Some of you may be interested in this piece.
Tom
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For quite a while now, African nations have attempted going through various
forms of economic reform mainly prescribed by the Bretton Woods
institutions,The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund.Prime
amongst these reform programmes are the Economic Recovery Programme(ERP),
the Structural Adjustment Programme(SAP), Programme For Sustained
development and Poverty Alleviation Programmes.African's
are the best judges in determining the success or failures of these
programmes.
Today, the continent's economy is in tatters and African leaders are
junketing from one western nation to another in search of resources and
investment.What African leaders have failed to realise is that African's are
a very enterprising and industrious people who would be the first, ahead of
foreigners, to spend as well as invest on their ow soil if they are given
the opportunity to prosper and the public mood optimistic.
The reality is that, with the current poverty and "pull-the-African-down
syndrome, coupled with their sour mood, huge unemployment, wounding
prices,bankrupt economy, the African citizenry have become resentful and
even unpatriotic.Most unfortunate of all, is the mismanagement of our
economy,misuse and looting of our resources by so-called leaders who have
conspired to betray their own people.As we commence a new and highly
competitive millenium, we need to consider a few things in our search for
the way forward.
1.Governments sould stay completely out of private business in order to
manage the nations as a profit-making business institution. The nations
should not be run as a family backyard garden.
2.The leadership should do everything in their ability and in accordance to
the mandate given them by the people to give the necessary assurances the
local and foreign private capital market requires to invest in the African
business community.An incorrupt character of governments, a fair justice
system can establish the desired confidence.
3.Governments should cut down their expenditure to the barest minimum.
4.Governments should give the private sector the necessary push and
incentives to secure finance from the foreign private capital market.
5.Politicization of economies, business and the nations as a whole need to
be wiped out.
6.Bureaucracy, bottlenecks and the tons of paper work needed before a tiny
ant can be caught should be dismantled.
7.The investment centres of African nations should operate a one window
policy( everything to do with investment under one roof).
8.Business arbitration courts need to be established to ensure that
understanding and harmounious judgements are awarded.
9.There needs to be the establishment of "Monopolies and Mergers
Commissions" as well as "Offices of Fair Trading Practices".
10.The African business community needs re-orientation in doing real
business but most especially,in efficient management of business.Business
management is almost a disaster in Africa.
11.There is an urgent need to make affordable credits available to small and
medium scale businesses.In Africa today, there is almost nothing available
for seed capital and this has resulted in national and continental waste of
talents, abilities and skills.
12.Dynamic economic growth is not achieved through receiving aid,securing
unecessary and ill-negotiated loans and importing foreign consumer items.It
is derived from productivity and building a diversified agricultural and
industrial base.Multiplicity manufacturing an scientific mechanised
agriculture including plantation farming for local and foreign
consumption.The peasant farming we engage in, is a practice of the
middle-ages, and makes food production very expensive.
13.Although an export-oriented economy is very healthy, agricultural
programmes should primarily aim at feeding Africans before exporting to feed
western hunger.
14.Emphasis on quality production and packaging as well as modern aggressive
marketing with the support of meaningful incentives is paramount in global
competitiveness.
15.A 24 hour working culture needs to be encouraged.Industries and bus
transport services should run day and night shifts for maximum production.
16.(i) African workers should not only have the right to work;But by
working, they should be able to secure a return, capable of purchasing the
standard of living,without which creative citizenship is impossible.
(ii)Investment into the life of the employee,and a healthy working
environment,nuture and release the dynamic potential of the
employee.Investment should not only be monetary,but attitude towards the
employee as well.
17.African roads need decongestion because a lot of business and
productivity hours are spent in traffic.suggestions for decongestion are as
follows:
(i)To put in place an efficient metropolis rail system in place.This could
reduce the number of cars on the road,reduce the number of heavy trucks on
the road and in addition, ease the over-burden on our roads, thereby giving
them a longer life-span and a reduction in maintenance cost.
(ii)Put in place an efficient public road transport system (i.e. Bus
Service).This would reduce the number of private transport vans and taxis on
the road,since they create considerable nuicence on African roads.
(iii)More access roads into major roads need to be created and properly
done.
18.Every African should seek the welfare of the continent because her
welfare showers down on all of us.We all need to be good stewards of our
continent and good stewardship calls for good time-management, keeping
promises and appointments, hard work, proper research and effective
planning, seeking and giving beneficial counsel,sharing and patriotism.A
good steward identifies his or her talents, skills and abilities, develops
them and finally puts them at the disposal of society by plugging into
development opportunity.There is an urgent need for us to invest our very
lives into the development visions of our continent to achieve set tatgets.
19.We should all learn to operate the step-by-step principle.We must abondon
the mad rush for cash at the expense of morality,ethics,quality and
humanity.
20.Our business community should learn that the ultimate goal of investment
is not profit, but productivity and development.Profit is a by-product of
productivity.Productivity and development centredness breeds quality and
added value centredness which is indeed the key to sustainable development
and a secure future in an ever-changing world economy.
"If you break the hedge,a serpant will come in and one transgressor destroys
much good".
This is a very wise saying which should remain with us as we all put our
self-sacrificing efforts to the plough toward a common good.However, there
would always be suscribers to economic sabotarge.We all need to be
watch-people by guarding our garden of Eden (Africa) from the infiltration
of present day snakes like economic sabotage and other evil vices.Let's
avoid becoming the snakes that destroy our ultimate purpose in our Garden of
Eden.Don't be the selr-centred division-oriented,immoral,unethical and
destructive monster who pulls down and derails all our hard earned
achievements.
There is guaranteed hope for the future of the African economy and this hope
is in us doing a proper diagnosis of our current situation and level of
development as well as conducting a price-paying search for answers to
prescibe and implement a suitable liberation and development formula.
GOD BLESS AFRICA
Charles Sam
President
African Hope International
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