VIBANFLAGBOOKSCANADA: Commenting on the World Bank recent African Econom...

VIBANFLAGBOOKSCANADA: Commenting on the World Bank recent African Econom...: That is a commendable innovation and I would like to start by thanking the organizers of this initiative, the World Bank. When you travel th...

Commenting on the World Bank recent African Economic Forum: Transport

That is a commendable innovation and I would like to start by thanking the organizers of this initiative, the World Bank. When you travel through congested African cities you wonder why they cannot be equipped with light railways as the case at Addis Ababa mentioned now when commuting to and from work is a nightmare in most African economic and political capitals. The initiative at Addis Ababa should be emulated by all and sundry governments in Africa. If well-run such an investment supported by the Chinese pays for itself.

The taxi bike riding in urban areas is no solution to urban transport plethora of problems. It is ephemeral.  Some governments naively push forward this on the assumption that it creates jobs and encourages the consumption of gasoline that further creates taxable revenues for the government. Poorly maintained, potholed and unplanned streets littered with battered and ill maintained taxis exacerbate urban transport difficulties. Motor vehicles share the streets with footing commuters. Street planners ignore pedestrians' walks and many more badly done things that make African laughing stocks in the 21st century. Billions of man-hours are wasted just in commuting to and from work each year in Africa and those cause strains on people and are financial wastes.  The light railways and why not underground networks as in developed economies could be emulated. As one of your speakers said, Africans will not be inventing the wheel. Those technological innovations are there that Africans need to copy, adapt and apply provided they stamp out corruption and overemphasis on fiscal policies and investments.

The error in most African states is that the government is the apparent sole employer and facilitator in the creation of jobs. The state is the president and that is awry. In most developed economies, the government only accounts for 3% of employment and job creation. The rest is in the private hands. The government work with the fluid nondiscriminatory infrastructures that cater to all irrespective of whether they supported the government in power or not during their election period.

Those in distant rural areas should equally be treated as citizens residing in urban areas and the capital cities. A country's economic strength is not only composed of urban dwellers particularly in Africa where the bulk of the economic strength is in the agricultural sector, the backbone of the rural economy.

Additionally, no speaker mentioned migration that is the anguish and ineptitude of African eyes in the 21st century. If there are jobs and inter-African trades, why do you Africans assume that their jobs and financial panacea now and in the future would only be moving to North America and Europe? Don't African youths envisage a modernized and industrialized Africa that is comparable to developed economies in Europe and North America of their making? In 1844 when Industrial Revolution was burgeoning in England, economic conditions were no better than what you have now in Africa. The operatives though working for the bourgeoises spartanly did not move en masse to the colonies, they stayed and it eventually paid. Europeans and Americans are having what took them centuries to realize. They started modestly.  So you Africans got to start with the modest revenues you have. Do not build a house of stones where you could do it better with straw clay.  Also, the governments in power got to instill patriotism that is sadly lacking. We do not mean using guns and bayonets and scaring the hell out of innocent people.  They got to work as a team, an aspect that is innate in most African communities. They got to respect one another, bureaucrats, operatives and the unemployed. Everyone has to put their hands on the plow and do not assume that their hospitals, other infrastructures would be built by China and other donors or would-be new colonizers as in the past. It is not the managerial skills, funds and raw materials that Africans lack. Where do they always go wrong?

Their governments' thoughtless, and prejudiced plans are responsible for most of their economic ills. How many have finished the railway projects commenced in the colonial era? How many have maintained those they found efficiently as a way to solving their soaring transport difficulties? How many cares to surface their roads and make them usable throughout the year?

Further, the master-servant syndrome is still lingering in Africa from the days of colonialism to the modern African governments that like to control their citizens as marionettes. Some of their leaders know more of Europe and North America at close quarters than the countries they purport to govern. Apart from that, they control investments, where and who should invest based on their support of their often corrupt government. If these persist, no amount of lecturing by the World Bank would loosen Africans from their governments' grips, and spur citizens' private investments that build most strong economies in the world.  Some Southeastern Asians states that gained their political independence with Africans states in tandem are already there. If they could do it owing to their transparency and other factors, African states could and even do better as their resources are there to be exploited, processed and finished products consumed and exported. [Attention of @SomikCities and African Trade Missions around the world].