Africa

Life is not easy in the construction industry, even in South Africa; but Protech Khuthele’s history is an object lesson in how to entrench and expand a niche capability.

It’s taken Spark ATM Systems under five years to deploy a nationwide network of ATMs across South Africa, using cutting-edge technology and based on a strong ethos of customer service. Managing director Marc Sternberg talks to Gay Sutton about the innovations behind this success and the plan to capture 50 per cent of the market in the next two years.

Jeff Daniels looks at an emergency service that knows no bounds to its possibilities.

Like many an African country, Botswana has a few large-ish urban centres where a sizeable but minority proportion of the population live, and then lots of wide open spaces where the remainder of the two million inhabitants are to be found (if you look hard enough—Botswana still has around 10,000 Bushmen living a nomadic life, much as they have for centuries).

There’s work to be done in Africa, the Middle East and—following the lead it took in the movement that is being called Arab Spring—in Egypt itself. Eng Hisham el Kheshen, CEO of Samcrete Development, and Yahia Adly, business development director of Samcrete Investments, tell John O’Hanlon how the group is ready to do its part.

In less than five years, IMPERIAL Air Cargo has captured around 50 per cent of the market share in overnight express airfreight services in South Africa. Ben Sansom reports.

IMPERIAL Air Cargo is a specialist in overnight express airfreight services within South Africa, and operates as part of the Integrated Services division of IMPERIAL Logistics, alongside other companies such as e-Logics, IMPERIAL Security Services, Megafreight, Paltrack, Pragma, Volition and IMPERIAL On-line.

Lancet Laboratories is already one of the leading pathology services operating throughout Africa. Moving into Nigeria will be a step change for the 60-year old partnership.

Total Namibia is shaping up to leverage its international experience and reputation to establish a foothold in the country’s booming mining sector.

Alan Swaby looks at a FTSE 100 oil company that didn’t have a barrel of oil to its name 25 years ago—but now has billions.

Tullow Oil is sitting on vast reserves of oil, so much so that the share price has gone from 400p in 2006 to 1400p today. Its biggest find to date—the Jubilee offshore field in Ghana—came on stream in 2010, just three years after the discovery was made. Other global sites saw an average of 58,100 boepd in 2010 from fields as far apart as the North Sea and Pakistan. 

International mining group Rio Tinto has now acquired 99.74 per cent of the shares of Riversdale Mining Limited after Tata Steel today allowed its 26.28 per cent stake into Rio Tinto's takeover offer.

Riversdale has hard coking-coal projects in Mozambique and also owns an underground coal mine in South Africa—Zululand Anthracite Colliery. Mozambique is strategically well placed to supply hard coking coal to India and Brazil, where the steel industry is growing and a number of new coal-fired power stations are being built.

Gold mining company Pan African Resources has reported “encouraging” results from its drilling programme at a tailings dam at Barberton Mines in South Africa.

The drilling, on the Bramber tailings dam, revealed a resource of 148,000oz at a grade of 1.47g per ton in situ—a relatively high grade for a tailings dam.