It is amazing: I received a call from the Dangote Group! And critics continue to praise “The Dangote System” as a business book. One wrote: “This book is a worthy read to all aspiring, low-fly and high-flying entrepreneurs, including those envious of the privileges that Dangote Empire has enjoyed. Noteworthy to say, I doubt Mr Aliko Dangote himself understands these privileges as a Conglomerate Tax (reward for helping Government out on high-pains by moving upstream) and not benefits of tribalism, feudalism, and/or Northern Nigeria cabalism.”

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Comment: Professor, I’m ready to sit with you to x-ray Dangote business model, financials and governance operations……..and lets see if Dangote can be classified as a responsible organisation meeting key ESG obligations.

My Response: He will become a monopolist for fixing fuel in 3 years and Marcel will blame him for Nigeria’s problems. He will fix electricity by 2035 and Marcel will blame him for doing that. Give this man a break my friend. Dangote’s problem is that all of us are not serious people. If we have 10 Dangotes in Nigeria, you will understand what govt gives him is common for conglomerates. Washington state pays Boeing $100M yearly.

Do you know how much Virginia waived for Amazon for HQ2? Do you know that GE did not pay tax for years for helping invent something for US military? Conglomerates tax nation; Dangote Group is one. His problem is that none of us has picked our sector to get the same benefits. Go and fix power, you will be blessing from Nigeria. Or pick agriculture or roads or healthcare?

I hate this bashing of Dangote when the people are not doing anything to fix anything. Tanzania rankled him, he left, only for the govt to beg him to come back. He does not solve small problems; he goes for hard one and puts his prices!

Commenter’s follow-up: Professor…. I respect your opinion.

For clarity sake….. I’m not blaming Dangote.

I’m worried about the system that allowed a Dangote to unilaterally determine the prices of commodities in an economy of 200million people.

If Govt gives any Nigerian 10% of the licenses and privileges awarded to Dangote at the start of any of his business ventures without hindrances….. they’ll outperform Dangote.

I do not support a monopolistic market…. Government should check it and give room for small businesses to grow and compete with Dangote. Its for the benefit of all.

My further response: Marcel Ngogbehei “I’m worried about the system that allowed a Dangote to unilaterally determine the prices of commodities in an economy of 200million people. ” – you are not worried. If you are, go and build power plants with 24/7 electricity and Nigeria will dance for you. Go and build hospitals and Nigeria will bow for you. Name your price and you get it.

In Anambra, the state governor gave money to private universities because they are helping him educate young people. That is not bad. He is essentially saying: everyone is talking of no access to school but these people are doing something, I will support them. Lagos plans to wire money to private schools. Every bank founder in Nigeria gets his own via voodoo forex. Nigeria is saying: start something and we will support you.

America funded Elon Musk’s Tesla. NASA ships its budget to SpaceX. Why? He is solving uncommon problems. Find yours and you get it. That is how the world works for conglomerates. Study them or read my book as a starter.

This would be fearful. Yes, the idea that one would need a passport, before air travel, that is linked, and  which authenticates that the owner has taken a Covid-19 vaccine should be a concern. But you may ask: if some countries already require yellow fever vaccination documentation, for entry, why not Covid-19 vaccination documentation?

Vaccination records aren’t new, but there will be new ways to use them: There’s nothing revolutionary about needing to prove you’ve had a vaccine. Some countries require evidence of a yellow fever shot before you can clear customs, and many schools will not let you enroll your children in school unless they’re up to date on mandatory immunizations. Official tracking of who gets what vaccine is old news too. National and local governments around the world run registries where doctors send their vaccination records.

This is going to become the new reality and I just think that it will happen, not in some big nations, but in those mid-tier nations which like to throw everything on people. The problem, though, is that instead of asking Americans and British to show they have been vaccinated, poor countries in Africa which currently are not under the most severe direct health-burden of coronavirus would be the target. So, there would be waivers for British and Americans, but Gambians, Nigerians and the typical must show vaccine-ready passports.

While coronavirus vaccines are distributed around the world, a Geneva-based nonprofit is teaming up with airlines and The World Economic Forum to create a “vaccine passport” app to ease air travel during the pandemic. They say the digital credentials can also be used at stadiums, movie theaters and offices. According to developers, users will receive a private QR code once test results or proof of vaccination are uploaded. IBM has developed a similar app, Digital Health Pass, that lets companies and venues customize what they require for entry to a physical location.

IBM has a product – Digital Health Pass – ready for customization for countries: the product is “ designed to provide organizations with a smart way to bring people back to a physical location, such as a workplace, school, stadium or airline flight. Built on IBM Blockchain technology, the solution is designed to enable organizations to verify health credentials for employees, customers and visitors entering their site based on criteria specified by the organization. Privacy is central to the solution, and the digital wallet can allow individuals to maintain control of their personal health information and share it in a way that is secured, verifiable, and trusted.  Individuals can share their health pass to return to the activities and things they love, without requiring exposure of the underlying personal data used to generate the credential.”

ANNOUNCING: IBM Digital Health Pass will integrate with @salesforce Work. com to help businesses, schools and governments verify vaccine and health status in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Learn more: https://t.co/tNW8zM767y. pic.twitter.com/yCMBHiZczu

— Merative (@Merative) December 18, 2020

As the scuffle between Ant Group and the Chinese government continues, the real intent of the antitrust probe is beginning to come to light. On Sunday, China’s central bank said it had asked Ant Group Co Ltd to shake up its lending and other consumer finance operations.

