IS AFRICA REALLY A POOR CONTINENT? A friend of mine from Tanzania asked me today: “Kelvin, why is Africa so poor?” I gave him a simple answer: “Enock, we are not a poor Continent. The continent has enough natural resources to take care of itself and the whole world. For example, the D.R.C is capable of generating enough hydro electricity to power the whole continent, but at this very moment the whole of southern Africa is facing a regional power deficit - Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia and D.R.C all have to do load shedding. Africa has reserves of gold, platinum, diamond, natural gas, oil, water, coal, asbestos, uranium even skilled labour, but none of these is being used for the benefit of the continent. The fact is we are very rich, but we don’t know what to do with our riches. The result? The Capitalist West maximizes our endowments to their utmost benefit while we in turn go to them and asked for aid, and we know there is ‘no free lunch’. For example, the richest continent had to turn to one country, which is yet a developing country at worst, China, to build its Organization’s headquarters. The 54 – nation African Union has a gleaming new $200 – million marble and glass headquarters financed and built by China. What is interesting is everything in the building, even the furniture in its spectacular 2500-seat Grand Hall – was supplied by China as a gift to what people now call “the world’s poorest continent”. What an insult to the African Race! “But let me give you specifics Enock, a small picture of what unfolds in the African countries, using my own country as example: My country, Liberia, has been supplying industries in the West with raw materials since recorded history, but we have nothing to show for it. We were at one point only second to Malaysia in rubber production. At one point in Africa, no other country produced high grade iron ore compared to Liberia. In 1966, the Tubman led Government recorded the highest GDP in the world – 7.7%, surpassing Japan. Today, Japan is a developed country and we are not even developing. Why? Japan invested heavily in human capital. Liberia, endowed with natural resources more than Japan, invested in and enriched below 5% of a so-called elite class while about 95% of the hoi polloi wallowed in abject poverty. Today we remain a least developed country (LDC – and don’t be misled by the use of LDC. UN just wants to make us feel much better other than calling us third world country or underdeveloped country. The name makes no difference). “In the same 1966, Liberia’s per capita income was 203 and South Korea’s was 130. Today, South Korea is no more a developing country; it is an NIC (Newly Industrialized Country, next only to a developed country). Today, we hire even cooks from Asia when they win bids in Liberia. Check out all the Chinese companies building roads in Liberia and you will understand. “Why should we import rice from Asia that has over 2 billion people to feed a small country with about 3.8 million people but rich in land? Why should we export logs and import wood products? Why do we import the best rubber products in Liberia from Ghana and Cote d’ Ivoire when we have Firestone? Why do we have so many foreigners (am not being xenophobic) in all sectors of our economy and at the national government level when we can invest our growing GDP in making Liberia belongs to Liberians. Where is the dream of a Liberia for Liberians when we do not have control over our economy? Why is it that UL can’t offer one PhD program up to date when even the University of Education, Wenneba (Ghana), not to mention University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, has more than 10 PhD programs .These questions and many more give me sleepless nights. Is it that my country is poor? No my friend Enock. We are not poor, just as Africa is not poor. But just Like Africa, my country has failed to invest in its citizens. Instead, like the rest of Africa, the few continue to enrich themselves at the detriment of the masses. “Enock, I want you to know that in my country, the current Government has averaged 7.16% GDP growth”. Enock tells me ‘wow! Kelvin, you guys are doing very well’. Enock, I said, you need an economist mind to understand why I am not jumping at this growth rate. There is something in economics we call ‘GWD – growth without development’, and this has haunted my country since independence. Until we can translate growth into human and societal wellbeing, I see the same scenario played throughout our economic history being played here”. “But I don’t understand, Kelvin”, Enock naked his bewilderment. And this is what I tried to explain to him as best I could, “Enock, I believe that GDP growth is good – it shows aggregate progress made by a country in terms of economic activities. However, it doesn’t reflect wellbeing since the pile is not equally distributed. The government should stop boasting of GDP growth and focus rather on improving her HDI (Human development index), which looks at per capital income as reflected by this most talked about GDP plus health and education, and to some extent, governance, gender issue, and independent and competent judiciary system among others. We are made to think that our government is doing excellent by preaching growth rate. Any development economist, while appreciating GDP growth, will always look at other development indices, as I have many times with what is unfolding in my country. “There is an age-old ideology among those in power that hovers over my Country, which drives it: ‘Who cares, once I can afford to send my child/children to the best schools abroad? We will keep the country at bay, and after we shall have left, our children will come back with their imperial education and start from where we stopped’. This has been the way my country, and to the larger extent Africa, future has been shipped.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 23:29:54 +0000
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