The African Wealthy

 There are 163,000 dollar millionaires in Africa, according to a report by New World Wealth; a Johannesburg research company. According to the report, Johannesburg has 46,800 millionaires. About 600 of those have over $30 million. Egypt is next with 20,200 millionaires; Nigeria with 15,400 and Kenya 8,500.

If you look at the asset allocation of the average South African millionaire, about 30% of their assets are in business interests, 25 % in equities, about 20% in property and then rest will be in cash, fixed income instruments, bonds and alternative investments like collectables like art

The African luxury sector generated an estimated $8 billion in revenue in 2014; with $2.8 billion coming out of South Africa.

Collectables such as art, wine and classic automobiles are increasingly popular and accounted for $5.3 billion of the total assets of African high net worth individuals at the end of 2014, according to New World Wealth. $32 million was generated in South African sales of super-luxury watches in 2014; up from $23 million in 2013.

The South African yacht industry generates about $150 million per year. Angola and South Africa are the top spots for yachting in sub-Saharan Africa. Morocco and Egypt are the top spots in North Africa. The yacht owners are mostly male, between the ages of 40 to 50, with average earnings of over $300,000 per year.

Kenyan Inequality

Kenya is ranked by both the World Bank and the CIA as among the 50 most unequal countries in the world. Kenya is experiencing some of the highest growth rates of its 50 years, but the distribution of the proceeds of this growth has been very different across the different segments of the population.

Nairobi is a tale of two cities. For the connected few, it is the best of times; for the disconnected many, it is the worst of times. It is the richest county, capital's capital, but it is also among the most unequal, with grinding levels of poverty. It is where inequality is distilled and concentrated and most visible; where the haves are having more and the have nots are not, and both exist in close quarters. Nairobi has the country's most expensive real estate and the most expensive rents, but it also has the highest number of the homeless.

Nairobi is home to both the richest and some of the poorest locations in the country. In some locations average wages are north of Sh100,000, and in others they are a fortieth of that figure, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Nairobi may be growing faster than any other region in the country or the region; we learnt that the capital has more dollar millionaires than Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia combined. It is so rich that it can comfortably be weaned off the national teat during county disbursements, according to the Commission for Revenue Allocation. The problem is that the wealth doesn't spread.

Kenya's rich hold at least Sh51 billion in just one Swiss bank, HSBC. Most dollar millionaires make their loot, not from finding innovative solutions and spectacular products, but from speculating on land. Nineteen per cent of the country’s 8,500 dollar millionaires minted their money from flipping property; the second highest number of millionaires is from finance. The problem with the rich is that they lack the noblesse oblige. They have no concept or care of the wider society.

 The state is helping the rich accumulate more. Policies that favour grand projects and huge kickbacks are drawn up before ones that actually help people. There still is no cost-benefit analysis for the Standard Gauge Railway line, but already it is rising up from the dirt and the bill is being drawn up.

 From here 

The real inequality in South Africa

A new report by New World Wealth, an information consulting services firm, says there are close to 47,000 “high net-worth individuals” (HNWI) in South Africa. These are folks who are worth at least $1 million a year. They possess a combined wealth of $184 billion and constitute 31% of the country’s overall wealth. Since 2007 the number of HNWIs has grown by about 9%, with the actual volume of their wealth also going up 9%. White South Africans are the highest proportion (69%). Johannesburg, South Africa’s second largest city, has the highest number of millionaires. But Durban made the biggest jump growing by 200% since the year 2000.

South African banking CEOs – some of the highest earners in the country – are taking home between 40 and 80 times more than their average employees.

Looking at South Africa’s five biggest retail banking groups – Barclay’s Africa, Standard Bank, FirstRand, Capitec and Nedbank – the average retail banking employee earns an average of R360,000 per year. Meanwhile, across the groups, CEOs take an average of R2.1 million – almost 60 times as much as the average employee. Nedbank CEO, Mike Brown, was the top earner among banking execs in 2014, taking home a salary of R35 million for the year. This is 77 times greater than the average employee earns at the bank, which sits at R453,720 for its 30,500 employees.

South Africa sits with the 5th highest average pay gap in the world, after the USA (1st), Hong Kong (2nd), Germany (3rd), and the UK (4th).

All this wealth is limited to the few. For example, unemployment stands at 24%, well above emerging-market averages, and it’s the highest amongst the world’s top 40 economies.

Ethiopian Migrants Deported From Saudi Arabia

They went in a bid to escape poverty, but few really succeeded, even if they did find work. Many were abused by their employers. Now, 144,000 Ethiopians have returned home, deported from Saudi Arabia, which began a crackdown on undocumented foreign workers in November 2012.
The authorities in Ethiopia were expecting migrants to return, but, anticipating a mere 30,000, they set aside just US$2.6 million to help with reintegration.

“The assistance they are receiving now is short-term, but once they get back to their homes, they will need long-term assistance, like finding jobs and reintegrating into the community, and the government must work towards these goals,” Sharon Dimanche, from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told IRIN.
The government has also banned its citizens from travelling to the Middle East, a move migration expert say will not only lead people to head for new destinations, such as Sudan, but could flout international laws on freedom of movement.

According to Chris Horwood, of the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS), the main drivers of migration from Ethiopia are “endemic poverty caused by economic inequality, poor education and training options.”
He added, “We also know about pressures on access to natural resources and the impact of climate change making some areas very fragile. So people migrate as a coping strategy to poverty and lack of opportunity, and some migrants from Ethiopia particularly identify political oppression (particularly the Oromo).”

In 2010, Ethiopia came up with its Growth and Transformation Plan, a five-year blueprint for economic growth. “Four million jobs have been created in the first three years… We hope, if this trend continues, we will have a substantially reduced number of migrants going out of the country very soon,” Abdulfetah Abdulahi, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, told IRIN.
Yitna Getachew, of IOM, agreed that such initiatives could help stem migration, but said that the effects were unlikely to be immediate. “It takes time before people can begin to feel comfortable with economic prospects at home. The early stages of economic growth - the World Bank estimates that it will exceed 7 percent in Ethiopia between 2013 and 2015, while in 2012, its economy was the 12th fastest growing economy globally - currently being experienced in Ethiopia are likely to increase cases of migration,” said Getachew. “People who hitherto had no money are beginning to get an income, which they can invest in migration by bribing smugglers, migration officials and buying fake documents.”

Read the experiences of individual deported migrants here