When Barack Obama, President of the United States of America hosted the African-American Summit in Washington DC last year, it was a resounding success. He was determined to ensure that it would not be just another talk shop (for show only) but a serious initiative to be followed up with vigorous ACTION. Sadly, not much appears to have happened since then. Even the youth (as future leaders) who were brought from different parts of Africa seem to have lost the awesome zeal and infectious enthusiasm with which they embraced the prospects of fresh hope and economic prosperity anchored on the goodwill of the United States of America and its appreciation of the dynamics of the demography of Africa, its vast resources and enormous potentials.
It’s beginning to look like a case of raised expectation being supplanted by skepticism and disillusionment.
May be the White House has got wind of all this. Consequently, as a prelude to the damage control and restoration of goodwill (and good faith), the President of the United States of America, the most powerful man in the world hosted “Senior Elder Citizens” (mostly ex-KPMG partners who are awaiting their gratuity and pension) to the White House for a closed door meeting. Of course, it would be a breach of etiquette to divulge what transpired. You would have to wait for the official press release.
However, what we can share is the drama that ensued when Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic delivered his lethal verdict on Zimboda. Much of it is already in the public domain.
Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic group and International businessman with billions of dollars to his name, Mr Richard Branson, has lambasted the crop of leaders we have in Nigeria for their high level greed which, according to him, is killing big brands wishing to do business with the government of the country, for the growth of Nigeria’s economy.
The Chairman of Virgin Atlantic said:” ….. we have Virgin’s ill-fated footsteps by setting up a new airline in Africa in conjunction with Nigerian government….the details of the doomed attempts to crack the Nigerian market in the 2000s are better imagined….we put together a very good airline-the first airline in West Africa that was ever IOSA/IATA operational safety audit accredited but unfortunately it got tied down to the politics of the country…we led the airlines for 11 years.
We fought daily battles against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from us, politicians who saw the government 49 per cent as a means to seek for all kinds of favour…watchdogs (regulatory body that didn’t know that to do and were persistently asking for bribes at any point….Nigerian people are generally nice but the politicians are very insane, that may be irony because the people make up the politicians.
But those politicians are selfish….we did make N3billion for the federal government of Nigeria during the joint venture….realizing that the government didn’t bring anything to the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria Airways…..
The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians killed it….Nigeria is a country we shall never consider doing business in again….”
It was tempting to interrupt proceedings and insist that what Africa needs before American intervention is to clean up its act and put its house in order. Otherwise, whatever the United States of America under Barak Obama invests would simply go the same way as its predecessors – down the rat hole !!
Indeed, it was the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund [IMF] Christine Lagarde who posted the following report on the website of the fund:
Headline: “CASHGATE Scandal Destroyed Malawi’s MACROECONOMIC Outlook:
-IMF
Perhaps we should commend the White House for providing each delegate with bulky packages containing not dollars but vital documents, for example:
(i) The United States Frank-Dodd Act
(ii) The United States Sarbanes – Oxley Act
(iii) The United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
(iv) The (UK) Bribery Act
(v) Statutory/Regulatory Reporting Deadlines
(vi) Template for Non-Financial Reports
(vii) International Accounting and Reporting Issues 2013 Review
(viii) World Investment Report 2014
It was only when the President himself mounted the rostrum that we realized why those documents were distributed. Right next to Mr President was the Secretary for Justice and Attorney-General, Eric Holder.
Apparently what had enrage Barack Obama was that following the Enron scandal which led to the demise of Arthur Andersen, (the auditors), the United States of America passed stringent laws and regulations which compelled the “Big Four” (the largest accountancy firms to divest from consultancy services and thereby ensure robust independence free from conflict of interest.
What appears to have sparked off the interest of President Barack Obama and the US Department of Justice is the statement which was delivered on CNN by Richard Fleming, the head of advisory services at KPMG UK:
“We are targeting cybersecurity and technology specialists. We want to dominate the segment of the market that is focused on advising companies on how to protect themselves against digital terrorism. We are also keen on acquiring companies/firms that specialize in advising companies trying to win new customers – as a consequence of rising GDP.
We aim to double or triple our current annual turnover of £1.5 billion within five years. Mergers and acquisitions are back on the agenda and so also are renewed corporate activity in the capital markets. We are going to need hundreds of new staff to handle traditional stuff in corporate finance practice. We already have about 5,000 staff with about 2,000 working on bids and deals and maybe 3,000 working in risk and management consulting.
We are entering an inorganic phase. That’s an element of the plan. A business like ours requires organic growth, not just to follow the market but trying to get ahead of it. We are now looking at inorganic growth.
As the economy starts to turn we are seeing a really big upstick in our deals.”
J.K Randle
