Counterfeit Medicines

 Selling counterfeit medicine is the scourge of Africa and the cause of around 100,000 deaths annually on the world's poorest continent.

"To sell fake medicines, you need a clientele. The ailing poor are more numerous in Africa than anywhere in the world," said Marc Gentilini, an expert on infectious and tropical diseases and a former head of the French Red Cross. The WHO estimates that one out of 10 medicines in the world is fake but the figure can be as high as seven out of 10 in certain countries, especially in Africa.

The illicit sector has a turnover of at least 10 percent of the world pharmaceutical business, meaning that it earns tens of billions of dollars a year, the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum estimates, adding that the figure has nearly tripled in five years. 

Geoffroy Bessaud, the head of anti-counterfeit coordination at French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, said fake medicines were biggest illicit business in the world. "This phenomenon is spreading: it's financial attractiveness draws criminal organisations of all sizes," he said. "An investment of $1,000 can bring returns of up to $500,000 while for the same kind of investment in the heroin trade or in counterfeit money the amount will be around $20,000." Sanofi said it had in 2016 helped dismantle 27 clandestine laboratories, including 22 in China and the rest in Indonesia, Ukraine and Poland.

Gentilini said some meningitis vaccines sent a few years ago after an outbreak in arid Niger were fake. The disease kills thousands every year in the arid west African nation.

he American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene estimated in 2015 that 122,000 children under five died due to taking poor-quality antimalarials in sub-Saharan Africa, which, along with antibiotics as the two most in-demand, are the medicines most likely to be out-of-date or bad copies.

Interpol in August announced the seizure of 420 tonnes of counterfeit medicine in West Africa in a massive operation that involved about 1,000 police, customs and health officials in seven countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Togo. Ivorian authorities in May burnt 40 tonnes of fake medicines in Adjame, the biggest street market of fake medicines in West Africa which accounts for 30 percent of medicine sales in Ivory Coast.

Offenders remain largely unpunished worldwide and are mainly targeted for breaching intellectual property rights instead of being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the Paris-based International Institute of Research Against Counterfeit Medicine says.

In countries where medical expenses -- from drugs to hospitalisation -- are not even partly reimbursed by the state, the relatively cheap price of street medication trumps the risk factor for many.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2018-01-17-fake-medicines-flourish-in-africa-despite-killing-thousands/

Commodifying Food

Professor Saa Dittoh, a Former Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS) has stated that food production all over the world should be aimed providing nutritious food and not a making money venture.

“I can assure you that the moment you try to make money out of food, the less it becomes for nutrition”, he emphasized.

“That we are not producing food to feed but rather to make money is a worldwide tragedy”, he further emphasized.

Prof. Dittoh also blamed the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and the Agriculture Training Institutions for training farmers and students on how to engage in agriculture and make money and not how to produce good food for people to consume.

He said the problem with getting good nutrition was in two folds with the first one being genuine ignorance and the second being the silent opposition, stressing that “The world was so criminal that people can kill others just to get money”.

“Those who have money and can invest in agriculture were not interested in what interest the poor countries but rather interested in selling their chemicals”, he stressed.

http://www.ghananewsagency.org/social/worldwide-food-production-aimed-at-making-money-instead-prof-dittoh-127475

Shithole? Who can deny it?

After attaining independence from colonial rule many countries in Africa were filled with hope, joy, and euphoria. A new dawn had arrived and there was a sense of optimism for a better tomorrow. Sadly, the honeymoon was short-lived. Hopes were soon dashed. Wealth bequeathed to the continent by nature were mismanaged with impunity. Despots ruled without an iota of decency, respect and sympathy for their people with the only object to amass wealth with the support of their western accomplices while the ordinary people lived in abject poverty without access to fundamental social facilities. Many African nations with huge potentials are bedeviled with civil conflict, recurring epidemics,  deep levels of poverty, and entrenched corrupt practices. Africa has been robbed of a great opportunity to harmonise its resources for the good of its people.

Africa continues to produce a significant proportion of the world’s mineral resources. Nigeria and Angola are the leading oil producers in Africa, Ghana and South Africa follow suit with gold, Ivory Coast and Ghana are the largest cocoa producers in Africa and both in the top 10 producers in the world. Diamond, iron ore, bauxite and other minerals are extracted in large quantities as well. Regrettably, with all these vast wealth, Africa remains the poorest continent. Unemployment and underemployment, particularly among the youth is widespread and remains the continent’s biggest challenge. Food security, erratic power supply, high rates of infant mortality and inefficient healthcare, lack of sanitation and other basic social amenities all exist. Foreign aid constitutes a substantial portion of a number of national budgets.

