News — Billion

French billionaire Vincent Bolloré has been accused of shady deals and underhand dealings in the processes leading to his company’s control of Ghana’s largest port, the Tema Harbour.

In a special report, Pan African publication African-Confidential uncovered how Bolloré’s firm, Bolloré Africa Logistics, won the right to build and run a state-of-the-art container terminal at Ghana’s Tema port.

The report described the new container port of Tema as a “lifeline not only for Ghana but for landlocked Burkina Faso and Mali, through their 70% owned joint venture with the Ghana government, Meridian Port Services (MPS).”

The agreement, which was signed under the administration of then Ghanaian President John Mahama, became a subject of a ministerial investigation following his defeat in 2016 to President Nana Akufo-Addo, who secured a second term in December 2020.

The ministerial committee report said the French billionaire and his partners persuaded Mahama to award MPS a new container terminal contract in secret in breach of the country’s procurement laws.

It also said MPS overstated its planned investment which won tax holidays worth $832 million from Ghana’s parliament and that the agreement surreptitiously cut Ghana’s equity in MPS to 15% after first agreeing to 30%.

The committee’s report further claimed that Bolloré and his partners persuaded the government to allow it a monopoly on handling containers, “putting thousands of jobs at other port concerns at risk and driving up prices, and to set tariffs.”

The committee’s report also showed how Bolloré and his partners reduced the fees payable to the government over the life of the concession by $4.1 billion.

To this end, the committee concluded that the deal did not inure to the benefit of Ghana and recommended for a renegotiation which the Akufo-Addo administration ignored. 

“The terms of the agreements between MPS and the state are so tilted against Ghana’s interests, concluded the report, delivered to ministers in February 2018, they should be renegotiated immediately. Yet the much-criticized contracts are still unchanged,” Africa Confidential said.

Africa Confidential further reported that the history of those relations shows “serious ethical professional deficiencies” with the result that “the engagements have to be carefully and deliberately reviewed.”

The newsletter noted that President Akufo-Addo inherited the situation when he won the 2016 election and “instead of blaming the scandal on his predecessor he has chosen to leave the contracts as they stand while friends and officials of his New Patriotic Party (NPP) take up posts with MPS.”

According to Africa Confidential, although Akufo-Addo faced Mahama in December 2020’s general election, “the topic of the Tema deal did not come up in campaigning.”

“The two men appeared to observe a pact of silence on this and several other instances of alleged bad governance and corruption. Akufo-Addo narrowly won the election (AC Vol 61 No 25). This is the story of how the deal took shape, and how a fightback within the Transport Ministry and the NPP against the MPS deal was finally quashed, and the legendary ability of Vincent Bolloré to accommodate political change asserted itself,” it added.

Bolloré has been accused of running a port monopoly in West Africa as his firm is linked to managing 18 ports in the sub-region.

The report likened Bolloré’s concession of Ghana’s port to one he won in for his operations at the port of Lomé, Togo, in return for financing the re-election of the country’s president, Faure Gnassingbé, in 2010.

“On 26 February this year Bolloré and two of his fellow executives admitted, in a plea bargain, to bribing the Togolese president in exchange for favors at the port, and were fined €375,000 each. Bolloré’s company paid a €12 million fine (see Box, Bolloré – a monopoly in every port). The judge was so shocked by what they had done in Togo she rejected details of the plea bargain and ordered a trial of the executives,” the report added.

Tech investor Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are on a mission to make bitcoin (BTC) the internet’s currency. The two billionaires are investing 500 bitcoin into a new endowment called ₿trust. With the rapid rise of bitcoin in the last few weeks, the 500 bitcoin investment is currently worth over $23 million.

Dorsey shared the news on Twitter Friday, announcing that the investment would be used to fund bitcoin development in Africa and India. He noted that the endowment will be set up as a “blind irrevocable trust” and have “zero direction” from himself and Jay-Z.

The duo is searching for three board members to help oversee the endowment. Dorsey shared a board member application with three simple inputs: email address, name, and proof of work.

Two Investors Join Forces

Jay-Z is widely known as a music mogul but he’s no stranger to the investing scene. He’s the co-founder of Marcy Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on consumer brands. Last year, the company raised $85 million and had already invested in six companies.

Since 2015, Dorsey has served as the CEO of both Twitter and Square. A few months ago, Square invested $50 million in Bitcoin. The company believes that cryptocurrency is “an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way to participate in a global monetary system”.

What is Bitcoin?

Founded in 2009, bitcoin is the world’s first decentralized cryptocurrency. It is also the largest cryptocurrency in the world based on market capitalization. Bitcoin provides an efficient and cost-effective way to make financial transactions.

