General Discussion Topics, page-92618

Molla, you are SO RIGHT.

This post is not about SYA, its about Africa. As some of you here are pinning your hopes on making money from Africa, you should also look at the other side of the coin. You have ONLY two ways to do business in Africa.
One is to find a good mate who you believe has good contacts in the government. Now as long as you have money (they like $US best) you will be told that things are starting to go your way, a hundred grand here, a hundred grand there, this works well until it seems that you are running out of money, then with one stroke of a pen, you will find that the minister that you're dealing with has been moved on and all your good work has been undone, (no money back guarantees here mate). To back this up look at the number of mergers that have failed/faded from back door wheeling and dealing, it has been going on for years. Remember, this is the home of the INTERNET scams.
Now the second way to do business is to do what the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and some Middle Eastern countries do, and that is to spend any thing from half billion, to one billion $US on building infrastructure ie roads/rail/schools/ports, they then wait until the GOVERNMENT decides to issue the permits, you then find out who has been lucky and who missed out.