Indeed, no matter how reluctant we may be, but the description "shithole" may well be appropriate 

South Africa's Gupta Corruption Scandal

Peter Hain, a former Labour cabinet minister and veteran anti-apartheid campaigner, told the House of Lords   “It should be a matter of shame that companies headquartered here in the UK have aided and abetted money laundering, corruption and state capture in South Africa – including Bell Pottinger, KPMG, McKinsey, SAP, and banks such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and Baroda – in total betrayal of Nelson Mandela’s legacy. I have just referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority Hogan Lovells, the international law firm headquartered here in London, for enabling a corrupt money launderer to be returned to his post as second-in-command of the critically important South African Revenue Service (SARS).”

Hain has reported Hogan Lovells to the UK’s Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) over concerns that the firm produced a “fatally flawed whitewash” report into claims of money laundering at the South African tax agency.  Hogan Lovells, a global law firm with more than 2,500 lawyers. Hain said the flawed report made the firm “complicit in undermining South Africa’s once-revered tax-collection agency, and thereby effectively underpinning President Jacob Zuma and his business associates, the Gupta brothers, and others, in perverting South Africa’s democracy, damaging its economy and robbing its taxpayers”.

Hain’s claims against Hogan Lovells relate to the firm’s investigation into allegations of corruption against the SARS deputy commissioner, Jonas Makwakwa, who, along with his lover, was alleged to have siphoned off about R1.7m (£100,000). Makwakwa denies any wrongdoing.

“The law firm issued an incomplete, fatally flawed whitewash of a report, which ultimately cleared Makwakwa, despite reams of evidence to the contrary,” Hain said. “Most damning of all, Hogan Lovells failed to include crucial evidence from the PwC report and the status of the Hawks [economic crime police] investigation in their own report.” Hain said Hogan Lovell’s report led to the reappointment of Makwakwa. He accused him and his boss, the SARS commissioner, Tom Moyane, of continuing “their looting and dirty work of robbing taxpayers”.

South African politicians and campaigners accuse the billionaire Gupta brothers of exploiting their close friendship with Zuma to take control of some government affairs and win big state contracts for their family businesses. The public relations firm Bell Pottinger which collapsed into bankruptcy last year following revelations that it sought to stir up racial tension in the country on behalf of the Guptas.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/jan/15/london-law-firm-accused-over-role-in-south-africa-corruption-scandal

Ghana Visit (1961)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ghana Visit
It has finally been decided, after many comings and goings, that the Queen's visit to Ghana is still on. Mr. Duncan Sandys, the British diplomats in Ghana, the Prime Minister himself—-all have been called on to take some part of the responsibility, all have had a hand in the final decision along with the other members of the Cabinet. The only person who doesn't seem to have been consulted is the person whose safety, after all, is at stake—the Queen herself. There could hardly have been a more striking illustration of the position the monarchy now holds as against the ruling class. The Capitalists having taken over the state and the machinery of government, they have either converted the governmental instruments of the old landowner-ruled society to their own uses, or have allowed them to survive merely as powerless ceremonial appendages. Even though at the beginning of the visit it seemed not improbable, after several recent anti-Nkrumah bomb explosions, that there would be some attempt at violence as the Queen and Nkrumah rode together through the towns of Ghana, the Queen had no choice in the matter. The Government, the Capitalists' executive committee, had decided that she was to go. And since the monarch in Capitalist society is no more than a puppet, she was constitutionally bound to “take her minister's advice"—i.e., do as she was told.

Criticism
Recently Nkrumah, as the chosen right hand of the Ghana ruling class, has been revealing more and more clearly what kind of society the Ghana rulers have decided on. It is now an offence punishable with jail to ”defame" the President, which seems in practice to cover any kind of criticism of him. It is not the first time a Capitalist class have decided that a dictatorship suits them best in a given set of circumstances, nor will it be the last.

But what can be said of some of the newspapers, such as the Daily Express. who are now deploring Nkrumah's dictatorial methods? Only a decade ago, when there was just as much of a dictatorship in Ghana as there is now— the only difference being that the dictatorship was then run by the British ruling class instead of the Ghanaian ruling class — the Daily Express had no objection to the dictatorship at all. It seems that it isn’t the dictatorship itself that they object to: only the particular set of people who happen to be running it. The record of the Daily Express on the matter deprives it of the right to criticise. Only those who criticised the British dictatorship of the past can logically now criticise the Nkrumah dictatorship of the present.

Alwyn Edgar

Another Debt Crisis Looms

Global interest rates are rising. Poor countries are finding it tougher to pay back money borrowed from banks in anticipation of a commodity windfall that never materialised. Stir in some corruption that has seen funds stolen and what do you have? Another potential debt crisis.  The warning signs are there. The IMF and the World Bank both know it.

