Inside South Africa! Reflections on a troubled business environment

That Africa, and especially sub-Saharan Africa is a contradiction of rages and riches, is no longer a new topic of discussion as far as business and economic research is concerned (see Ohiorhenuan, 2009). As Ika and Saint-Macary (2014: 151) once pointed out, "Africa itself is seen as a dichotomy: at best a business opportunity, at worst hopeless." Meanwhile the number of African billionaires has increased, while wars, famine, and dictators have receded (Kolo, Madichie and Mbah, 2016; Madichie, 2015; Adibe, 2014). As far as Doing Business is concerned, not many African countries fall within the top-100 out of 189 countries in the most recent ranking (Table 1). Indeed the two economic giants - Nigeria and South Africa (see Madichie, 2011), have a dismal ranking of 169 and 73 respectively, compared with other notable performers such as Mauritius, Rwanda and Botswana - ranked 32, 62 and 72 respectively.