Development Africa

British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness in a report published today. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria.

What is so extraordinary about this story is that nearly all of these of these banks had previously fallen foul of the UK banking regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), in 2001 by reportedly helping the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha funnel nearly a billion pounds through the UK. These banks were supposed to have tightened up their systems but as this report now shows, a few years later, they were accepting corrupt Nigerian money again.

"Banks are quick to penalise ordinary customers for minor infractions but seem to be less concerned about dirty money passing through their accounts,"

I would argue that far from having de-growth, what we need is a democratisation of production, democratisation of the economy, so that citizens themselves decide what is produced, how it is produced, how much is produced and under what conditions the production takes place, and what is done with the surplus. We actually need a growth in this form of production.

According to the document, problems inhibiting the smooth execution of funded projects include the poor preparation of projects, poor quality of social and environmental impact assessment studies, delays in the disbursement of funds, low consideration for results-based management, poor monitoring and evaluation of projects, poor

implementation of the national contract award system and the poor management of public finances, amongst others.

We will all be Zimbabwean heroes/heroines of our time. It is the revolutionary Franz Fanon who coined the phrase, ‘Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.’

In looking at the election, rather than blaming the Government, ELECAM, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM), other political parties, and international actors for the irregularities, low turnout and voters’ lack of understanding of the actual voting process, one needs to look at what happened before the campaign ever began.  One needs to examine the root causes of apathy, abstention and division.  I submit to you that some Cameroonian civil society organizations are as guilty of blurring the line between civil society and opposition as the CPDM is of blurring the line between the party and Government. 

In Africa there have historically been two types of civil society, those that have collaborated with the colonial power and those which have opposed it.

Are the big NGOs (non-governmental organisations) harmful towards Africa? FIROZE MANJI: Let’s not talk about their motivations, which are often good. The question is not about evaluating their intentions, but rather the actual consequences of their actions. In a political context where people are oppressed, a humanitarian organisation does nothing but soften the situation, rather than addressing the problem.

I have become anti-development. This wasn’t the case before. Let’s have an analogy: did those enslaved need to develop themselves, or to be free? I think that we need emancipation, not development.

At one level the path toward liberalisation should have been opposed by the SACP, but the South African Communist Party found a convenient formulation to support the capitalist road. Their understanding of the stages theory of Marxism meant that South Africa had to pass through a period of capitalist development before the working class could be ready for an alternative to capitalism. This theoretical understanding of Marxism that twisted the revolutionary ideas of class struggles justified the support for the privatisation of large sections of the economy.

Former apartheid capitalists were exultant as South Africa’s ‘entrepreneurs’ traversed the continent behind the diplomatic cover of the African Renaissance. The African capitalists fronting for the old apartheid structures accepted the rules of the capitalist system, the racist hierarchy and ethnic power bases and looked to ways to maintain the system while seemingly opposing the very same system that they propped up.

In Zimbabwe, the integration of former freedom fighters into the circuits of the Rhodesian state found a new path. After integrating former freedom fighters into the civil service, into the university, into the army, into the police and into the wider bureaucracy, the freedom fighters wanted the land of the settlers. They turned to the language of third liberation to seize the land of the white farmers. What would have been a righteous act of reversing the theft of land from African workers and peasants became one more vehicle for the liberation fighters to become private capitalists. The conditions of the workers on the land did not change as the state became more repressive and intolerant of the wider society. Repression and the privatisation of liberation went hand in glove in Zimbabwe.

There’s no doubt, either, that both Libya and the Ivory Coast have reinforced many peoples’ opinion that the West will support “change” and “democracy” only when its own interests are advanced.

When you consider just how many seriously flawed African elections have gone by recently without the slightest objection from France, the U.S. or the U.N. — Gabon, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda – it’s painfully obvious that Western support for African democracy is highly selective. With all the despots who have been in power for decades in Africa, how did Gbagbo suddenly become so terrible?

He has headed the South Centre which is responsible for devising policies for the South by the South.

In essence, in political-economic terms, kleptocratic capitalism is a system of economic production and exchange based on fictitious wealth without going through production of real wealth and political governance controlled by “looters and daytime robbers”.

there are occasional reports from UN agencies that cannot hide the truth. In a recent paper-- “Governing development in Africa - the role of the state in economic transformation”, 22 March 2011-- the UN ECA argues that despite high growth rates in Africa there has been no improvement in employment and welfare of ordinary people.

Despite the apparent ‘success’ of the privatisation of the Zambian copper industry, the true picture is one of systemic multinational exploitation, national assets sold ‘for a song’ and persistent tax dodging, writes Khadija Sharife.

It has been almost two decades since Zambia's ailing copper industry, beset by low commodity prices and skyrocketing debt, was privatised. The process was described by the New York Times in 1996 as, 'Westerniz[ing] the economy with a combination of help and arm-twisting from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the lead lenders for the $6.3 billion in external debt the country is carrying.’

