Mr Prem Goyal is a self-motivated, business and philantrophic personality whose experiences in life through several cultures in India, United Sates, Japan, Switzerland and the UK have liberated his consciousness for a limitless zeal to serving the community and focus on people development activities where the need is pronounced. This has led to foray into politics where his skills and experience and a veritable educational empowerment are brought to bear and share among the ethnic minorities in the UK. His charitable nature has brought into raising funds for charitable causes to the value of £150,000. Little wonder that he was bestowed the royal honour of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). He a Southwark resident and community leader as well.
He visited African Voice offices and we were honoured to have a personality come to share with us his passion, vision, and the zeal to be of greater service.
African Voice: What representation do you see of the ethnic minorities in Southwark and Indeed London and do you think they each have a fair representation to advocate for their needs?
Prem Goyal: Absolutely not. And that is very, very shocking because the ethnic minorities are very talented. The reason that it is shocking is twofold: one is that in Southwark, we are about 45% ethnic minorities but when it comes to people working in the city, it is single digit. When it comes to people going to top universities or going to top positions in the educational world, we are not able to penetrate. More importantly in the political world, for e.g. in Southwark we have top 14 political leaders, 3 MPs, I GLA member, 9 cabinet members, including the leader of the Southwark council. Out of these 13 members, there is one ethnic minority person. So you can see at the bottom, it is the reverse. We have more positions in the minority in the work places because they are all security guards. Even though they have the bachelors, masters and Ph. Ds. So in Southwark and around London, we are very poorly represented.
African Voice: Do you think that is because the people are not educationally qualified to hold these positions?
Prem Goyal: No, not so. This is because of two reasons. One is the people have moved from different parts of Africa and Asia and the Caribbean to this part. That movement has been seen as a task rather than an accomplishment. So nobody is celebrating their accomplishment that they have mastered two cultures, two languages, and two socio-economic levels. And so as a result they don’t feel that they have achieved something great and their self-esteem and confidence is very low. Rather than saying that they have achieved something good. The second part is, yes, they were among the top in their country – since this countries, the US and UK and advanced countries are operating at a higher level, this immigrants when they are coming to these countries they think automatically they should be at the top, and when they find themselves at the stop they just sit there at the bottom rather than saying ‘I need to sharpen my skills set’ and move to the top because I belong to the top. Our people do need to sharpen their skills set and acquire more knowledge and more talent and they have the ability. But if they don’t do it, because they get caught up in the material world or because of the first accomplishment, they get tired; they just settle at the bottom. So in my case, I didn’t want to accept the bottom. I told myself I belong to the 1% of the top in England. If I am going to live in US or in the UK, I must be in the top 1% of this country or I must go back. And when I looked at myself, the simple thing is that I must more education, more things in the community and I am in the top 1%. One more thing our immigrants are not doing at all, and that is part of the vision, once they have found, themselves, that they are struggling at the bottom, they forget that their destination was to reach to the top. So what do they need to do? They need to master England; even by living in this country they are mastering Nigeria, Indians are mastering India, but they live in this country. They need to play by the rules of England not by the rules of Africa or India. And that is the problem. We have people here that are very successful but they are thinking of being politicians in those countries from where they came. You ask why? Because even after 25 years in this country, after becoming citizens of this country, after paying 40% tax, after producing children here, after finding social life here, they still want to be politicians back home because they are struggling.
African Voice: The mind-set of the scene that you describe would seem a shock. In terms of culture, how do think these have impacted on the expression of their cultures?
Prem Goyal: What is happening is that the ethnic minorities are living through two cultures: one culture at home and another outside the home. So if you can master two cultures then you are very talented. The normal ethnic minority person then struggles because he or she has to learn two languages; he has to learn about two different foods. The worst part is what they are doing inside their home, they can’t talk to about to someone outside unless they come from the same ethnic background. That means that the people who are running this country cannot necessary be approached y say someone from Africa to share understanding for example is asking to share opinions in a Nollywood movie or inviting someone to share a meal of jollof rice. As a result in Southwark where we have 45% minority there is not a single restaurant of African or ethnic minority background on Tooley Street which is the main High Street of the Southwark Council offices or in the heart of the city of London.
African Voice: Would you say that the ethnic minority enterprise ship in Southwark is thriving? If not, what do you think they need to do to thrive?