Africa needs more private-sector investment because debt relief and western aid have not been enough on their own to bring about economic modernisation. And in the years immediately after the 2008 financial crisis investing in Africa was attractive. Debt relief and better financial management meant African countries looked more stable. The money creation process known as quantitative easing meant western banks and other financial institutions were awash with funds. Ultra-low interest rates in the developed world meant investors were scouring the world for higher yields than they could obtain at home. Many African countries were also exporters of commodities that were in high demand due to China’s rapid growth. Deals were done in which western banks lent money for projects in African countries, with the debt to be paid off by the proceeds of rising commodity prices. That was the theory. In practice, very questionable an very dubious  deals were done.

 A prime example is the one made in London five years ago between Credit Suisse and Russia’s VTB bank to lend $2bn to two companies in Mozambique backed by the government in Maputo. The money was supposed to be for a tuna fishing fleet and for a navy to protect the boats operating in Mozambique’s territorial waters. Credit Suisse and VTB trousered $200m between them in fees, but the loans were never revealed to the Mozambique parliament, the IMF, the financial markets or the Mozambique people.  A report into the deal by the corporate investigations company Kroll concluded that the two companies were inadequately managed and had generated no meaningful revenue. At least a quarter of the money is unaccounted for, with some suspicion that it was spent on military equipment. 

Jamie Drummond, the director of the development campaign group One says that it is not clear the money ever turned up in Mozambique after being sent to two offshore companies in Abu Dhabi. For sure, though, not a single tuna has been landed. Mozambique has paid a heavy price for defaulting on the debt, which has been sold on to vulture funds. The IMF, miffed at being lied to, has suspended its programme and the loss of financial support has meant public services are being cut.  The tuna deal stank in every way. It was bad for Mozambique.

Mozambique is not the only country in difficulty. The Jubilee debt campaign said that at the end of 2017, 28 countries were rated as in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress, up from 22 at the end of 2016, and 15 in 2013. The number of countries classified as low risk has more than halved – from 24 in 2013 to 11 currently.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/14/are-we-heading-for-another-developing-world-debt-crisis

Fact of the Day

The Africa regional manager, International Road Federation (IRF), Dr Patrick Amoah Bekoe, has lamented that over 85 million Nigerians residing in rural areas are grappling with high unemployment, poverty, income inequalities, high rural-urban migration, poor health care, high maternal and infant mortality rate and among others.

With respect to consumption shares in 2004,the bottom 10% (poorest of the poor) of the population consumed 2.56% of goods and services, while the top 10% (super rich) consumed 26.59% of all goods and services. 

The richest 10%, however, is said to be responsible for 26.59% of national expenditure or income in 2016. This increased to 33.72% in 2013 but decreased to 31.09% in 2016. 

According to NBS, the top 20% were responsible for 42.40% of national income/expenditure in 2004. ‘‘This increased to 48.28% in 2013 but declined to 46.63% in 2016. While no agreed standard definition of the Nigerian 'Middle class' exists, for the purpose of this report we have classified Decile 01-03 as the lower class, Decile 04-07 as the 'middle class' and Decile 08-10 as the upper class,’’ it stated.

 Accordingly, the report indicates that upper class was responsible for 58.39% of national income/expenditure down from 59.42% in 2013. The share of the upper class in national income had been rising between 2004 and 2013 before reducing in 2016. 

The 'middle class', on the other hand, accounted for 30.26% of national income/expenditure in 2016, higher than 29.14% in 2013. The share of the middle class had been declining between 2004 and 2013 in favor of the higher class but that reversed in 2016. The lower class, on the other hand accounted for 11.35% of national income/expenditure in 2016, lower than 11.43% in 2013.

The Batwa Conservation Refugees

The Batwa in Uganda live in 11 settlements in Kanungu and Kisoro districts – and they are mired in extreme poverty.

In Kebiremo, there is no hospital nearby, and many Batwa have been dying prematurely over the past few years. Within the 25 Batwa families that reside here, at least 20 young people have died in the past five years. And they have all died from “simple” diseases such as “malaria, ulcers and even headache.”

 For ages, the Batwa sustained their lives only from the biologically rich forests in which they lived. The forests provided them with food (plants and animals) and medicine (herbs).

But their lives took a dramatic turn in 1991 when the Ugandan government gazetted Bwindi Impenetrable and Mgahinga forests to save the iconic mountain gorillas from extinction and also boost the country’s tourism. The Batwa were forced out of the forests at gunpoint and were not compensated since they never owned permanent structures. They left their ancestral home empty-handed and have since lived with the consequences of being born in the wrong part of the country.

