Mmegi

“If I knew, I wouldn’t have tried” – A billionaire’s tribulations

War-weary: Dangote says the journey to industrialise Africa involves a lot of pushback
War-weary: Dangote says the journey to industrialise Africa involves a lot of pushback

Aliko Dangote recently shared his 10 year journey to building one of the world’s largest oil refineries, a 650,000 barrel a day behemoth expected to boost Africa’s self-sufficiency. The billionaire says the journey was one of sabotage, betrayal and hard-headed determination, writes MBONGENI MGUNI

“I think the luck that we had in getting the refinery done was that people it would not happen.

“People who were sabotaging us were less concerned because they thought ‘these guys are going to fail and they have entered into something that they will never finish.’”

Editor's Comment
The State apparatus must be sanitised

When the State cannot rely on its own machinery to pursue suspected wrongdoing, repairing that machinery must become a national priority.The establishment of a Special Investigations and Asset Recovery Task Force may help government respond to the immediate challenge. However, Botswana cannot afford to leave the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) struggling whilst building...

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