The IMF is frequently advising African heads of State to devalue their currencies before any loan, and of course as controller of this institution the United States is the one benefiting, they are the ones always piloting this project, they are giving the same council to Ethiopia, devalue your currency by 60% before we give you any loan they say. The end outcome is to strengthen the United States dollar while making Africa and the global south perpetually weak slaves, this also enables the US to import important commodities like Nigeria’s high-quality crude oil cheaply, very cheaply indeed.
This of course encapsulates other African countries as well. There is really no use in devaluing your currency unless you are a net exporter, countries like Nigeria are net importer of all items including food, energy, pharmaceuticals, machinery, etc. so are all or majority of African Countries.
What is ironic about South Africa another major economy being taunted as the largest one in Africa, is that it has almost leveled off on growth, it has hit the ceiling with its current circumstances, the country needs a lot of creativity to get out of where it currently is, it needs to aggressively integrate with the rest of the African continent and invest in high value manufacturing like aircraft, electric cars and Semiconductor manufacturing etc., notice that I have said manufacturing, not assembling, which you can’t do without ample energy resources. This is a problem which shockingly is affecting Africa’s most advanced economy, the country has struggled to hit a GDP of 500 billion dollars, growing at between 1 to 1.5%, this is not remarkable and laudable.
While this shows that radical measures must be taken to aggressively lift economic growth of Africa’s biggest economies of South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria and Ethiopia as well as the whole continent, this trend is reflective of a stagnated Africa, we are not growing, hence the light on the ‘Africa rising’ rhetoric has dimmed out. IMF projects Africa to grow at 3.4%, the United States a more advanced economy by what one would say is thousands of times compared to Africa will grow at 2.5%. This is an extremely dangerous trend.
A world-renowned African economist Dambisa Moyo has stated that to double one’s economy, a country needs a growth rate of 7% consistently for a period of between 10 to 20 years. This is to mean that Africa is not growing since our population growth is almost at par with a rate of 3%.
At the back of our (Africa’s) economic slowed growth is the slowing down of China by different circumstances including sabotage by desperate United States of America, the reemergence of the IMF in Africa and the refusal by African heads of state to strike out an independent economic policy for the whole continent. The IMF of course seeks to harvest Africa’s growth which happened for the last 20 years and pump it into the US and Europeans economies. This trend can only be stopped by the continent’s top leadership when unified in purpose and not in the current fragmented, uncoordinated manner where all our disparate forces are going in different catastrophic directions.
Africa has the money, 3.5 trillion dollars of combined GDP, 100 billion dollars of remittances flowing in every year, we don’t need IMF to grow, we need discipline, resolve, courage and a unified African Planning authority. India with the same GDP and much less land and natural resources is making investments in Rail and train manufacturing, Automobile manufacturing, aircraft manufacturing, semi-conductors, and is going to space with a robust space program etc. This is while the African heads of state are doing the opposite, holding onto fragmented weak states and the aiding of Europe, United States and the west in enjoying Africa’s resources.
Going forward, the first investment for us is going to be in a African unified energy policy, transportation and communication, this is what the African Continental Unity Party is looking at. There is barely any African Country that is not suffering from energy problems including our dear South Africa the most advanced economy on our continent, to the smallest countries like Togo, Benin and Sierra Leone with only 100 MW of installed capacity of electricity which is almost laughable, We are going to have to urgently build 4 Mega Nuclear power plants in the East, West, south and North of our continent plus the 40,000 MW Inga hydro dam making it 5 powerful energy projects. We going to invest in a single continental Railway platform as we have already suggested to the African Union, and this railway will have a Fiber optic cable laid along its route, hence achieving a unified continental Communication infrastructure.
These are the three major areas we need to urgently touch in order to unlock Africa’s potential, rapid industrialisation and economic growth. We have to put electricity in the hands of 90 to 100% of Africans, provide a transportation platform and communication for them to build businesses and enterprises. This is the vision of the African Continental Unity Party, which we are not just talking about but pursuing with the extreme urgency and the utmost of Vigor.
Kwame Gonza is A Pan Africanist member of the African Continental Unity Party (ACUP), a Mechanical Engineer and the Pioneer of the Africa Railway Triangle Network Master Plan (ARTNMP) which aims to Connect the Whole African Continent. He is a Geopolitical analyst who has been a guest on SABC News South Africa, Press TV Iran, TV Africa Ghana, Oromia Broadcasting TV in Ethiopia and Channel TV Nigeria to Comment and advice on the future of Africa and Pan African Issues.
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