| | Perhaps no issue more dramatically illustrates South Africa's metamorphosis from apartheid pariah than the mushrooming South African parastatal and corporate presence in Africa.
From a time only 15 years ago when that presence was limited to the South African Customs Union (SACU) states and Zimbabwe, South African corporates are now running the national railroad in Cameroon, managing power plants in Mali and Zambia, controlling banks and supermarkets in Tanzania, Mozambique and Kenya, dominating the huge telecommunications markets in Nigeria, Uganda and Swaziland, taking a majority share in Ghana's 'flagship' mining house, Ashanti Goldfields, to cite just some of the larger ventures in what has sometimes in the popular media been referred to as the 'South Africanisation' of the African economy. This is of course an exaggeration but may not be so in a decade or two if current trends are maintained. |
