Posing a challenge to the Unisa alumni community

Officially opening the Unisa Alumni Business Breakfast held at the Protea Restaurant on the Muckleneuk Campus on 30 July 2009, University Registrar, Prof Louis Molamu, said that alumni are meant to network, reconnect and stay engaged. Ms Patricia Lawrence, Director: Unisa Foundation and Alumni Relations, said that the aim of the business talks is to ensure that the alumni community stays engaged in the service of humanity.

In his address, Mr Brian Molefe, Chief Executive Officer of Public Investment Limited (PIC), posed a challenge to the Unisa alumni community, saying that it possesses various critical skills that it can and should use to contribute to change for the better the abject conditions of life that define those who populate the vast landmass called Africa. He said that the opening of the Unisa campus in Addis Ababa is a move that suggests the need to engage the rest of the continent, not to conquer, not to exploit, but rather to form partnerships, to expand businesses and to share skills.

He added that partnerships are needed with other institutions of higher learning in other parts of the continent. There are institutions such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the United Nations (UN) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) in place that can be used to ensure that Africans achieve the vision of Nkwame Nkrumah, that Africa must unite; of Julius Nyerere, that Africa must be self reliant; and of Nelson Mandela, that we must volunteer our time to do well.

Mr Molefe said that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is, together with Brazil, regarded as the lungs of the earth because of the rain forests in the two countries. “Although the DRC is blessed with strategic natural resources, tragically that country is amongst the poorest in the world,” he said. He added that DRC problems are challenges for Unisa alumni and they needed to mobilise business to help the revival of the DRC.

“You may ask why this focus on Africa when I could be talking about global recession, market turbulence and the like. The point is that, as far as Africa is concerned, whether there is global financial meltdown or not, our subservient position in the world order of things puts us in a permanent recession,” he stressed.

He said that Africa had moved in the direction of self reliance and pointed to example of the Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund (PAIDF), which was established to drive infrastructural development in Africa. PAIDF, which is made up of African public pension funds and was initiated by the PIC, is already engaged in oil industry services infrastructure in Nigeria and a telecommunications project in Kenya, and will soon start work on a transport project in Kenya and property development in Ghana.
Mr Molefe emphasised the need to relook at the effectiveness of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research (CODESRIA) and the African Political Science Association. “These are bodies that must lead us in the areas of research,” he said. Quoting Tanzanian poet, Jwani Mwaikusa, he concluded that alumni need to channel their fighting energy to resolve in a positive manner the problems that confront the economy, the problems that confront poor people, and the problems that impede the transformation of South Africa.

The event was jointly organised by Unisa Alumni Relations and the School for Business Leadership (SBL) Alumni Association.