African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 995 Service-Oriented Government

Mayor Lorraine went on to say: “Based on the above situation, the external forces that we can rely on for the economic development of Mombasa are, first, the central government’s policy preference, second, the support from the province, third, other provinces in East Africa, and next I will talk about the fourth force that can be relied on, which is foreign capital.”

"Among the current economic developments in various cities in East Africa, there is one city that is a typical example of development with the help of foreign capital, and that is Maputo in Hansa Province."

"I think everyone is familiar with Maputo, the capital of the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique. After the South African War, Maputo's economic and political status in East Africa actually declined, which made Maputo not have an advantage in obtaining resources and policies, and its conditions were much worse than those in Mombasa."

“With the support of Hansa Province and the Maputo City Government, Maputo has introduced a large amount of foreign capital from Portugal and other countries. In the past few years, its economic development has achieved good results. In addition, with the establishment of the Maputo Steel Plant in the First Five-Year Plan, this is undoubtedly a sign of its return to the ranks of important cities.”

“This also gave us a direction to think about, that is, how to make full use of foreign capital in the development of Mombasa. Through in-depth analysis and understanding, I found a point that is often overlooked, that is, our country lacks attention to capital from colonies or backward countries.”

Mayor Lorraine's words undoubtedly aroused everyone's interest, because through tinted glasses, colonies or backward countries always give people the impression of poverty and backwardness, and naturally they do not receive much attention.

Lorraine went on to say: “But people often overlook an important point, that is, the people in these colonies or backward countries are indeed very poor, but their upper class is very rich.”

"Among them, I want to single out India. India was a British colony. There is no doubt that in the propaganda and impression in East Africa, Indians were the objects of slavery and were cruelly exploited by the British. Many Indians were hungry and often suffered from famine."

"However, because of this, we often forget that Indians are not all lower class people. Indian society has the most perfect racial system. Many of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas or other religious leaders in India, or princes and nobles, are arrogant and extravagant. They control a large amount of India's wealth, and through cooperation with the British, they have the autonomy to control their own wealth."

"The British are like the Mongols in history. Although the Mongols exploited other regions, they colluded with local interest groups to achieve mutual benefit."

After all, all the bad things were done by the colonists. This way, the local interest groups could get benefits without having to bear the blame. Indian princes and nobles cooperated with Britain based on this model.

And when the contradictions among the lower classes of Indian society were thoroughly aroused and could no longer be suppressed, they jumped out, "followed" the will of the people, pretended to be heroes who drove away the British colonists, and took over the state power.

Of course, no matter how shady these princes, nobles and high-caste Indians are, it does not hinder Mayor Lorraine's thoughts.

He said bluntly: "The key point is that these high-level Indians control a large amount of social wealth, and the wealth of Indian princes and nobles is mostly collected through rent and taxation, which means that Indian princes and nobles have a large amount of unconsumed wealth in their hands."

"Although Indian princes and nobles may have investments and industries in the UK, they account for a small proportion of their wealth, as can be seen from our commercial trade with India."

"In the past five years, India has been the second largest consumer of cars in Mombasa, with a large portion of orders coming from Indian princes and wealthy people. Indians are also good at doing business. During the South African War, a large number of Indian businessmen served the British and Portuguese armies, and they also accumulated a lot of wealth through the British colonial system." "So if we want to obtain industrial development funds, we can start with the upper class people in these backward but well-funded countries and regions and attract them to invest in Mombasa."

"We happen to have advantages in this regard. First of all, we are very close to India, the Middle East and other countries, and Mombasa itself has many Arab and Indian business groups."

"We can use this as a breakthrough point to build a number of industrial enterprises in joint ventures with their bosses behind the scenes. We should not be stingy with some policy benefits, which is nothing more than support in terms of land rent rules. As long as we let them invest money in our factory construction first, they will not be able to get away easily, and they will also stand by our side to help with product sales."

Lorraine's idea is to trap these external capitals through joint ventures. Once they fall into the trap set by Lorraine, it will not be easy for these external funds to withdraw their investment. Before the factory is built and put into production, they can't even think about recovering their costs. After production, they also have to help solve the sales problem. The companies that are able to cooperate with the Mombasa Municipal Government are definitely not ordinary people. They have strength and connections in the region, which will make it easier for Mombasa industrial products to open up new sales channels.

“Of course, we cannot exhaust all the resources. We must give the people what they deserve. We cannot sacrifice the future of Mombasa for short-term benefits. What we need is industry to solve the employment problem, not profit as the first goal.”

"Only after the industry is established and developed can we consider other issues. Only by laying a long line can we catch the big fish."

“If the reputation of Mombasa in the Indian Ocean region is damaged due to credibility issues, we will not only lose the chance to surpass Dar es Salaam, but we may even lose future development opportunities.”

We cannot ignore the city’s business environment just because of Mombasa’s locational advantages. Many cities fail to develop because of the local government’s laziness or even complicity in their work.

Without regulation, the business environment anywhere will be quite poor. After all, more than 99.9 percent of businessmen are profit-driven, which is inevitable in every country today.

This also puts higher demands on the Mombasa Municipal Government. As an important commercial center in East Africa, Mombasa must provide comfortable services to passing merchants so that more merchants can come to Mombasa to seek opportunities and drive local economic development.

Just imagine, if the officials of the Mombasa Municipal Government all have bad faces, it will definitely leave a bad impression on foreign businessmen, which will inevitably have a bad impact on the image of the Mombasa Municipal Government and bring negative impact on local business and trade activities.

Therefore, Lorraine emphasized to various departments of the municipal government: "Remember that a service-oriented government is an important development goal of Mombasa. In this increasingly competitive era, a smile can give a foreign businessman a good impression. If he is in a good mood, he may directly invest in an industry."

“Therefore, I will include the government’s service attitude in the assessment of Mombasa city officials, further strengthen supervision and monitoring, and organize a staff training next month. If anyone fails to deliver, I will make you lose the hat. Don’t feel wronged. These are necessary measures for the success of the Greater Mombasa City Plan. Even I will lead by example.”

(End of this chapter)