Nigeria was nearly brought to its knees by a crippling fuel
shortage following a long-running quarrel over contested subsidy payments. The
West African country is Africa’s biggest oil producer, but imports all its
processed fuel because it does not have domestic refineries. Nigeria is not the
only African country that produces a lot of a resource internally, only to
struggle to meet domestic market needs.
South Africa’s power utility Eskom produces about 95% of the
country’s electricity, and nearly half (45%) of Africa’s capacity, but locals
have had to contend with rolling blackouts, with the load shedding programme to
stay for the next few years, officials say.
The largest global gas finds of the last two decades have
been made in Mozambique, but the country continues to grapple with significant
electricity shortages. Just 18% of the population have online access to the
national grid, with the infrastructure a major problem—power from the
CahoraBossa plant in the north to the capital Maputo first has to pass through
South Africa. The country also imports the majority of its cooking gas needs,
and has thus been hit by market practices such as speculation. Deals in the
pipeline are expected to make the country the biggest LNG supplier after Qatar
and Australia in the next decade, but gas-fired power-plants remain years away
from being a reality, meaning the electricity deficits will only deepen as
domestic demand rises. The irony is that such a plant would make Mozambique a
net export of power—with countries like South Africa next door potential
beneficiaries.
One of copper’s biggest uses is in power generation and
transmission, but for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), electricity
shortages are a norm. Less than 10% of the population are connected to the
national grid, with the little that is connected ironically going largely to
multinational miners. Two dams on the Inga Falls produce about 1,500MW. This is in a country that is Africa’s biggest
export of copper.
In 2008 Botswana accounted for three of the 13 billion
carats of rough diamonds that were on the world market. But when it comes to
the finished polished product, one of the world’s largest producers of the gems
accounts for less than 5% of the globe’s estimated $20 billion worth of
product. The country earns more from the regional customs union, than from
diamonds. This is because most of the cutting and polishing is done outside
Botswana. And even of those located domestically, just one company has local
shareholding, the rest being dominated by outsiders. The country has also been
recently losing thousands of cutting jobs.
Burkina Faso is the fourth largest producer of gold on the
continent after the likes of South Africa and Mali, but with one of the highest
poverty rates in the region, the ensuing gold rush has pulled children out of
school—for a commodity they may not expect to buy locally at current income
rates. Three of every four Burkinabes are unemployed, and the country
consistently ranks among the bottom 10 in the annual Human Development Index. The
western African country therefore exports nearly all of it, with proceeds
usually dominated by the multinationals
The world’s largest producer of cocoa only inaugurated its
first chocolate factory two weeks ago (although French-owned). Cocoa, the
“brown gold” for Ivory Coast, accounts for 22% of the country’s gross domestic
product (GDP), more than half of its exports and two-thirds of people’s jobs
and incomes, according to the World Bank. While cocoa earned the country $2.1
billion last year, earnings from chocolate in the global market were nearly 60
times more. In 2014, journalist Richard Quest travelled to Ivory Coast and
encountered cocoa farmers who had neither tasted, let alone seen, chocolate. It
is not uncommon though, as in some African countries rural communities that
grow coffee have never seen or tasted it in refined form, either.
The economic benefits of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
to the tiny kingdom are immense, earning it at least $45 million annually for hundreds
of milions of litres. South Africa is the major beneficiary, with the exports
seen as an example of economic integration. Many argue it is an arrangement
that benefits only one country, and the elites in the other. But Lesotho,
despite being mountainous, struggles with drought and unreliable rainfall,
while thousands of its people go without reliable access to water.
Egypt has consistently topped the wheat production tables in
Africa—it is projected to grow 8.5 million tonnes this year, at least two
million above the nearest challenger, Morocco, according to the FAO. But even
this is not enough—it will import nearly four million tonnes more than Algeria
going into 2016, and a third more than it grows, with not even a bushel as
surplus, and shortages are not unheard of. Wheat subsidies are a matter of life
and death in the country.
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