Reginald Mengi, Ujamaa and Capitalism

Dr. Mengi has been successful for all the 20+ years I have known of him but his norm has always been the struggle. You will always hear of him venturing onto the next big thing irrespective of the resistance he faces! Real entrepreneurs embody this and must possess a spirit for resolve that is greater than the resistance ahead.

The irony of our post Ujamaa legacy is that it gave sanctuary to myths that are at the core of our never-ending quagmire:

1. Can Ujamaa coexist with Capitalism?
2. Is Capitalism solely about wealth creation?

Can Ujamaa coexist with Capitalism?

As China and the rest of the socialist/communist world has proven in recent years - YES!

Ujamaa (African Socialism), at best, was a social navigation tool aiming to forge a national identity invested in universal but very African values that were/are core to the preservation of our humanity.

Capitalism, at best, is an operating system governing productivity efficiency and effectiveness in a modern economy.

At some point these two may have claimed exclusivity but in reality, they serve the same purpose just from different vintage points. Socialism deals more with our humanity and the values that underscore it, while capitalism deals more with our economy and the principles that govern its productivity.

This distinction may seem insignificant in today’s ‘capitalist’ world but is central to the ongoing and very displaced narrative on Ujamaa’s role in preserving our core values going forward and how this should translate into the principles that drive our productive sector whether it be publicly or privately owned.

Is capitalism solely about wealth creation?

Another myth is born out of the history of capitalism and circumstances within which this debate may have started. At its outset, ‘capitalism’ was vested in its profit motive and consequently was closely, if not, exclusively linked to wealth creation and resource exploitation.

But as history has taught us, sustainability of a business’s profitability is a function also of how the wealth we create is distributed organically through income (wage) and or redistributed through tax to ensure a ‘balance’ in society’s pursuit for progress.

For example, Jack Ma, the Chinese Billionaire, is evidently a brilliant capitalist mind but still embodies an amazing socialist heart (the perfect combo, no?). In a clip that recently went viral, he says in, not these exact same words, that when you make USD 1m, it’s you and your family’s money but when you make more than that: USD 10m, 100m etc; it’s the societies money. This speaks to the obligation born by wealth creators to manage responsibly the resources at their disposal.

How many of our wealthy think like this?

Even the wealthy of the West, as we see them today, are not the capitalists by the measures of Max’s socialism (which was effectively a critic on capitalism at its worst more than it was an alternative to capitalism per se). Bill Gates, for example, by many measures may, in effect, be more of a socialist, at heart, by comparison to the feudal lord type of capitalist Max characterized in his work.

The best example of this global mindset shift is the move from MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) that embraced primarily economic measures, to SDGs, which are informed more by the impact our development efforts have on the sustainable of our humanity.

Yesterday, our very own Dr. Reginald Mengi, Executive Chairman of IPP Group, launched his long awaited book; narrating a lifelong commitment to enterprise that is truly worthy of an ode from HE the President of the United Republic, Dr John Pombe Magufuli, who graced the affair. Mengi is, arguably, the most significant private citizen in our modern history.

His book, titled “I Can. I Must. I Will”, which I am yet to read, makes a bold assertion, just with its title, about the secret behind East Africa’s most celebrated entrepreneur’s enduring success.

In a country where many of our ‘wealthy’s’ wealth/ capital is sourced through crude or undocumented methods, it is very easy to confuse the real entrepreneurs (who are driven to create wealth even in its absence) from the circumstantial entrepreneurs who are driven by the wealth they have stolen or been handed through insider trading.

The only real distinction ultimately is endurance.

Real entrepreneurship and capitalism does not end with wealth creation, it effectively starts with it. Real entrepreneurship is vested just as much in how the wealth created as it is in how wealth is sustainably redistributed to enable more wealth to be created.

There are very few who can dare to claim that they have survived all 5regimes and their varying extremes, if not intrigues, like Dr. Reginald Mengi can. Many noteworthy entrepreneurs and their enterprises in this country die with the regime that gave it life; not Mr. Mengi for sure.

I understood the type of businessman Reginal Mengi was, more than 20years ago when he launched his media venture through IPP Media. As a young activist and aspiring producer, I was privy to interacting with IPP Media and in particular ITV; coming across the likes of Joyce Mhavile (Founding MD) and Anthony Barretto (then Advertising Director) as they helmed a pioneering venture into the open seas of possibilities.

It is very easy to dismiss Dr. Mengi’s venture in the current chaos that characterizes enterprise and media in particular. But it is the one dart that was thrown into the dark at the time that endured; ITV continues to be the benchmark for National Primetime news because of the serious nature of his investment from day 1.

ITV (IPP Media) was the first independent broadcaster in a market that only had a State broadcaster (albeit on its knees even then). Yet he invested in a fully operational kit that would take 7years to breakeven. All this in a market that didn’t even enjoy a fraction of the advertising appetite/dollars that the other markets in the region had at the time or even what we see in today’s Tanzania.

I dare say that real entrepreneurs do not just create wealth for themselves and their families, but they also dare to create sustainable wealth for the society at large and this cannot be done without investing in people and governance systems that allow scale and sustainability.

Dr. Mengi has been successful for all the 20+ years I have known of him but his norm has always been the struggle. You will always hear of him venturing onto the next big thing irrespective of the resistance he faces! Real entrepreneurs embody this and must possess a spirit for resolve that is greater than the resistance ahead.

Mwalimu dared to build a nation. It wasn’t easy but he conceived the picture that we now call Tanzania still. We must now dare to build an economy to carry this nation forward and like Dr. Mengi has proven, irrespective of how successful you are, this too cannot be easy for it to last.

Dr. Reginald Mengi, before even reading his book, teaches us two things:

1. If you cannot change the picture (which is a feat that cannot happen overnight without consequence), then you are better off changing your perception of the picture you see enough to enable you dare to do something about it.
2. The struggle is our norm and success is only a pit stop to fuel this never ending need to struggle.

We may only have one Mwalimu Nyerere as Father of this great nation, but to get us to where we need to go, we need entrepreneurs of Dr Mengi’s calibar; whose capitalist appetite is contained by a firm ‘socialist’ grounding that aims to improve the welfare of all not just self.