How Mengi ventured into business by starting small

Dar es Salaam. When Forbes Magazine put Reginald Abraham Mengi’s fortune at around $550 million a few years ago, few would have realized that he actually started by selling ballpoint pens.

In fact, with Tanzania experiencing shortages of almost everything starting in mid-1983, the budding entrepreneur had to strive to get the ballpoint pens, he wrote in his book titled I Can, I Must, I Will.

With the government resorting to harassment and detention of traders it accused of hoarding basic necessities at the time, Mr Mengi kindled his entrepreneurial spirit and started importing the pens from Kenya next-door.

Denied a $4,000 loan by the-then state-owned National Bank of Commerce (NBC), he nonetheless remained focused, and worked out matters with fellow businesspeople in Kenya. Eventually, he was able to secure a consignment of the pen components from Mombasa, despite the lorry transporting the cargo breaking down at the Horohoro border post.

“When the components arrived (in Dar es Salaam), I didn’t know where to store them. (I then decided on my bedroom -- and it was in the bedroom that I started assembly of the pens,” he told Forbes Africa magazine in its July 2014 edition.

Having realised that he could do well with the ballpoint pen business, the next thing that came to mind was to quit his job at Coopers and Lybrand (now PwC: PricewaterhouseCoopers).

Operating in a challenging business climate, Mr Mengi was nonetheless in business for good -- and decided to diversify it into other business areas, including establishing a Coca-Cola beverage plant in Moshi in 1987, named Bonite Bottlers. He sold shoe polish made from ground charcoal and oil, and natural skin exfoliator, which was simply bottled sea mud!

In fact, he tried his hand at anything he could, including toilet paper, soap, detergent, toothpaste, beds, shoes...

This partly explains the story of Mr Reginald Mengi, the founder, owner and executive chairman for IPP Limited and the IPP Institute of Technology and Innovation.

IPP has interests in the print and electronic media -- and also has interests in mining, oil and gas, CNG, pharmaceuticals, large-scale horticulture, automobiles, cement and other manufacturing businesses.

The story of the entrepreneur -- who died yesterday at his prime: 77 year years of age -- goes back to Nkuu Village in Machame on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro where he grew up in a poor family.

Mr Mengi writes in his book I Can, I Must, I Will that his father, Mr Abraham Mengi, was very poor, and did not own so much as a single acre of land. Mr Abraham Mengi and his wife Ndeekyo were blessed with seven children namely: Apaansia, Elitira, Asanterabi, Karileni, Reginald, Evaresta and Benjamin.

Having completed his primary school at Kisereny, Mr Mengi joined Nkuu District School for standards one to six primary education.

Thereafter, he was selected to join Standard Seven at Siha Middle School before proceeding Old Moshi Secondary School for his ‘O’ level Cambridge School Certificate and proceeded with ‘A’ level education at the same school.

With the desire to become a chartered accountant, young Mengi left the school half-way through Form Five and flew to Glasgow, Scotland, via Nairobi and London.

While there,’our’ Mengi studied Accountancy and was articled to Cooper Brothers in the United Kingdom, finally becoming a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. Mr Mengi returned to Tanzania in 1971 where he was employed by the accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand.