James Makamba
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Dr.[1] James Makamba | |
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| Born | 1952 (age 71–72) Zimbabwe |
| Nationality |  Zimbabwe |
| Occupation(s) | Business Magnate,Telecoms Mogul and Philanthropist[2] |
| Spouse | Mrs Irene Makamba |
| Children | Chiyedza, Kushinga, Tawanda and Zororo |
Dr. James Makamba (Born 1 January 1952) is an African commercial broadcaster, businessman, politician and philanthropist. Makamba currently has interests in the retail, telecommunications, mining, agricultural, property and professional consultancy sectors, digital publishing and philanthropy.
He sits on the boards of IBBAMO Foundation, JHL Investments, Thurlow & Company, the Kestrel Corporation (Pty) Ltd, African Business Connect, Makamba & Associates, Telecel Zimbabwe and Anglo African Minerals.
James Makamba holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from California Coast University. In 2012, James Makamba was awarded an honorary doctorate in Business Leadership from St Linus University, Dominica
Background and family life
Early Life
Makamba was born in the Shamva District of Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia). Makamba was the youngest of ten children of Jinja Makamba a retired police officer and Veronica Mudungwe.
Education
Before his family moved to the Chesa district, to Mount Darwin, Makamba attended the Mupfurudzi Primary School, along with Oliver ‘Tuku’ Mtukudzi, who became a globally renowned musician. After the move, Makamba attended the Kujuwara School near Mount Darwin and then one of his older brothers, Raphael, invited him to live with his family in Tomlinson Depot, Harare, where he finished his upper primary education. He then attended the Jesuit Mission School, in Bulawayo, for his secondary education where strict discipline, focus, and accountability were instilled. The Jesuit fathers suggested to Makamba that he study in Ireland to be a priest. Makamba considered the suggestion as young black Southern Rhodesians of the time had very few career options beyond teaching, nursing, and police work. A far bigger attraction, however, was the idea of international travel. Makamba, however, did not take up the opportunity to join the priesthood due to family obligations.
Business career
Broadcasting
When Makamba left secondary school, he went to work in Harare at the Catholic Centre. In a neighboring building was a government organisation, Audio Visual Services, which was responsible for recording educational material for broadcast in schools. After he had observed a friend make recordings on several occasions, Makamba was asked to stand in for a voice-over artist who had not arrived for a particular session. This began a career in broadcasting that lasted several decades.
After a year of school broadcasts, Makamba became a commercial radio broadcaster for the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation (RBC), on Channel 2. Determined to be his own boss rather than an RBC employee, he set about sourcing businesses willing to sponsor programmes and then packaged their advertising with customer interviews and popular music. Because Motown was very much in vogue, Makamba sported the bellbottom trousers and enormous afro hairstyle of the time, aligning himself with the racial integration and equality that Motown represented by its crossover success. Very rapidly, he became Southern Rhodesia’s most popular DJ, running 28 radio shows a week and touring the country to run discotheques at events ranging from weddings to New Year’s parties. He established his own company, Incentive Private Ltd.
When most of the white broadcasters left Southern Rhodesia in the lead-up to the country’s independence, Makamba set up and became managing director of a consortium of black entrepreneurs in order to buy out the largest of the country’s advertising production houses and rebrand it as Media Associates. In 1997, one of his companies leased Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC’s) second colour television channel, turning it into the country’s first independent television station, known as Joy TV. The station’s license was revoked in 2002 due to licensing complications. According to officials, government-licensed broadcasters were prohibited from leasing their frequencies to independent broadcasters.
M&M Products
Through his business network established during his time in commercial broadcasting, Makamba met Andrew Young who served as America’s Ambassador to the UN (under President Jimmy Carter) and later as the mayor of Atlanta. Young introduced Makamba to Thurman Mackenzie one of the co-founders of M&M Products the makers Sta-Sof-Fro and Sofn'Free. Makamba was awarded the sole distribution rights for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region by Thurman McKenzie. Makamba was then introduced to Tiny Rowland, then Chief Executive of Lonrho, a London-based conglomerate with diverse interests across Africa. Lonhro became his partners in the M&M Products distribution venture.
Million Dollar Round Table
In the 1980s, one of South Africa’s oldest and largest financial services companies, Old Mutual, began an expansion drive in Europe, the United States, and Asia. Although it had opened an office in Southern Rhodesia in 1927, Old Mutual was not particularly active in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Makamba realised that the combination of Old Mutual’s new focus on expansion and its lack of penetration of the African market represented an enormous business opportunity. During the 1980s Makamba became a consultant, selling insurance and investment products to individuals and organisations on behalf of Old Mutual. Within a record eight months in 1980, he had generated one million American dollars’ worth of sales. According to research, most of the top insurance consultants globally reach the one million dollar target only in their 30 months in the business. As a consequence of his feat, Makamba qualified as a member of the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) Known as the premier association of financial professionals, the MDRT is an international, independent association of nearly 38,000 of the world's leading life insurance and financial services professionals from more than 450 companies in 79 countries. The MDRT requires its members to demonstrate exceptional professional knowledge, strict ethical conduct, and outstanding client service. MDRT membership is recognised internationally as the standard of sales excellence in the life insurance and financial services business Makamba was also consistently among Old Mutual’s top 25 consultants.
