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How Reginald Mengi dropped out of school to pursue his dream

Friday May 03 2019
mengi

Tanzanian billionaire, business magnet, author and philanthropist Reginald Mengi. He died on May 2, 2019 aged 75. PHOTO | REGINALD MENGI | TWITTER

By THE CITIZEN

Reginald Mengi, the Tanzanian dollar millionaire, who died in Dubai, nurtured ambitions of becoming a chartered accountant from his early years in secondary school.

He recounts in his book I can, I must, I will: The Spirit of Success, published last year, that the idea of becoming an accountant started after he overheard a conversation about accomplishments of an accountant who worked with a diamond mining firm.

“The description of the profession sounded like the best in the world and to me it seemed attainable because of my aptitude and love for mathematics,” Mengi writes in the book.

A month after Mengi entered Form Six in Old Moshi Secondary School the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union advertised a scholarship for a six-month course for an accounts clerk in Scotland which put the young student in a dilemma.

He recounts the dilemma; “Naturally I knew that being an accounts clerk was below my ambition and potential… [since I knew] that upon my completion of my A’ Levels studies I would definitely have made it to the celebrated Makerere College in Uganda for an Economics Degree.”

“Yet, the idea of going abroad was thrilling and exciting for me and I guess for any young Tanganyikan at that time. However as noted earlier there was a dark spot. I was a bright Form Six student whose performance had been noted by the headmaster, Mr Mundi, who was already talking about me going to Makerere College in Uganda to pursue a degree once I had completed my A’ Levels.”

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Fearful that the headmaster and his family would not approve of his plans to quit school and go abroad Mengi “quickly and discreetly applied for eh scholarship,” and a few days prior to his departure he ran away from the school and moved into a hostel, paid for by a family friend.

Family blessings

He thought he was really hiding, waiting for his departure when his elder brother Elitira appeared and ordered him to disclose his plans so as to get blessings from the headmaster and his family.

“This I did and, to my surprise, I was forgiven and offered their blessings for what I was venturing into,” Mengi writes in the book.

When he arrived at the Scottish College of Commerce, which later became University of Strathclyde, he decided against enrolling at the six month course because it was below his ambitions to become a chartered accountant.

But to study accounting he had to have completed Form Six, so he decided to enroll at an evening class programme for A’ Levels. KNCU refused to fund his A’ Level studies when Mengi requested. He had to do part time jobs to fund his studies and for upkeep.

“I went through a very taxing period having to juggle with working very long hours at part time jobs, being short of money and coping with the pressure of evening studies,” Mengi writes.

But he eventually finished his studies and became a chartered account.

He went back to Tanzania in 1971 and joined Cooper Brothers, which later became PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

During this time he started a ballpoint pens assembly business in his house. Within a year he earned his first dollar million, he says in his book. And that was the start of his business empire.

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