Provisions granted to multinationals included stability periods extending for up to 20 years, rendering multinationals exempt from legislation implemented by parliament and other national and legal alterations; the right to carry over losses throughout the 'stability periods'; 100 per cent foreign currency retention, remittance and provision for capital investment deductions; zero withholding tax; and various other fiscal and para-fiscal exemptions ranging from customs duty to environmental pollution and penalties; pension schemes, and contracting of casual workers – accounting for 45 per cent of the workforce, amongst others.

Currently, corporations subscribe to the standards of the voluntary International Cyanide Managament Code. Yet one aspect that the code fails to rigorously address is that of closure.

Kabwe’s rehabilitation is part of the broader Copperbelt Environment Project (CEP), largely funded by the World Bank.

Describing the Environmental Council of Zambia as ‘very weak’, the CEP revealed that: ‘Existing regulations are seldom enforced. The regulatory dispositions for the mining sector are currently so weak that they do not deter polluters…Identification and monitoring of environmental risks resulting from mining activities is often inadequate.’ Mining corporations operating in Zambia post-1994 were allowed to adhere to the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), taking precedence over national legislation, with little penalties save for on the spot fines of £17 and letters of warning. Like Tanzania, Zambia’s mining contracts remained secretive.

The law, passed on March 2, allows oil revenue to be used as collateral for loans in a “credit enhancement” program, said Wayne Mitchell, resident representative for the fund, based in Accra, the capital. The risk of default is reduced, which will lower interest rates, he said.

A provision to keep 21 percent of the revenue in a stabilization fund for the country to fall on in times of price volatility and a heritage fund with 9 percent of earnings saved for the future is “best practice,” Mitchell said in an earlier interview on March 2.

different kind of change is required in Cameroon, which must come on the heels of a well contrived and executed policy of education designed to transform the populace from tribal subjects to national citizens.

But Mrs. Clinton’s statement conveniently left out Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, among others. In these states the US government and American multinationals continue to cooperate with regimes that are obscenely corrupt and/or repressive for “constructive reasons.”

Senegal appears to have led the trend, with President Abdoulaye Wade establishing relations with the Libyan rebels in mid-May. Last week, Wade met with rebel leaders in Benghazi and said that Qadhafi should step down. Gambia also recognizes the rebels. Wade’s call for a transition was seconded last week by Mauritania’s Abdel Aziz, who said that Qadhafi’s “departure has become necessary...’

We cannot forget that many people died and fought hard and with courage and determination to gain this freedom from apartheid. We honour those people all the time. Many of our members struggled in trade unions and in community organisations. We have members whose ancestors fought in the war fought from the Nkandla forest and in the rebellion on Nguza Hill. The struggle against apartheid is our struggle.

But we have a clear understanding of what that struggle was for and it was not just to replace white politicians with black politicians. That struggle was not just to force white business to take on some black partners. That struggle was to ensure that South Africa belongs, really belongs, to all who live in it.

seventeen years after the end of apartheid there are millions of people who are ‘forgotten’ and yet they are being told that they are free. They are being told that they must go to the stadiums on an empty stomach to listen to politicians tell them how far they have come and then go home to a shack.

The outstanding documentary Darwin's Nightmare examines how global growth functions in Mwanza, Tanzania, an abjectly impoverished city on Lake Victoria whose inhabitants are afflicted with AIDS, environmental ruination, and hunger amidst the profitable exportation of local fish to the affluent Western European market. Capitalism is, after all, not designed to feed people but to make money.

Recently, i have organized a series of protest in front of the Cameroon embassy in Washington DC, attended by hundreds of Cameroonians and sympathizers of Cameroon; and in reaction to that the ambassador of Cameroon in the USA requested your help to polish the image of Cameroon.

Therefore, we will react promptly to any attempt by your agency to convey false positive images of Cameroon in a subjective manner without hearing from the Cameroons of all sides of the political spectrum as well as the ordinary Cameroonians who are suffering because of the bad governance of President Paul Biya.

As Gaddafi finds new ways to attack Libyans, Libyans unleash their fury against his deployment of mercenaries from West and East Africa as migrant workers from south of the Sahara face increasing attacks and are prevented from leaving the country. Given the racism in Libya and low status of foreign black workers, it was only a matter of time before innocent people were attacked.

The language and subtext being used in some of the reports is cause for concern. In a video by Al Jazeera, ‘Immigrant workers under suspicion’, the US-based Frontlines of Revolution uses the headline ‘White Arab supremacy: Revolution or Moor black oppression?’ There is no doubt that there that racism is rife in Libya and that black foreign workers are being targeted, but language like this and lack of historical or political context only inflames the situation

Nonetheless, the assault on black Africans is disturbing, not least because the uprisings in North Africa have been framed within an Arab/Middle East context, not just by Western media but more importantly by Al Jazeera, which itself has become part of the revolutionary story. This in itself further antagonises Arab–African/Arab–black tensions and also raises the monumental question as to who is an African and what do we mean by Africa. Pambazuka News editor Firoze Manji addresses this in a recent interview with Al Jazeera – could this possibly be a response to growing criticism of their framing the North African uprisings solely in an ‘Arab’ context?