What is Ailing Africa?
4 min readCorruption, Political Instability, and the Absence of Physical Infrastructure Are Afflicting Developmental Efforts in Africa
By Apioth Mayom Apioth,
In my view, three major factors are preventing the surge of development in Africa. The first of these factors is corruption. How did the Equatorial Guinea’s president end up stashing away $700 million into his own bank account? How did the $4 billion slip through the cracks of accounting books in South Sudan? In South Sudan, in particular, the oil reserves are expected to last for up to 20 years and if things continue in their current paralytic broad daylight plundering of public funds, and if we don’t get lucky to find more oil reserves, then what is next? We are not running a sport franchise where a team can lose 3 games in a row and be expected to win their next three games.
This is not a child’s play either. Can we afford to apply austerity measures every time there is an economic downturn? Cutting down on these government -spending efforts may lead to what economists called the paradox of thrift. With these uncertainties in full force, the citizens are forced to save more and spend less of their hard-earned income, and thus leading to state institutions to receive less economic rents from their enterprises. The decisions that our leaders make in the government affect all citizens equally. We need leaders who are capable of making sure that national strategies are drummed into every entity of the public sphere starting from the high officials in the ministries to the innocuous citizens, seating at the lowest level of the socioeconomic ladder. The take-home message here is that service delivery comes before power and ambition.
The second major factor of these is political instability. Across sub-Saharan Africa, unnecessary wars & military coups are painting a negative image in the eyes of the foreign investors who are interested in tapping into new markets. The third and the most critical factor of these ills is the absence of the physical infrastructure, education and high-skilled populations in the service industry and manufacturing industry. South Sudan’s illiteracy rate stands at 65% – 70%. On that part, there is much work that needs to be poured into that endemic sector. As some of us have probably heard about the great economic initiatives that are currently taking shape in Rwanda, in terms of poverty reduction and wealth creation.
Yes, Rwanda has rid itself of corruption and political instability. The first thing you witness on the billboards & signs after landing at the Kigali International Airport are the simple and commanding statements that say: No to corruption! Yes to investment! Since they started their 2020 vision in the early 2000s, 6 to 7 years after their tragic genocide of 1994, where about 800, 000 Rwandans were brutally massacred by their neighbors and friends, they have managed to bring out 1 million people out of the improvements. This is a remarkable achievement by itself in a country of 11 million people. They have achieved that momentous achievement without relying on natural resources’ revenues.
Forty percent of their economics input comes from foreign aid. Even with these glorious accomplishments, Rwanda is still lagging far behind in the service industry and highly-skilled personnel who can push economic developmental efforts forward. The hospitality industry is one of the economic initiatives they want to expand to bring in much-needed dividends. Hotel workers do not know how to handle international clients once they come to tour Rwanda.
So these same workers are required to go through weeks, even months of rigorous training in customer service delivery conducted by Western-affiliated hospitality personnel. Moreover, the Rwanda Development Board who attracts investors to come and invest in Rwanda, is facing another challenge of a different order in meeting the needs of their potential investors.
The officials in the office of the Rwanda Development Board have the capacity to handle foreign investors with ease, but the problem lies elsewhere in the other parts of the country where the necessary paperwork for investment is supposed to go through. There, the paperwork takes some time to get processed because those officials lack the skills to handle the clientele of that magnitude.
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