By Yollander Millin As a young black African woman, I strongly feel that life experiences have aged me beyond the pace of my peers. This is typical of any other African child who is not born right. By the time we get halfway through youthful years, we would have gone through so many atrocities that can last up to multiple lifetimes. The irony is that with each sunrise, new mayhems emerge, pushing us further and further away from social and economic justice. Yes, I did say born right, as a matter of strata into which one is birthed. Everything, all our social problems emanate from the very idea of inequality and its nexus to the manner in which decisions at all leadership positions are made. Natural resource governance, and the decisions that are made in which resources are involved are a major element that should be interrogated to ensure that the natural gifts we have work for us as all.
In the economic sense, Zimbabwean and African leaders as a collective, need to stop mortgaging with the welfare of oncoming generations, through the acquisition of resource backed loans, especially without public or parliamentarian consultation. It is a well-known fact that Zimbabwe is blessed with vast natural resources of value.
Diamonds, gold, oil, timber, uranium, bauxite, platinum and many other minerals, with an array of both domestic and wild animals. We have the Victoria Falls, the Inyanga mountains, the Great Zimbabwe ruins and many other wonders to enjoy and leverage on. What is needed, and what is of sound principle is for us to ensure that we preserve these resources so that future generations will equally enjoy the benefits of ownership. We need to allow them to inherit these resources.
This, would however be totally cumbersome if those in power continue to acquire loans from China, regional, international and other financing communities using natural resources as collateral. For example, if we are to look at African statistics, the concept of RBLs started in the mid-1990s, and these were first documented in Angola where the government sought loans to finance its civil wars and used future petroleum revenues as guarantee to the loans.
Since then, the acquisition of RBLs has become relatively common in sub-Saharan countries and scores of natural resources have been lost in these deals, at unfair rates and at the expense of the welfare of the ordinary citizens. Countries like Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Sudan, South Sudan and Zimbabwe currently make the statistics of the countries who have fallen prey and have lost billions worth of resources in these deals.
RBLs are not conditioned on human rights, good governance, democracy, political rights, constitutionalism and civic liberties. According to reports from the African forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), and the Southern African Resource Watch, the recipients of these types of loans demonstrate a high level of weakness in resource governance, lack transparency and accountability of their resource sectors and have highly compromised social security nets as well as poor public service delivery systems. In essence, this means countries that favor RBL acquisitions in the long run fail to take care of their own people and fail to provide for their basics while at the same time taking away any prospects for the future due to signing away of resource rights and forecast gains.
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If leaders take the liberty to acquire RBLs, and at the current pace, Zimbabwe and Africa will be foreign owned before we know it and as previously mentioned, especially if these acquisitions are made without parliamentary debate and scrutiny. There needs to be an evaluation of the loans, to see if they are absolutely necessary, if they will benefit the people as a collective and if the repayment options available will not at any point and time force citizens to live without access to basic goods and services.
Lack of transparency and proper consultation in public finance issues usually allows for poor decisions to be made and these ultimately translate to the ordinary citizens having to carry financial burdens, which are usually tax based. The citizens need to be consulted, both directly and through their representatives in parliament.
Currently, Zimbabwe needs an emergence of a brand of leaders that does not condone activities and decisions that don’t contribute to the betterment of the welfare of the people. It needs leaders with passion, compassion and a genuine interest in the improvement of the quality of life for all people within their jurisdictions. With a drive to formulate people-centered policies that ensure that the inequality gap does not rise, and that even people from the lowest stratification ranks have access to all the basic needs and quality public services being delivered to them in real time. This crop of leaders does not abuse public office for personal gains and does not contribute to any illicit dealings, financial or material resource based.
Public resources, including fund opportunities such as tenders in the extractive sector and lucrative mining areas are often fraudulently awarded to both domestic and foreign investors and elites, in exchange for personal advancement opportunities by shameless leaders who choose to go against the ethos of public leadership. This is often done without transparency, with no clear and straight forward mining contracts, no social responsibility to the host communities and no cost/ benefit analysis being done. The same minerals that are mined skip the local markets and are sold on the black market, which further sees them being smuggled out of the country with no tax returns, and fueling illicit financial flows.
So, what then is required in the context of decision making under natural resource governance? Transparency, accountability, responsibility, people centeredness, constitutionalism, inclusion and equality. There should be a deliberate investment into ensuring that opportunities that are created allow for everyone to move together as a unit, and that all generations the current and the future ones have access to, and benefit from the natural resources in the land. RBLs, corruption, tax injustices and illicit financial flows should be discouraged with clear punitive measures being stipulated for the violation of principles of public finance management to fight impunity from within our system.
Yollander Millin is a Social and Economic justice ambassador
*These weekly insights articles published in The Standard newspaper are coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge, an independent consultant, past president of the Zimbabwe Economics Society (ZES) and past president of the Chartered Governance & Accountancy Institute in Zimbabwe (CGI Zimbabwe). Email: kadenge.zes@gmail.com. Mobile no. +263 772 382 852.