Prem Goyal: There are two or three things they need to do. One, going back to the first point: rather than fight with so called things in England, when they get here they need to sharpen their skills set by getting more talent and more education, and they have the ability. They need to aim higher. For example I got my MBA at the age of 25. They need to say that they need to go to the top universities to get a certification. The second thing to do, especially those who have been here for more than 10 years, or have become citizens, they need to do things the way it is done in England. It is no more about Nigeria. They need to let go of that knowledge and master in England; what is available in England and the business opportunities in England. It could even be between England and Nigeria. They need to operate as a UK company and because most of them have businesses or properties back home. They are not able to see England as their home and this important for business. As a result they doing business with other ethnic minority people and the money is limited there instead of the white community. The one reason why my businesses have done very is that I do business with the Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc and have the white people work for me.
African Voice: The Prime Minister recently launched an enterprise grant scheme. Do you think this will sufficiently impact on the residents of Southwark and ethnic minority?
Prem Goyal: To be the honest this is going to be helpful but never going to be sufficient because out ethnic minority population is so big in Southwark that to start a scheme which is going to add 500 or 1000 people is something better than nothing. But in order to help our people, whatever government has to do is to facilitate very strong links now between Southwark and Nigeria and not Southwark and England. In Southwark we have the best trained African workforce and Nigerians better than anywhere else in the world. And Southwark has 30% of the Nigerian population. So that means we need to do a lot of business between Southwark and Nigeria which is growing at the rate of 5% and which is going to be the capital of Africa by 2025. So we need to tap the skills and talents of our people. At this stage, there is not a single activity, venture or business link between Southwark and Nigeria.
African Voice: We note that Councils usually facilitate programmes that have to do with enterprise solutions, business development skills enhancement, etc. Do you think the Southwark is doing sufficiently well in this regard to help the people?
Prem Goyal: Not at all. The thing is Southwark is operating to look after 50% of white people and recently when we raised this issue of equality with the Council leader he replied that Council is already providing free school meals for their children so what else do they want? So we have to promote their business cultures, entertainment, and cuisine in order to give them the opportunity to the extent that we have to celebrate those. For example in the last 3 yrs, there has not been once in a hundred functions have I seen food or Caribbean food, or music etc. That means that whatever African children are doing inside for their families, that cannot be talked about outside. As a result, unless Council says that before starting your business, we want to celebrate say the Nigerian Independence Day. Why don’t why they don’t want to celebrate when there are over 200,000 from the background in Southwark. Not a single politician has been to Nigeria in the last 9 years. They have no either about Africa. The last time, Harriet Harman went to Nigeria in 2004. Yet they have Nigerians as friends on their Face book.
African Voice: Would you say that there is need for a socio-political platform to help re-educate and re-evaluate the role of ethnic minorities to impact and impress themselves and their number to give them recognition they deserve.
Prem Goyal: I think the gap is used for us and it has to be reduced by both sides. Whatever the ethnic minorities have done, they have not come here to settle at the bottom. They must remember that they have to go to the top. If they are tired, they should ask their children to aspire to the top. That aspiration must not be forgotten because that is the goal of their coming. That has to change. The second is that the ethnic minorities think that they will just ask politicians for something and they will get it just like that or in the future. But now they have to take the responsibility on themselves and that is where we are and be the politicians. Obviously, the white politicians only want to give as little as they can, they don’t want to give to others. But in order to get their fair share and resolve the problems of the entire communities and develop them, we have to ask the representatives to dialogue. By having 50% population and giving 70% votes, we get only 10% power then we are workers. If we produce 70% and we get 70% power then we are leaders. We have 45 votes with 45% power then we are managers. If we have 70% votes and 10% power, we are workers. And that is what we can change. The white world is convinced that ethnic minorities /immigrants are workers and that is what we must change.
African Voice: If you were to describe a path for the ethnic minority political and economic development, what would your prescription be?
Prem Goyal: Each person should think about becoming a leader in his or her community. They don’t need to become politicians. Back home we all connected to different parts of the community. They should also do this here so that they can become school governors; participate in London marathon, volunteer with police or ambulance. The second thing they can do is to include in their community meetings a 15 minute or so slot where they learn about the British political system. They talk about a lot but don’t talk about these things in their meetings. And unless they start talking about this they will continue to be exploited. We have Indian associations, Caribbean associations, African association, etc and that has to be inculcated at the meeting points.