Mark Dowie writes in his book Conservation Refugees, “eviction inevitably forces adults into intractable poverty, alcoholism, and prostitution, leaving their children with malnutrition, disease, and death.”

“Intractable poverty” is evident in Kebiremo as the Batwa lack basics such as adequate food and medical care. They say the land where they live now is infertile and the nearest hospital is about 15 kilometres away – the Bwindi Community Hospital that is located near the entrance to the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

 Scott Kellermann, an American medical doctor and an Episcopalian missionary first arrived in Uganda 18 years ago to medically survey the Batwa, he was rattled by the conditions in which they lived and decided to permanently live in Uganda and aid these unfortunate people. But perhaps what he didn’t know at the time was the tough task that awaited him.

Kellermann began by surveying the life expectancy of the Batwa, a people whose plight is rooted in the indifference with which they have been regarded since they were evicted from the Bwindi forest in 1991. His survey yielded saddening results: in 2000, 18 per cent of Batwa children were dying within one month of birth while 40 per cent of them never lived past five years. The adults’ life expectancy was just 28. Yes, 28! Treatable ailments were – and still are – claiming the lives of these misfortunate ‘conservation refugees’ who live in the home district of former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.

Despite the fact that the Batwa were kicked out of the forests to give way for the creation of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, authorities have never done anything about their plight. Yet, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), 10 per cent of the money collected from gorilla permit sales goes to the communities around the two national parks. The Batwa have never received anything from UWA’s revenue sharing scheme. And that the money goes to other people while bypassing the Batwa – the “rightful owners” of these national parks – has been a source of disillusion for the former hunter-gatherers.

http://www.chwezitraveller.com/featured/batwa-ugandas-conservation-refugees-mired-in-extreme-poverty/

Green Africa

What is the Green Africa project? The irrigating the whole of Africa from the great rivers.

Such a project was realized and was viable (during the communist regime) in Romania: from the Danube River - some huge pumps sent water hundreds of kilometers away, through millions of pipes (pipelines) across the entire Romanian Plain.  They were obtained huge crops of wheat, crops which were sufficient to feed the population of all Europe. 

From the rivers: Nile, Niger, Congo, Senegal, Zambezi, Orange etc. and from the lakes: Chad, Victoria, Tanganyika, Malawi, Ngami etc., through huge pumps, then through millions of pipes (large pipes, medium pipes, small pipes) to great distances, we can send water to vast African territories. 


These giant pumps can be supplied with electricity from the power lines of various countries (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Niger, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Zaire, Congo, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the Republic of South Africa, Namibia, etc.) or very powerful Diesel engines will be installed (near pumps) which will drive some power generators which will produce alternating electric current (220 volts or 380 volts) (so, converters to produce electric current) which will drive huge pumps.

http://www.pravdareport.com/science/earth/11-01-2018/139676-green_africa-0/

The African Wealthy

The 23 billionaires that Forbes found in Africa – up from 21 billionaires last year -- are worth a combined $75.4 billion, compared to $70 billion in January 2017.

The richest African, for the seventh year in a row, is Nigerian cement and commodities tycoon Aliko Dangote, with a net worth that Forbes pegs at $12.2 billion. That's up $100 million from a year ago. Dangote is looking beyond cement –his most valuable asset – and has been investing in a fertilizer production company and a large oil refinery. Dangote Fertilizer is expected to start operations in the second quarter this year.

Number two on the list is diamond mining heir Nicky Oppenheimer of South Africa, with a net worth of $7.7 billion, up $700 million from last year. Oppenheimer is one of 8 South Africans on the list, making it the African country with the most billionaires.

Last year, South Africa and Egypt tied with 6 billionaires each. Boosting the South African ranks this year: newcomer Michiel Le Roux, the founder and former chairman of Johannesburg-listed Capitec Bank Holdings, whose stock has climbed more than 50% in the past year, making Le Roux a new billionaire worth $1.2 billion. South African mining tycoon Desmond Sacco, chairman of listed Assore Group, returns to the list following a stock price surge of some 60% in the past 12 months. Sacco last appeared as a billionaire on The Africa’s Richest list in 2012 with a $1.4 billion fortune. (He also appeared on the 2014 Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires, worth $1.3 billion.)

One South African list member wouldn't have made the cut a month ago. In December 2017, the share price of retailer Steinhoff International plunged after the company divulged accounting irregularities. That pushed the net worth of Steinhoff's then-chairman Christoffel Wiese below $1 billion on December 7. (Wiese resigned as chairman in December.) In early January the company said it would restate its financial results as far back as 2015 and the share price rebounded enough to put Wiese back in billionaire territory, at least for the moment. Forbes calculated his net worth on January 5 (the day we measured all the billionaires fortunes) at $1.1 billion, down substantially from $5.5 billion a year ago. (As of Jan. 10, Steinhoff stock dropped again, knocking Wiese's net worth below $1 billion.)

