I was giving a speech recently when a young African American man, full of anger, asked me why Africa has remained the laughingstock of the world, and blackness itself has become a stigma.
“What is there to celebrate about Africa Day?” He asked.
The young black man was conscious of his blackness and somewhere along the line he had grasped the fact that his blackness was the cause of his being disrespected. Africa Day to him provoked feelings of anger as it was not living up to its role as the motherland.
The historical facts are different. There is no disrespect of Africans in biblical times because of their colour. The Libyan who carried Jesus’ cross is mentioned with indifference as was the great orator in St Paul’s story, Apollos. Those who have memories will remember that in 1961, South African Boers struggled with the idea of inviting Toyota Corporation until they made Japanese nationals honorary whites.
Older readers may also remember when Japanese watches were a laughingstock until the Japanese introduced the Quartz watch by Seiko in 1969.
Africans are disrespected not because of their colour, but because they are associated with extreme poverty.
Again, to remind you. There was a time when the US embassy in Zimbabwe dished out 10-year visas to Zimbabweans. Zimbabwe was the place to be.
It is poverty, my dear fellow that gives you the stigma, not the colour.
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Looking after its own
I tried, with difficulty, to say that though Africa is the richest continent in the world, its people are the poorest and that no man (except for religious reasons) respects a poor man.
Zimbabwe nevertheless attracts Queen Bees, predatory companies that make their shareholders very rich beyond imagination.
The following information is from Wikileaks, an investigative journalistic organisation that gives us a glimpse into private governmental documents.
Zimbabwe’s economic pulse, according to Wikileaks, is controlled by a mafia-style cartel which has tentacles in “diamond, gold, fuel, grain (command agriculture), basic commodities and foreign currency trading. The group is heavily connected to senior politicians, the army, intelligence, the judiciary, permanent secretaries and directors in government, commercial parastatals including RBZ, MMCZ, Noczim, Zimra and Zesa. It has links at Afreximbank too. The cartel controls imports of foreign currency and its allocation by RBZ. It controls imports of key commodities such as fuel, wheat, maize, and their subsequent distribution in Zimbabwe. It also controls gold and diamond marketing.”
The system is designed to be abused. The presence of three foreign exchange rates, and a delaying mechanism of 10 weeks before disbursement, encourages a predator investor to borrow money from the Reserve Bank at one rate (say Z$240) sell the money to another predator (say at Z$340) and that second predator sells the money to the black market at (say Z$500).
It is that simple my dear Dr. Watson. The predator has not produced a single bucket of wheat or anything else.
Occasionally, when exposed to law enforcement agencies, as was the case with Henrietta Rushwaya, one finds that they were on their way with their proceeds to offshore banking facilities in Mauritius, Panama, or Dubai. That is the key to African poverty. These companies show no sense of social corporate responsibility. They have no charitable foundations, they have no endowed business schools in their names and if one were to find a predator’s Zimbabwe bank account, one would be surprised to find only minimum working capital. This was mentioned in the Kissinger Report (1969) with reference to American oil companies in Angola. They are like icebergs, only a very small section of their resources are exposed in the country of operations while the bulk of their capital is hidden in inaccessible foreign capitals.
The three musketeers
The choice of treasury officials in Zimbabwe is influenced by Bretton-Woods institutions. The three musketeers at Zimbabwe’s treasury, led by Mthuli Ncube are implementing neo-liberal monetary policies.
Their first line of attack is the local currency. In every country that the International Monetary Fund has operated, the victim becomes more indebted rather than relieved. Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere in his immortal speech said that they found themselves running to stand in one place.
The musketeers speak a foreign language while the price of bread goes up.
Nobody respects a person who owns nothing.
Suggestions from Trinidad
A doctoral student of mine found the following information relevant to developing countries. Sir Eric Williams of Trinidad created a secret sovereign investment company that quietly bought shares in some American oil companies operating in Trinidad.
The best example of indigenisation comes from the Dominican Republic. Lever Brothers was leveraged by national shareholders while keeping its connection with the global Leverhulme Corporation.
In Zimbabwe, say teachers’ unions place a levy of $1 000 on each of their members and buy shares in the Rainbow Tourism Group. Every child in Zimbabwe is supposed to visit a place of national interest before graduating from high school. Similar arrangements can be made with MacMillan Book Company to sell half its Zimbabwean shares to teachers and nationals.
These two actions alone will boost the tourist and book industries beyond our imagination.
There will be complaints of conflict of interest. The present situation is that the book industry and the International Book Fair are almost dead.
Similarly, Sakunda and Zuva, if they increase local shareholding, shed the foreign predator images, and create social corporate responsibility programmes, become part of the new Africa.
I stopped in Bern, Switzerland, the home of Bern Medical Instruments which can be found in every dental and eye clinic all over the world. The average income of Swiss workers is US$100 000 per year. Some of their income comes from their shareholdings in the corporations by way of dividends.
These policies are self-explanatory.
Mthuli Ncube will never satisfy the blood suckers. On our present trajectory, we are mortgaging our resources to Chinese and foreign companies while our children migrate into slavery abroad.
- Professor Ken Mufuka will begin a lecture tour in Kenya and will be in Zimbabwe July 1-30. Contact information is. Tel. 77-694-167
