Shining example of self-sufficiency from Africa's richest tribe

Tribalism is a bad word in Africa, with its image of vicious factional squabbles and peasants scratching a living from an unyielding earth.

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Not so the fate of the Bafokeng, who have cannily managed to become Africa's richest tribe.

Some 300,000 strong, the Bafokeng are found in South Africa's north-west province, living above the world's largest platinum deposit.

Usually, such riches are exploited by mining companies. The closest local people get to it is by slinging picks in the shafts deep underground.

But for a succession of smart rulers, the fate of the Bafokeng would have been the same. Today, the tribe owns holdings in 18 companies ranging from telecommunications to short-term insurance; its assets worth more than 30 billion rand (Dh13.52bn).

This month, Royal Bafokeng, the investment firm that manages the tribe's wealth, paid US$650 million (Dh2.38bn) for a stake in RMB Holdings, one of South Africa's largest banking groups.

And last year, David Beckham and his team spent the duration of the Fifa World Cup at the tribal-owned Royal Bafokeng Stadium, which also hosted six of the tournament's matches.

Investments such as these ensure a steady income in royalties and dividends of up to 800m rand a year. This is used to pay for schools, clinics, roads and water supplies in the scattered villages where the Bafokeng live.

None of this would have been possible without the foresight of King August Mokgatle, who ruled the tribe during the tumultuous years of the 19th century. As white colonists poured on to tribal lands, the king sent his regiments to the gold mines of Johannesburg to earn hard currency as labourers.

The money they earned was used to buy up land from the British colonial government, giving the tribe vital title deeds to the land they farmed. These deeds have remained the property of the tribe ever since.

The various white overlords, including the apartheid government, as well as mining companies, have tried to divest the tribe of its ownership claims. The final battle was an intense, 10-year legal dispute with Impala Platinum over royalties from its mines on tribal land.

This was settled in 1999, when Impala paid the tribe about 850m rand in mining rights for the area. The deal paved the way for the Bafokeng to begin, after more than a century, to draw direct benefit from their land.

The high point was the listing of the tribe's own platinum company on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) last year. "The Bafokeng sent their young men to mines in order to raise money to buy their land back," Steve Phiri, the chief executive of Royal Bafokeng Platinum, said at the floating last year. "It was a hard struggle and little did they know that one day the company would list on the JSE."

The tribe still has a long way to go. Most of its people are still unemployed and live in poverty. But the current King Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi, a direct descendent of King Mokgatle, is working to change this. A plan labelled Vision 2020 aims to have the entire tribe self-sufficient within the next decade.

The idea is also to move away from dependency on platinum. Tribal leaders are aware that eventually the deposits will run out and are exploring diversified investments that range from tourism to manufacturing.

The tribe's success is all the more remarkable given the heat around mine nationalisation that is preocuppying the industry and government in South Africa. For many black South Africans, little has changed after 16 years of democracy and the demand for a share of the spoils of the country's immense mineral wealth is growing.

The Bafokeng have shown it is possible to draw a balance between private ownership and communal needs. Like Abu Dhabi, which shunned the nationalisation opted for by most of the Gulf states, the Bafokeng have successfully used private business principles to grow their wealth.

* with Reuters

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