South Sudan: The Struggle to Survive

Almost half of the population - 4.8 million people - are currently severely food insecure. That's 1.4 million more than the same time a year ago.

It's projected to get even worse in 2018, with an estimated 5.1 million people expected to go hungry.

Africa's Poverty and Inequality

Africa’s new wealth is increasingly concentrated in only a very few hands. Disappointingly, 10 of the world’s 19 most unequal countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. Economic inequality, or income inequality, is the unequal distribution of a country’s wealth. In highly unequal societies, such as South Africa, most people live in poverty while a minority amasses enormous wealth.

South Africa, the continent’s most developed economy, is also the world’s most unequal. Botswana, Namibia and Zambia are also among the top 19. While Ethiopia’s economy is growing at 8%, it is impossible to miss its impoverished citizens in the streets of its capital, pulling donkeys to transport goods while the rich and famous drive around in luxury cars.

In Nigeria “the scale of inequality has reached extreme levels,” reports UK charity Oxfam in a study published in May 2017. Five of Nigeria’s wealthiest people, including Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, have a combined wealth of US$29.9 billion—more than Nigeria’s entire 2017 budget while about 60% of Nigerians live on less than US$1.25 a day, the threshold for absolute poverty.

In the 1980s and 1990s, many African countries buckled under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Western nations to implement structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), which led to cuts in subsidies for health, education, transportation and other sectors that help poor citizens.

Some historians and economists now say those cuts fostered inequality. “Under the influence of Western donors, austerity became African leaders’ default coping mechanism for periods of economic stress,” writes Nicholas William Stephenson Smith, a freelance researcher and historian. For many countries SAPs widened the wealth gap rather than providing macroeconomic stability, said Said Adejumobi, director of Southern Africa’s subregional office for the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Adejumobi added that structural adjustment stalled mobility, frayed communities and sharpened divisions along socioeconomic lines. Currently “a tiny group of 4% captures a large chunk of the income and wealth in Africa’s changing tide of capitalist progress,” he said.

 Former South African president Thabo Mbeki, estimates  Africa loses up to US$50 billion annually to illicit flows. Mr. Mbeki urged countries to punish multinational companies that are overinvoicing, underpricing or funneling money to tax havens.

Conservation Refugees

In a case that illustrates tensions between indigenous people's land rights and conservation projects, the Sengwer, a tribe living in the forests of western Kenya, say they have faced a fresh round of evictions by Kenyan authorities to pave the way for a European Union-funded project to protect water catchment areas in the region. Some 100 Kenya Forest Service (KFS) guards started evicting Sengwer people from the Embobut forest on Dec. 29, activists said.

"The approach of KFS is conservation without people," Clement Lenachuru, a commissioner at National Lands Commission of Kenya.

Amnesty International wrote to Kenya's environment ministry this week with reports it had received from Sengwer community members and local media that KFS guards burnt at least 15 huts, fired shots in the air and shot dead several animals. Amnesty said the December evictions were carried out despite a High Court injunction that forbids the eviction or arrest of Sengwer resident in the forest, pending the hearing of a court challenge to the legality of mass evictions carried out in 2014. The United Nations and the World Bank criticised the KFS in 2014 for forcibly evicting thousands of Sengwer from the forest by burning their homes, leaving many camped out by the roadside.

The Sengwer hunter-gatherers have fought with the government for more than five decades for the right to live in the Embobut forest in the Cherengany Hills from where they were first evicted by British colonialists in the 19th century. Sengwer community leaders called on the government to halt a six-year, 31 million euro ($37 million) programme, launched in June 2016 to protect Kenya's five water towers in the Mount Elgon and Cherangany ecosystems.

http://news.trust.org/item/20180105133547-92mmr/

The wealth of Africa does not make Africans wealthy

The Democratic Republic of Congo is blessed with enormous natural wealth, including vast deposits of precious minerals such as diamonds, gold, and tantalum.

 President Laurent-Desire Kabila and then his son Joseph licensed international mining companies to tap its treasures. This arrangement generated riches for the Congolese elite but offered little to the poverty-ravaged population.

From 1999 to 2002, the Kabila regime “transferred ownership of at least $5 billion of assets from the state-mining sector to private companies under its control… with no compensation or benefit for the State treasury,” a United Nations investigation found.

The bonanza coincided with a ruthless crackdown on dissent. In 2004, a small, mostly civilian group took over a mine operated by the Australian firm Anvil Mining in Kilwa village, protesting that the company was making huge profits without rewarding the local workforce. According to a UN report, the Congolese army crushed the uprising and killed around 100 people, many by summary execution.