The development is coming at the heels of suspension of Ant’s $37 billion mega IPO scheduled for Shanghai and Hong Kong markets in November.

Regulators have been looking into the affairs of Alibaba’s Jack Ma, who heads a conglomerate of online technologies that include Ant. Ma owns one-third stake in Ant Group which has become a target in the latest Chinese attempt to regulate its online industry.

Ma became critical of many regulatory measures in China, especially the Basel Accord, a series of international regulations that require banks to hold a certain amount of capital, as outmoded for the modern era. Part of his complaints is about the inadequacies of the Chinese lending institutions.

He accused the institutions of having a “pawnship” mentality of using collateral instead of advanced credit ratings and watchdogs of not knowing the difference between regulation and supervision.

The criticism has sparked undue interest not only in Ma’s businesses, but other key investments currently commanding immense value, in some cases, above state-owned companies, including the central bank.

Regulators said Ant should rectify financial regulatory violations it has been accused of; in its subsidiaries that include credit, insurance and wealth management business, and overhaul its credit rating business to protect personal information.

The development has not only shattered the expectations of investors, it has also created future uncertainties for the shares of Ant. The company increased its buyback plan from $6 billion to $10 billion in effort to ease concerns of investors. The buyback program will be effective for two years through the end of 2022, but it failed to hold off the concerns of investors.

As a result, Alibaba’s shares slumped 9% to their lowest since June on Monday, knocking almost $116 billion off the tech giant’s Hong Kong-listed shares. That’s after its US stock had nosedived more than 15% last week Thursday, following the news that China has launched antitrust investigations into Alibaba’s chain of businesses, particularly the finance sector.

The company has lost more than $200 billion in market value since November, when Ant’s initial public offering was called off.

The concern of investors is based on the manner and weight of penalty the Chinese authorities will hand to Alibaba if it is found wanting in any area of the probe.

“The antitrust investigation into Alibaba has yet to specify the penalties, which is worrying investors a lot,” said Zhang Zihua, chief investment officer of Beijing Yunyi Asset, adding that the probe outcome could greatly change the company valuations.

While the Chinese authorities are not ignorant of the role of its online industry in its economy, the investigation has become a bitter pill they must give the players to show them who is calling the shots.

Ant was valued at about $315 billion before its IPO was halted. The company’s payment system commanded $17 trillion worth of transactions in one year, a market influence that would be severely undermined if Alibaba is penalized.

“The new regulations are hurting big internet platforms, so you see Tencent and other tech companies are also seeing their share prices going down,” said Li Chendong, a Beijing-based tech analyst, adding that Alibaba is the target of the regulators so the reaction is stronger.

The regulatory inquiry has been based on “choosing one from two”, a practice that forces merchants to sign exclusive cooperation pacts that prevent them from offering products on rival platforms. Alibaba had been warned earlier about the practice before the State Administrator for Market announced the probe on Thursday.

Bloomberg analysis noted that the worst case scenario would be for Ant to forgo its money management, credit and insurance business, halting its operations in the units that service half a billion people. Ant’s credit tech, which includes Huabei and Jiebei units, was the biggest revenue driver for the group, contributing 39% of the total revenue in the first six months this year, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The report noted that China’s private sector has maintained a delicate relationship with the Communist Party for decades, and has only recently been recognized as central to the nation’s future.

Analysts believe that the Communist party has become wary of the influence and freedom the tech billionaires in China have acquired, and wanted to make a statement by scapegoating Ant and Alibaba. It is also believed that Ma’s criticism bloated the “delicate relationship” that the Chinese authorities have been managing due to its economic value. Now they are ready to clip the wings of the tech giants to tell them who is in charge, even if it will come at a huge economic cost.

“That outcome would be underpinned by the idea that China’s leaders have grown frustrated with the swagger of tech billionaires and want to teach them a lesson by killing off their business – even it means short-term pain for the economy and markets,” Bloomberg noted.

This step may mean that investors’ confidence in Chinese online markets has been dampened, and big tech companies intending to go public will suffer the short term consequences. Ant’s IPO, which was going to be the largest in history, was halted, and there is no assurance it will be authorized in no distant future.

But the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t care, as long as the losses sound the “we are still in charge” warning to the tech companies and their billionaire owners.

“The Communist party is the end-all and the be-all in China. It controls everything. There is nothing that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t control and anything that does appear to be gyrating out of its orbit in any way is going to get pulled back very quickly,” said Alex Capri, a Singapore-based research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. He added that “we can expect to see more of that.”

An amazing video from our East Africa partner, CareerSpot, on Tekedia Mini-MBA. If you are in East Africa, make registrations via this company. Contacts.

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Tekedia offers an innovation management 12-week program, optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay. It runs 100% online. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents.

It is a sector- and firm-agnostic management program comprising videos, flash cases, challenge assignments, labs, written materials, webinars, etc by a global faculty coordinated by Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe.

I share this testimonial from Temitope Farombi: “I have learnt a lot from the Tekedia Institute mini MBA and I will recommend this course to anybody who wants to change the world.” People, I approve this message because it is a good one for everyone! Join us today here.

I really find it difficult to put words together to express my profound gratitude to Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe. He is building an army of nation builders through participatory learning. I have learnt a lot from the Tekedia Institute mini MBA and I will recommend this course to anybody who wants to change the world.

Source: Linkedin