Africa urged to buy local products to support startups
Tuesday, May 26, 2020 0:01
By JAMES KARIUKI
Mr Tony Elumelu.
FILE PHOTO | Tony Elumelu has urged Kenyans and the general African community to adopt homegrown solutions and support enterprises that engage local populace in economic activities.
Speaking in a virtual New York Forum Institute-convened roundtable Mr Elumelu ( above with President Kenyatta) said the Covid-19 pandemic provides Africans with an opportunity to come up with own solutions for their socio-economic problems.
We need a martial plan that galvanises the entire continent into a major source of solutions that is less dependent on the ‘circularity of debt’ from developed nations,” said Mr Elumelu who is the chairman of the Nigeria-headquartered UBA bank, a pan-African lender with subsidiaries in Kenya and 19 other African countries.
The roundtable attended by Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta, Niger’s Mahamadou Issoufou, Alassane Ouattara(Cote d’Ivoire), Macky Sall (Senegal) and Sierra Leone’s Julius Bio vouched for entrenchment of homegrown solutions that locals relate with easily.
