Wild cat poo

Last week I wrote about a report that the number of dollar millionaires in Africa has grown quite rapidly — and the number of those worth over 30 million US dollars has grown even faster.

I wondered how much money one person needs — when you have 10 or 20 or 25 million US dollars, why would you need more? How many meals can you eat, or beds can you sleep in, however luxurious?

Well, this week I found the answer to that question. It came in the form of an article about the world’s most expensive cup of coffee.

You thought you had it bad, with the price of rice and petrol rising in leaps and bounds. Spare a thought for the super-rich, who of course have to have only the best, in keeping with their social status. The best doesn’t come cheap.

The world’s most expensive cup of coffee costs 50 British pounds, for a single espresso. Yes, that is about 97 US dollars, 750 SA rands, just under 340 000 Zambian kwacha,  and I don’t know how many Tanzanian shillings for a teensy weensy itsy bitsy cup of coffee — about two mouthfuls.

This coffee is so expensive because it is a blend of two rare beans. One bean comes from a hard-to-reach mountain top. The other bean is even harder to find. In Indonesia, civet cats like to eat the best ripe coffee beans. They then  digest the fleshy fruit part, and excrete the bean. Workers are then employed to hunt down civet dung, and wash it to reveal the coffee beans. These are then ground up and form part of the fore-mentioned 50-pound espresso.

The poor super-rich. Because of course it’s not just the coffee they have to shell out for. There’s the whole meal that comes before it. And with the world’s most expensive salad on special at 600 British pounds, you can begin to imagine how it all adds up (I won’t mention the main course of prime Japanese beef from cows which have been hand-massaged their entire lives by specially trained masseurs).

So let’s not be angry or resentful or jealous. As you stand at the grocery store till wondering if you have enough money for rice AND chicken, just spare a thought for the ultra-rich, who are paying out small fortunes to drink wild cat poo.

(This first appeared on the Citizen Journalism in Africa site on the 14th of July 2008: www.citizenjournalismafrica.org)

The rich get richer…

Newspaper headlines in South Africa these days report on spiraling inflation, and warn that interest rates could be raised yet again. I’ve lost count of the number of times our Reserve Bank has hiked interest rates, and it’s beginning to take its toll. There are also reports of record numbers of South Africans defaulting on house, car and other payments. Even the banks have started changing their tune — for example, First National Bank has launched a major advertising campaign offering tips on saving money, and explaining that they’re getting tougher on granting credit.

But it’s not bad for everybody. Yesterday’s Business Times lead with the following headline: “SA’s dollar-millionaire club gets bigger, faster”. The story explains that the growth in the number of South Africans with wealth of over a million US dollars was greater than the global average. In South Africa there are now almost 14% more dollar millionaires than there were this time last year. The global average was a 6% increase in dollar millionaires.

In fact the biggest growth in dollar millionaires was in the Middle East, and there are significantly more millionaires in South America too. And lest you think our continent is being left out, South African millionaires weren’t the only ones doing well.  This year there are 10% more dollar millionaires in Africa than there were last year.

That might all be wonderful news, except for the fact that in Africa, unlike almost everywhere else in the world, poverty is increasing, and intensifying. In an era where governments and international organisations have set the goal of halving poverty by 2015, that is shocking. It’s shocking that between 1990 and 2004, the number of Africans living on less than 1 US dollar a day increased by 20%. But it’s worse than that. The number living on less than 50 US cents a day rose by a third during the same period. That means that in sub-Saharan Africa there are now over 121 million people trying to survive on less than 50 US cents a day. At the current exchange rate, that’s the equivalent of about 4 South African rands a day.

Now all this is happening while economies are growing. The rich are getting richer, and the poor, poorer. Economies are growing, but unemployment is increasing. Clearly something is very wrong.

I’m not an economist and don’t have easy answers, but surely we have to question the political and economic leadership of our countries and continent. We also have to look to ourselves. How have we allowed this to happen? In South Africa, are those of us in the middle classes so caught up in the pursuit of material wealth, the latest clothes, and the flashiest cars, that we have been prepared to ignore the increasing misery of our fellow citizens? What can and should we be doing to turn this around?

To give a picture of just how insane this is, the Sunday Times article also mentions that among the ultra-rich — those worth more than 30-million US dollars, the biggest increase was in Latin America, followed by Africa.

Now let’s get real. How much money does any one person need? Let’s say, it’s fine and acceptable to do well and be comfortable, and let’s be very accommodating and say it’s not excessive to have $1 million US dollars. But over $30 million? What do you do with money like that? You can only sleep in 1 bed at night, eat so many meals, drink so much fine wine. What do you do with the rest? What is the point?

Especially when your fellow citizens are spending every waking hour trying to scrape together enough money for just one daily meal.

(This was first posted on the Citizen Journalism in Africa site on June 30th, 2008: www.citizenjournalismafrica.org)