Lonrho
Partnering with Makamba in setting up the M&M distributorship in Botswana had given Tiny Rowland insight into Makamba’s negotiation and relationship-building. A few years later, Makamba was appointed to spearhead Lonrho, operations in Botswana serving as Deputy Chairman of the board under the supervision of Tiny Rowland. He also served as senior consultant to Lonrho Zimbabwe and Lonhro PL in London and later spent many years working from the Lonrho Plc. headquarters in Cheapside, London. Makamba was also engaged as a government relations consultant for Lonrho Plc. initiatives across Africa, among them promotion of the Mercedes-Benz franchise in sub-Saharan Africa, the establishment of tea plantations, the building of railways, and the development of tourism and agriculture. When Lonhro was appointed by Boeing to be their agent in Africa, Rowland appointed Makamba as Lonhro’s sales executive for Boeing with the objective of using his vast pan-African business network. Makamba was then able to expand Boeing’s share of the African market. His talent for pre-empting future trends also enabled him to guide the procurement panel at Air Zimbabwe into a choice of the Boeing 767 rather than the more obvious Boeing 747, because it had much lower running costs and would bolster the airline’s profitability.
Telecel
Towards South Africa’s Independence Makamba decided to set up a representative base in Sandton in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1993, the Zimbabwean government awarded three cellular operator licenses. Makamba formed a consortium, made up of women’s groups, miners and other indigenous and previously disadvantaged groupings, under the banner of the Empowerment Corporation Pvt Ltd. Through the Empowerment Corp he was able to partner with Telecel International, the first cellular services provider on the African continent. At inception in 1995, Makamba became chairman of both Telecel Zimbabwe as well as chairman of the consortium, Empowerment Corporation Pvt Ltd.
During his tenure at Telecel Zimbabwe and as a board member of Telecel International, Makamba developed an enduring friendship with Telecel International’s founder, the late Miko Rwayitare. Congolese/Rwandan, Rwayitare brought cellular technology to Africa by obtaining the first ever concession in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) and building it into the continent’s largest cellular operation.
Controversy
Makamba’s ability to build and maintain relationships across cultures and political affiliations and to quickly get to grips with multiple markets and business environments equipped him to fully exploit the wealth creation opportunities he encountered.
Largely seen as Tiny Rowland’s protégé, Makamba followed in the footsteps of his mentor by forging relationships with movers and shakers in both politics and commerce, creating resentment among those less well connected.
The same capabilities also exposed him to criticism from those whose vested interests his initiatives threatened. In addition, his own close relationships were often with controversial people and Tiny Rowland had strong associations with a wide range of African leaders, many of whose public personas were contentious. Nonetheless, Rowland’s ability to straddle cultural and political divides in order to create wealth in Africa for Africans earned him South Africa’s highest honour, the Order of Good Hope – awarded at a public ceremony by former president, Nelson Mandela.
Makamba’s associations and his high profile attracted close media scrutiny. It has been alleged, for instance, that he had an affair with Robert Mugabe’s second wife, Grace Mugabe,[3] and had to flee Zimbabwe as a result.
His response to the allegation is that, along with other members of the ZANU PF Central Committee, he worked closely with Grace Mugabe on international fund-raising initiatives focused on improving the lives of Zimbabwean women and children. “We built schools, orphanages, and old age homes, set up bursaries, established development organisations, and installed electricity supplies, amongst other things. These are 24x7 projects. Rumours are bound to arise. But, in African culture, every woman you encounter is a mother or a sister, depending on her age. We all respected the social barriers such terms imply.”
Makamba was also charged, on three different occasions, with violating Zimbabwe’s Exchange Control Act. On all three occasions, he was arrested and spent lengthy periods in prison – before the trial. All the cases were thrown out.
Makamba was not the only Zimbabwean business person to be harassed in this way. Nicholas Vingirai, chief executive officer of Intermarket Holdings, Gilbert Muponda, CEO of ENG Capital, James Mushore, former deputy managing director of NMB Bank, NMBZ's Julius Makoni, Otto Chekeche, CEO of NMB Bank, Francis Zimuto, NMBZ director, Mthuli Ncube of Barbican Bank, John Moxon, of the Meikles group, and Mutumwa Mawere, who had an extended business empire that included Shabanie and Mashava mines (seized by the government), all fled the country as a result of the government’s 2004 crackdown on the business and financial sector.
In 2005, the government ‘specified’ the business people it had been prosecuting, Makamba among them. Makamba was out of the country at the time and was not able to return to Zimbabwe without being prosecuted.