The combination of staggering wealth, rampant violence, and abject poverty in DR Congo is no isolated exception, but a pattern causing devastation across Africa.

According to Financial Times  journalist Tom Burgis in his book The Looting Machine, the “the continent that is at once the world’s poorest and, arguably, its richest.”

Burgis finds a wide variety of kleptocrats and rackets over his travels through dozens of resource-rich countries. But a common thread is that the wholesale expropriation of resources during colonial times has barely slowed through the post-independence era, albeit with new beneficiaries.

“Western governments are not supposed to wield commercial and political power at the same time, and certainly not to use one to benefit the other,” says Burgis. “In colonial states…The British or Portuguese would cultivate a small group of local people who would fuse political and commercial power to control the economy. When the foreign power leaves, you are left with an elite that has no division between political and commercial power. The only source of wealth is mines or oilfields, and that is a recipe for ultra-corrupt states. Somewhere like Nigeria, an ‘extractor elite’…wanted to draw to itself the rent that oil and mining resources generate.”

Burgis cites another colonial hangover in the continued presence and power of oil and mining firms. “The multinational companies hold enormous economic and political power in post-independence African countries,” he says. “In this way, there is a pretty straight line from colonial exploitation to modern exploitation.”

The ability of governments to rely on resource revenue leads to corruption and oppression, Burgis argues, as they are not accountable to their people through a social contract based on taxation and representation. He cites Angola, which earns almost half of its GDP from oil, as an example of government as “a service for the elite.” A 2011 IMF audit revealed that $32 billion disappeared from official accounts between 2007 and 2010, a quarter of the state’s income.The Angolan elite rejects accountability and does not tolerate any challenge from the public.

The growth of offshore banking in the late 20th century created new opportunities for resource tycoons to cover their tracks, a practice laid bare in the Panama Papers. Israeli businessman Dan Gertler was an early pioneer. After forging a close friendship with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, he was granted a near monopoly on exporting the nation’s diamonds, and quickly became a billionaire. Gertler routed the cash through an elaborate network of offshore accounts in tax havens, keeping the details of controversial deals secret. “In the case of African resource deals, offshore funds have been shown to conceal questionable transactions,” says Burgis.

 “In the 1980s, bribes were literally cars full of cash and you handed the key to the official you were trying to bribe. Bribery now is much more sophisticated, and has become harder to define as bribery if it’s (through) offshore transactions or people being given equity shares in offshore companies…You have to crack open a lot of offshore secrecy to see the conflict of interest that lies at the heart of them.”

The era of global finance has opened African markets to a new generation of mysterious traders. Burgis spent years on the trail of elusive Chinese businessman Sam Pa, who has cycled through multiple aliases while making deals across the continent from Angolan oil to Zimbabwean diamonds. Pa is believed to lead the secretive Queensway investor group, and Burgis claims he has represented the Chinese state, although the government denies this.

Burgis is skeptical that resource industries can ever be reformed. “There is a troubling possibility that it’s not possible to put natural resources in these countries to work for the common good,” says Burgess. “Almost everywhere that receives a significant share of its income from oil or mining is badly run and often violent — it’s in the nature of these industries to cause these problems.”

He continued, “We have a world trading architecture with strict rules on imposing tariffs. African countries have adopted the market orthodoxy that led them to pare down states and embrace global economic competition — in which they are overwhelmingly the losers.”

 Responsibility for the plight of resource-dependent nations goes beyond traders and dictators. The global economy still requires a huge supply of raw materials that originate in Africa, creating an imperative to maintain the existing, destructive model. ” He says, “There has been a tendency to lecture African rulers an tell them to put their house in order but the problems are in the world financial system. That financial secrecy is available is not Africa’s fault,” says Burgis. “Address the part that sits within the global system, which can be regulated from Western capitals.”

https://citizentv.co.ke/news/why-the-wealth-of-africa-does-not-make-africans-wealthy-187097/

Day Zero

Cape Town could soon dry up after dismal rainfall left city dams almost empty. Residents and visitors are being asked to restrict usage to essentials.  Households using more than 10,500 liters (2,773 gallons) per day will now be fined or have water management devices installed on their properties,

Cape Town is experiencing the worst drought to hit South Africa in decades. The city's water reserves can only last a few more months. when all the reservoirs are empty could be in early May.  The authorities are already preparing for the worst. Once 'Day Zero' kicks in, there will be 200 water points stationed across the city. Each resident will receive 25 liters of water per day.

Cape Town has been affected by a series of extreme weather patterns; from waves that were 8 meters (26 feet) high crashing against shorelines, to wildfires fanned by strong winds that killed seven people and destroyed property. But the biggest problem, for now, is the water shortage.