Proponents of bitcoin favor this digital currency because it works without the use of intermediaries like banks and governments. This is all powered by blockchain — a powerful piece of technology that allows uses to exchange value on a public ledger. Many believe that blockchain has the power to transform the world.

Bitcoin is Gaining More Attention

According to CNBC, Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and plans to accept it as a payment method. This week, Mastercard announced that it would start supporting a select group of cryptocurrencies on their network.

Major investors have already started jumping on the cryptocurrency train. Top investors Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller are investing in cryptocurrency to protect their portfolio against inflation.

Over the past few months, the third wealthiest woman in the world, MacKenzie Scott, has donated a staggering $4.2 billion of her fortune to various entities across the country including some HBCUs.

In a recent post on her Medium titled “384 Ways to Help”, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos touched on how a food donation drive of a then 19-year-old lady in Chicago during the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired her to also launch her own.

“In March, a 19-year-old girl in Chicago sent a group text to her friends suggesting they buy supplies for people in their neighborhood who had lost their jobs,” she wrote. “She posted two Google forms — one for people who needed help and another for people with help to give — and by two days later they’d raised $7,000. ‘We’re really excited,’ she said.”

The lady in question was Alycia Kamil. Speaking to media, activist, poet and educator, said she was surprised when she heard the billionaire mentioned her program in her post.

“I was like, oh, that’s me. I had no clue that she even donated that amount of money, or that she saw an article from somewhere about the work that I did that inspired her. It was pretty cool,” Kamil said.

Kamil told the news outlet she wanted to extend a helping hand to residents who lived in areas that lacked affordable and healthy food options and were in need of groceries around the period COVID-19 hit the city. Together with her friends and volunteers, they were able to raise $7,000 and arranged for groceries worth $200 to $300 to be delivered to 30 families.

“I wanted to do a more hands-on thing to be considerate of the people who, even if they get the money, they have to take the bus and then bring all these groceries on the bus,” she said. “It’s about the importance of understanding communal living. We should all be able to resource and depend on each other.”

The food initiative wasn’t Kamil’s first, as she had also previously assisted with hosting a number of “Feed the Block” events where they gave hot meals to residents through GoodKids MadCity. The youth-led non-profit organization fights to end violence in Chicago and lobbies for more resources to be made available to underserved communities, according to reports.

The 20-year-old said she’s following that up with a similar project – “Resource the Block” – to hand out PPE, water, packaged food and other supplies to needy families. She said she’ll also roll out her grocery initiative again during the winter season.

 “Growing up, I didn’t see any Black contractors,” says David Moody, who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of C.D. Moody Construction Company, Inc., a Black Enterprise BE 100s listed company for several consecutive years.

From his bedroom, he started his construction firm in the 1980s when he was in debt and was financially constrained to the point that he could barely feed his family. His wife went back to nursing school to become a registered nurse so they could have a steady income as he struggles to ensure the company succeeds.

With determination and hard work, his company is thriving and has undertaken over 200 commercial projects valued at $3 billion. Also, he is responsible for some of the iconic buildings in Atlanta, Georgia.

“I worked for some small construction companies and a very large construction company and this might sound strange, but it just kind of happened. I had reached a point where my wife and I said we don’t have anything to lose, so let’s give it a try. That is how it all happened. Our first office was our bedroom,” Moody tells shoppeblack about his beginning.

The success of his company happened together with the regional growth and his contribution to the building of 21st century Atlanta cannot be overemphasized as its emergence helped fuel Moody’s success. He is also giving back to his community by mentoring the next business leaders and inculcating in Atlanta kids the habit of saving.

What is rewarding for Moody is the fact that what started as a dream is now the source of livelihood for many others. “Giving back to help others is a great feeling,” he says. He attributes the success of his company to God and the fact that God used him to help others turn trauma into triumph.

“The other reasons are my wife and I have never had an expensive lifestyle and I have loved architecture and construction since I was a child,” he says, adding that: “I am living a dream that I didn’t think would happen for me.”

One of his latest commercial ventures was in 2019 when he joined as a 49% partner on a $650 million mix of affordable and market-rate housing, restaurants, retail, offices, and a performing arts center.

Moody advises young entrepreneurs to have a passion for whatever they do and not to be motivated by money. He stressed that once they are able to hone their craft, the money will follow. “…Don’t cut corners and honor your word. Never lie and let honesty guide your steps,” he adds.

Moody was born in Chicago, Illinois before relocating to Michigan when he was only 14 years old to stay with his dad who was employed at the University of Michigan. He attended Huron High School and obtained his B.S. in Psychology from Morehouse College in 1978.

By 1981, he had received his Bachelor of Architecture and five-year professional degree from Howard University. He worked as an architect/field engineer for Bechtel Power Corporation. He later taught structural design and mechanical systems at Washtenaw Community College.