#FRONTROW: Why Mugabe will live forever and other stories from WEF

Robert Mugabe is probably going to live forever; it is time to accept that. “You have to understand that Mugabe’s mother lived to 104 years,” a Zimbabwean friend told me over lunch in Johannesburg on Saturday when I mentioned her president’s long life. The 27th World Economic Forum on Africa, at which Mugabe had spoken, had closed the previous day in the South African coastal city of Durban. Considering that he’s running for president and he’s only 93, the man will be running the Southern African nation long after we’re all gone.

So it was fascinating to have him on a WEF panel on fragile states, where he named Zimbabwe “the second most developed country” after South Africa, a solid alternative fact. ‘“We have over 14 universities and our literacy rate is over 90 per cent – the highest in Africa,” the president  had said. He wasn’t the only head of state circulating around the Durban International Convention Centre last week. President Jacob Zuma walked right past me, delaying an interview I was setting up for but at least he was polite enough to say hello. “Good afternoon, Mr President,” I called after him as he did a walkabout of the venue. His new Finance minister, Malusi Gigaba, was also in attendance but all the attention was really on Pravin Gordhan, the man he had replaced.

“As leaders, we have not addressed adequately how we are going to close the gap between the rich and the poor,” said President Zuma in his remarks. That stood out because the charity Oxfam International had just named his country one of the most unequal in the world. “In South Africa, three billionaires own the same wealth as the poorest half of the population – around 28 million people,” it had said.

Shortly after the presidential interruption, I sat down with Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam’s executive director and co-chair of this edition of the conference. “Governments must focus on eradicating poverty, tackling inequality and not just obsess about achieving growth figures,” she told me. “If you want investments that will really change lives, you have to look at different business models such as cooperatives, which directly provide livelihoods for half of the population of Kenya.”

Later that afternoon, I tried to interview her country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, as he walked out of a session. “A question, Mr President?” He slowed down and turned to look at me but his South African security detail was steadily pushing me away. He was wearing his trademark hat and had an army of aides trailing along as he did the rounds. WEF isn’t just an outing for African presidents trying to cozy up to the global business elite. A panel I moderated on the second day included Google’s head of policy, Caroline Atkinson, who was President Obama’s deputy national security adviser. I flew to Durban on the same flight as former ICT permanent secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo and IBM Kenya Country Manager Nick Nesbitt. Centum CEO James Mworia was hanging around the common area, taking meetings and generally blending in like a pro.

At the media centre, my producer-cameraman and frequent travel companion, Ephy Mwangi, and I forced ourselves on to the CGTN Africa table. My old boss, Beatrice Marshall, who appears to be getting younger every year, stopped by to chat from time to time. My old schoolmate sat across the table, typing away on a computer larger than a BVR kit. Someone kept leaving a fridge door open, which led to an incessant beeping sound similar to the sound your prepaid electricity meter makes when it runs out of units. On a screen behind us, my old colleague, Edith Kimani, sat next to Senegalese President Macky Sall, asking about how to get power to the poorest, remotest parts of the continent.

Evenings at WEF are set aside for loud parties where drinks and compliments flow freely. The trendy California Dreaming Club on the mouth of the beautiful Durban Beach was the location of both the McKinsey and CNBC Africa parties for two nights in a row. Trade Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohammed sipped a soft drink as we wondered aloud why we couldn’t have a similarly well managed beach in Kenya. He had a busy schedule, holding bilateral meetings with his South African counterpart and trying to get WEF to host its 2018 African gathering in Nairobi. Health CS Cleopa Maillu also made appearances on the forum floor, pitching a new model for public healthcare backed by the private sector. Nearly 1,000 participants were at the meeting themed “Achieving Inclusive Growth through Responsive and Responsible Leadership.” It is a well-oiled machine where sessions begin on time and stars like Forest Whitaker show up to talk about their humanitarian work.

“If I hear ‘fintech’ or ‘inclusive growth’ one more time, I’ll stab someone,” a friend told us over dinner.

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Ever heard of interns who earn Sh800,000?

If you ever needed proof that you have wasted your life, here it is: an intern at Facebook earns Sh800,000 a month. The median pay for interns at Microsoft is Sh710,000 and Sh650,700 at ExxonMobil. These figures are for the US and were calculated using the Bureau of Labour Statistics’ latest weekly earnings data for full-time wage and salaried workers.

“According to a new report by the jobs site, Glassdoor, the 25 best-paying companies for internships each pay their median summer worker more than $4,500 (Sh463,500) a month,” wrote the Washington Post. Most of them are technology companies with Salesforce, Amazon, Apple, Bloomberg, Yelp, Yahoo, VMWare and Google in the lead in that order.

The minimum wage in Kenya went up to Sh14,868 at the beginning of this month. Thousands of Kenyans  earn around that much and have to live on it.  Meanwhile, the Facebook intern lives it up on an income most Kenyans, even in higher levels of formal employment, can only dream of. If they live in notoriously expensive San Francisco or New York that doesn’t translate to much, but still, very impressive.

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Macron reclaims France

“I can become president one day,” my friend Marieme Jamme wrote on Facebook on Sunday night. Emmanuel Macron, 39, had just been announced as the winner of the run-off in the French presidential election, and there was euphoric celebration across the country. Marieme is originally from Senegal and besides her many other achievements, is working to teach a million girls computer programming.

Nobody has been this inspiring since President Barack Obama came to the White House in 2009. In fact, the world has been short of hopey-changey stuff since the son of Kogelo stepped out of the global stage. Marine Le Pen was a French Donald Trump whose nationalist agenda would have fractured France and hurt Europe.

Just like the Dutch, the French were smart enough to pick an untested leader who is neither left nor right but promises to make things right. The years ahead will be interesting to watch.