One of South Africa's leading environmental lawyers, Terry Winstanley, says the city is quickly running out of options. "The prognosis long term is that the city can expect to receive less rainfall than it has historically. A possible other solution will be mobile desalination plants, which could address a short-term need," she said.

According to a new study more than a quarter of Earth's land surface will become significantly drier, even  if the global warming limit of two degrees, as laid down in the Paris Agreement, is reached.

Angola's Corruption

Equatorial Guinea

Obiang, 75, has ruled the West African country of 1.2 million people for 39 years.

He took power in a bloody coup in August 1979 by ousting his own uncle, first post-independence president Francisco Macias Nguema, who was shot by firing squad. Obiang’s regime regularly comes under fire from rights groups for violent suppression of the opposition, civil society groups and the media. The country has seen a string of attempts to overthrow or assassinate the president.

Equatorial Guinea is one of Africa’s most recent oil exporters, beginning exploitation of its oil and gas deposits in the early 1990s when several mainly US oil companies moved in.

Petroleum production dominates the economy. Oil income, however, has dropped heavily since 2014, amid a global fall in prices.

Gross national income per person dropped from $12,850 in 2014 to $7,180 in 2016, according to the World Bank.

A large section of its population live below the poverty line and power cuts are frequent.

Human Rights Watch says the government spent only around three percent of its budget on health and education in 2008 and 2011, for when data is available, while devoting a large chunk to major infrastructure.

Surgical Care?

Patients undergoing surgery in Africa are more than twice as likely to die following an operation than the global average, despite generally being younger, healthier and the surgery they are undergoing being more minor, research has revealed.

The study of 11,422 adult patients at 247 hospitals spread over 25 countries – including Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and Zambia, revealed that just over 18% of in-patients developed complications following surgery, while 1% of elective in-patients died in hospital within 30 days of their operation – twice the global average. 

Prof Bruce Biccard, a co-author of the latest study from the University of Cape Town, said that one of the major problems is likely to be an insufficient number of medical staff, resulting in difficulties in spotting or tackling complications following operations. “The reason that people do so terribly in Africa from a surgical point of view is that there are just no human resources,” he said.  The findings are probably a reflection of a scanty workforce, limited numbers of hospital beds, and poor systems to check up on patients follow surgery, noting that there are only about 0.7 specialist surgeons, obstetricians and anaesthesiologists per 100,000 population. The recommended figure to decrease the risk of death following surgery is 20–40 such specialists per 100,000 population. “There is no way we are going to be able to train enough physicians to fill this deficit in human resources,” said Biccard

The results reveal that 2.1% of those who underwent any surgery, and 1% of those who had elective surgery, died in hospital within 30 days of their operation. Only a minority of deaths occurred on the day of the operation itself.

Just over 18% of all patients developed complications, ranging from stroke to pneumonia, almost one in 10 of whom died. “It is likely that many of these deaths were preventable,” the authors note.

The study also revealed that the number of operations across the continent was very low and fewer than 43% of surgeries in Africa were elective, with the majority of patients instead undergoing urgent or emergency operations. That highlights another problem: that many individuals who need surgery might not have access to it. “The real sad thing is that there is a lot of surgery obviously that is not happening,” he said. “That is probably a huge killer in Africa,” he added.

Dr David Walker, a consultant in anaesthesia and critical care medicine at University College London Hospitals, who was not involved in the study, also said the latest study suggests that poor access to timely surgery is a “forgotten epidemic” in Africa.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/03/patients-in-africa-twice-as-likely-to-die-after-an-operation-than-global-average-report-shows

Kenya's Divide

Although Kenya often appears in the press as a nation split by ethnic discord, it has just two “tribes”: the rich and the poor.  40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

 Despite the media’s glib obsession with tribe, the average worker in Kenya earns $150 per month while members of parliament make nearly fifty times that amount. Electoral politics continue to function as a gatekeeper to wealth and power. And ordinary Kenyans, across ethnicity, know they’re getting a raw deal.

Full article here

Africa's Population

• The current population of Africa is 1,272,027,186 as of Monday, January 1, 2018, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
• Africa population is equivalent to 16.41% of the total world population.
• Africa ranks number 2 among regions of the world (roughly equivalent to "continents"), ordered by population.
• The population density in Africa is 42 per Km2 (110 people per mi2).
• The total land area is 29,648,481 Km2 (11,447,338 sq. miles)
• 40.2 % of the population is urban (505,429,407 people in 2017)
• The median age in Africa is 19.4 years.
• Fertility Rate is 4.66 (6.62, 1955)

Projection for 2050

• Population: 2,527,556,761

• Africa's Share of World Pop 26.6 %

• Population density: 85

• Urbanisation: 53% - 1,338,565,979

• Median age: 24.8

• Fertility Rate: 3.09

NUMSA Indicts the ANC and SACP

"The recent leadership changes that have resulted in the Deputy President of the country Cyril Ramaphosa ascending to the presidency of the ANC is not a reason to celebrate, particularly for the working class. NUMSA refused to endorse one faction of the ANC over another. We have always known that regardless of who emerged the winner, the governing party will continue to pursue backward, right wing, neo-liberal macro-economic policies which are hurtful to the working class and the poor.