In 2011, Zimbabwean newspapers accused Makamba of deliberately missing the funeral of his daughter, Chiyedza, who had been killed in a car accident. For Makamba, this has been the most disturbing of the controversies that have surrounded him.
Deprived of his home and his commercial base and having suffered severe financial losses during the six consecutive months in which he had been jailed for the court proceedings before being specified, Makamba had had to rebuild his life by reinforcing existing business interests outside of Zimbabwe as well as creating new revenue streams that would sustain his family during what, at the time, appeared to be an indefinite period of exile.
In 2008, Zimbabwe’s political landscape changed significantly with the signing of the Global Political Agreement ushering in power sharing among Zimbabwe’s three strongest political parties. Robert Mugabe of the Zanu-PF party, which had dominated politics and government since independence in 1980, remained president, but leaders of other parties would be prime minister and deputy prime minister respectively.
Financial reforms were also introduced, with the international community helping Zimbabwe to establish fiscal governance structures and restore Zimbabwe’s reputation as an investment destination. In 2009, the economy was dollarised.
In the same year, Makamba and other business people were despecified. Unlike many of his peers, during the period in which he was despecified, Makamba did not remove his assets from Zimbabwe – and his family continued to live there.
Theoretically, after his despecification, he was free to return to Zimbabwe without being prosecuted. However, while his country was slowly recovering on the economic and political fronts, the bona fides of certain players in the environment remained ambiguous. When Chiyedza Makamba died, it was still impossible for her father to re-enter Zimbabwe.
He requested close friends in Zimbabwe to assist his family with funeral arrangements and comfort them in their grief. Thousands of kilometres away in South Africa, he had to grieve alone.
Because Makamba has to date not returned to Zimbabwe, rumours that ‘James Makamba fears returning to Zimbabwe’ began to circulate, as the media suggested that President Mugabe might have a score to settle with Makamba after his alleged affair with Grace Mugabe.
Makamba says that, given the traumatic way in which he was denied access to his country and the emotional consequences to himself and his family of his not being able to attend his daughter’s funeral, he wants to return to Zimbabwe in a way that makes that return a positive experience for the family. “It needs to be a special occasion, free of controversy and media attention. This is a family and not a political matter. As a family, we will choose an appropriate time.” Makamba’s largest personal and business investments remain committed to Zimbabwe.
Philanthropy
Makamba’s philanthropic work began early on in his career as a broadcaster providing broadcast and MC services for organisations such as The Jairos Jiri Association raising funds for clothes and wheelchairs and awareness for the displaced and disabled. Makamba alongside Joseph Kapardza, Chenhamo Chimutengwende was one of the founders the Mashonaland Central Development Association which assisted the residents of Mashonaland Central Province by providing necessities such as food, fertilizer, medication and scholarships for those in need.
Ibbamo
In 2009, inspired by the role education had played in Barack Obama’s rise to the world’s most powerful political position, Makamba founded the IBBAMO Foundation, registering it in South Africa and the United Kingdom. The name is an acronym for ‘inspired by Barak and Michelle Obama’. The organisation raises funds and establishes projects for improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged African children. The foundation’s programmes are focused on academic excellence, leadership, social responsibility, and entrepreneurship – and are a reflection of Makamba’s own philosophy: education is the oxygen of life. In 2015 IBBAMO Foundation won a Zimbabwe Achievers’ Award for the best organisation in Community development in South Africa.
James Makamba Foundation
In 2014, following the growth and impact of the IBBAMO Foundation, Makamba consolidated his philanthropic efforts under one organisation, the eponymous James Makamba Foundation which consists of three pillars: IBBAMO, IBMAT and IBSOD which focus on education, entrepreneurship and social development respectively.
Political career
When General Solomon Tapfumaneyi Mujuru retired from his post-independence position as commander of the Zimbabwe National Army, he went into business and farming. He chose Makamba to be one of his partners in businesses in Shamva and Bindura where Makamba would be elected to the Bindura Council. Makamba was later elected to the position of Town Board Chairman (akin to a mayor). He was then elected ZANU-PF Provincial Chairman for Mashonaland Central Province and later Member of Parliament for Mount Darwin constituency in 1995. He was also one of the businessmen who travelled internationally with President Robert Mugabe to promote investment in Zimbabwe. He resigned from public life to pursue his career as a government relations consultant for Lonrho Plc.
Controversy
Makamba was also charged, on three different occasions, with violating Zimbabwe’s Exchange Control Act. On all three occasions, he was arrested and spent lengthy periods in prison – before the trial. All the cases were subsequently thrown out.
References
- ^ News, DzeZimbabwe (12 June 2013). "MAKAMBA AWARDED PHD BY PHILIPPINES UNIVERSITY". NewsdzeZimbabwe. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
{{cite news}}:|last=has generic name (help) - ^ Ibbamo, Website. "Wed Admin". Charity. Ibbamo Website. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
- ^ Laing, Aislinn (26 Oct 2010). "Reporter". The Telegraph. Retrieved 26 Oct 2010.