Tanzanian business magnet, Mohamed Dewji.
Dar es Salaam. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Tanzanian business magnet, Mohamed Dewji as one of his advisors on investment issues.
Mr Dewji, popularly known by his admirers as Mo and who is chief executive officer for Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (MeTL), will sit on President Ramaphosa’s investment advisory council, for a period a three years.
A statement, released yesterday by MeTL, said Mo and his colleagues on President Ramaphosa’s investment advisory council, will be responsible for the development and implementation of strategies and programs to attract and retain domestic and foreign direct investment to the Republic of South Africa.
“The appointment takes into consideration the role that Mo Dewji has played through his investments in a number of countries in Africa where his companies have created a lot of jobs,” reads the statement in part.
It states that through his letter to Mo, the South African leader believes the Tanzanian tycoon will help his country (South Africa) in its endeavour to attract investors who will put the country’s economy on the right footing.
The statement says President Ramaphosa says in the letter that Mo’s presence in the council will be a boost to South Africa’s efforts in marketing the country’s investment potentials across the world, a development that will have a profound impact on growth of Africa’s second largest economy.
“The council will specifically be entrusted with the duty of analysing views and bottlenecks that prevent investors from flocking into the rainbow nation and propose best ways to strengthen relationships between the public and private sectors, development partners and investment agents. The utmost aim will be to boost the pace of economic and technological development in South Africa,” the statement reads.
The appointment means Mo will be sitting in various meetings that will be organised in and out of South Africa which will involve members of the business community and government officials where he will have a chance to share his insights into investment, challenges and their possible solutions.
Mo’s MeTL has invested massively in agriculture, manufacturing and in transport logistics in a number of African countries, creating over 100,000 jobs in the process.
In 2019, President Ramaphosa announced the appointment of an 18-member presidential economic advisory council, in line with his pronouncements in the state-of-the-nation address in February.
During that time, he appointed a Tanzanian, the late Prof Benno Ndulu as a member of his 18-member Presidential Economic Advisory Council.
In October 2019, President Ramaphosa used the first sitting of his presidential economic advisory council to announce that he would be appointing two more councils - one on investment and another on state-owned entities.
He did not detail what the function of the investment advisory and SOE councils would be.
However, South Africa is not the only country in the world with an investment advisory council. In the United States, this group “advises the Secretary of Commerce on the development and implementation of strategies and programs to attract and retain foreign direct investment.
The gist of it all is that the council solicits advice from the private sector and other key stakeholders on the promotion and retention of foreign direct investment.
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