 For the last two decades, the ANC government has waged an all-out assault on the African working class in order to defend White Monopoly Capital. The ANC has faithfully implemented the National Party’s neo-liberal capitalist economic policies, starting with the Growth Employment and Redistribution policy (GEAR) and now the National Development Plan (NDP), both of which are the DA’s economic policies in disguise, in order to please international rating agencies. These policies have resulted in massive job losses and long-term mass unemployment. They have created a society of extreme inequality. The majority suffer as they did under Apartheid, living crammed together with cockroaches and rats in townships and shacks, without sanitation, water and electricity.

NUMSA shares SAFTU’s view that “Cyril Ramaphosa is a deeply compromised capitalist billionaire, with hands stained with the blood of the 34 victims of Marikana who were shot in cold blood by the state to shield White Monopoly capital in general and Lonmin in particular”.

Furthermore, it is naïve to believe that the cronyism and corruption which is a hallmark of the ANC will disappear. The very same people who stood by quietly whilst the state was actively looted by various factions of capital including the Gupta and the Rupert families are the ones who make up the top leadership structures of the ANC, and this includes Ramaphosa himself.

They cannot extricate themselves from the corrupt tendencies of the party. Furthermore the ANC has been enabled in its corruption by the leadership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and trade union federation COSATU who actively continue to mislead members of the working class into supporting their worst butchers, for their own selfish narrow political agenda."

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/anc-cronyism-and-corruption-wont-magically-disappe

The Ethiopian Crisis

Deadly clashes over the past few weeks would appear to be harbingers of an ethnically-motivated civil war. It seems like ethnic tensions are being expressed with increasing intensity. But the causes are complex. One issue in particular has repeatedly exacerbated the ethnic tensions in Ethiopia: the side effects of rapid economic growth. Since 2000, gross domestic product has increased almost tenfold, raising questions over who actually benefits from this increase in prosperity. For example, the violent expropriation of many Oromo people following the spread of the economic boom in the capital Addis Ababa is considered one of the triggers for the ongoing unrest.

While a small number of government-connected oligarchs are accumulating more and more wealth, most Ethiopians are not experiencing the so-called economic miracle, with nearly six million people dependent on food aid. Although the economic boom has led to the emergence of a small middle class, this hardly diffuses the situation. On the contrary, economic success and access to better education only increase the desire for political participation, which so far has been denied to those who wish to work their way up in the authoritarian system.

Civil society pushes back against the authoritarianism of national, regional and local rulers; regional populations want more independence from Addis Ababa and at the center of power, reformers fight against those who wish to defend the status quo. The military and regional police forces are becoming increasingly involved in political decisions.

http://www.dw.com/en/ethiopia-crisis-in-the-land-of-the-economic-miracle/a-41978559

New Year Message

Another new year has arrived and with it the usual crop of wishes for health and wealth.

Capitalism is a system of society which divides people rather than unites them — capitalist from worker, men from women, blacks from whites, nation from nation. It teaches us competition not co-operation competition for jobs, housing and something that approximates to a bearable standard of living. The division between capitalist and worker is inherent in capitalism — their interests are totally opposed and can never be reconciled. But the divisions between workers are not inherent —they are encouraged by the conditions in which we live and work but could be overcome through a recognition of our common class interests, our mutual inter-dependence and, above all, the need for radical change. Only the working class is free to take the step which will remove social contradictions and the obstacles to the progress of human society.

At the commencement of another year, it may be expected that the Socialist Banner blog should send out to our fellow-workers the customary New Year message. However,  it becomes increasingly difficult to find anything fresh to say upon the recurrence of such a monotonous event as the birth of another year without repeating platitudes. The year which has just drawn to a close has not been a particularly happy one for the workers. If we have a New Year’s message, it is that the progress of humanity does not require the needless loss of millions of lives which we keep witnessing every year.

So let this new year be the year we express our class solidarity and unite against the capitalist system and that our New Year resolution that we will organise democratically with or fellow-workers to abolish capitalism and bring about a society in which we can all start to become healthy, happy and wise. That is our toast to the New Year - "To a harmonious life for all men and women and for their dedication in the new year to work towards their emancipation and happiness".