said the group plans to launch an ambitious $500 billion infrastructure fund for development projects in Africa.
“In Africa, we are the authors of the world’s destiny but we don’t know it, Africa today has vast resources … human capital … mineral resources. Africans have the best the world has to offer but the only people who don’t know about this are Africans,” surmised Buyanga.
“The ignorant people seem to be African but everyone else seems to be aware about the wealth in Africa.”
Buyanga additionally spoke of trade pricing anomalies that he said needed to be looked into.
“We are price takers we are not price givers and that in itself is a problem,” said the businessman.
Buyanga said dependency syndrome was Africa’s major progress hindrance.. The businessman has offered to assist the Zimbabwe government to fund and capitalise a Sovereign Wealth Fund, which he said can assist start-ups in that country.
In South Africa, Buyanga’s African Medallion Group (AMG) recently took control of Cape Town-based Pagliari Group, a subsidiary of Rand Refinery, which manufactures and supplies high quality minted products.
The AMG deal with Rand Refinery, the largest integrated single-site precious metals refining and smelting complex in the world, was a new area for the founder Buyanga, who has interests in financial services, mining, and property. The deal came as AMG has hit the R3.5 billion mark in gold reserves.
– African News Agency (ANA)
