Ramadhani-Msoma
In Summary
The drivers of the approach can be found in
buzzwords like capital, foreign direct investments (FDIs) and aid; and
our poor countries are in the league of their own to make sure the three
flow towards them.
Now they have openly ‘‘swallowed their pride’’
by agreeing that mistakes were made in mining contracts which made this
country lose billions in investments by foreign companies in the
industry.
Tanzania is blessed with all natural resources you
can think of, and here comes another opportunity: natural gas discovery
in the South and foreign investments coming with it to put to the test,
not only the intellect of our leaders, but also their patriotism.
As an ordinary person, I find it difficult to make
some sense in deciding whether to believe in their promise to the
public that this time around they will make things right. It’s
difficult. They are telling us, for example, that the gas discovered
will help this country become a middle income country come 2025.
The country is among the top producers of gold in
Africa together with South Africa and Ghana, but that position is not
reflected in the rate of reducing poverty. In the neo liberal economy,
African countries, including Tanzania, have so much to lose and little
to gain it seems, if sound economic policies are not in place to make
sure the natural resources the continent is endowed with benefit
Africans.
The way that we act in the current set up,
responding to the needs of the big nations in the West and influential
economies in the East, in the long run we should start looking to see
how we can benefit in the globalised planet. Africans, after over 50
years of independence, have failed to break ‘‘the code’’ to learn to
exist in the even more complex world system.
We still don’t know that we are now the seeming
darling of the world because of our natural resources and nothing else.
The relationships between African countries and the West have not
changed much ever since colonialism and slavery characterised by a
“resource centric approach”.
The drivers of the approach can be found in
buzzwords like capital, foreign direct investments (FDIs) and aid; and
our poor countries are in the league of their own to make sure the three
flow towards them.
As a result, African countries have adopted
policies to make them more competitive in the league. What is surprising
is that most countries have policies which very much look alike as if
they have been copied from a single “blueprint”.
This is very much manifested in land policies
where the bonanza of attracting large investments in agriculture have
seen countries like Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana and Mozambique put their
fertile land up for grab by multinational companies to the detriment of
the poor in similar ways.
These policies from African countries might only
differ here and there, but they all have something in common which is
well summarised by Prosper Matondi and Patience Mutopo in their book
entitled: Biofuels, Land Grabbing and Food Security in Africa.
“As governments in Africa compete for FDIs, policy
safeguards to protect their own people have either been put aside or
are only vaguely considered”.
When we fought against colonialism, land was at
the centre of our conflict with the West, but the way things are handled
today, we, Africans, have a “chronic memory disorder”.
The only people, it seems, who have fresh memories of what land
means in the well-being of humanity are Zimbabweans who have decided to
keep the 89-year-old independence veteran in power. He might have been
losing his memory due to old age, but at least he still remembers one
important thing, that’s, Zimbabwe’s future is on its land.
Despite his problems, President Robert Mugabe
deserves credit because land is the prerequisite for democracy.
Democracy in the African context should mean sound policies in managing
natural resources, land being the mother of all, in absence of which
elections will continue to be a joke.
Our policies should be pro-poor and on this, we
should revisit our national building policies, including Ujamaa and
Self-Reliance, which some first generation African leaders like Mwalimu
Julius Nyerere had made an attempt with. We need home grown measures and
local solutions; otherwise we will be swept away by neo liberal
policies (for Western capitalism) which are the imports we can hardly
localise.
Leaders in Africa and Tanzania, in particular,
must realise that pro-investor policies to attract FDIs might contribute
to economic growth for a few elites and their acolytes, but without
transforming the lives of the poor majority.
In their book, Prosper Matondi and Patience
Mutopo, warn, “Once a government has decided to use FDIs as the basis
for economic development, there is a tendency for the protection of
foreign investors to be prioritised over that of the locals”.
African rulers, including those from Tanzania,
must show leadership in the management of natural resources first and
others things will definitely follow.
source: The citizen
source: The citizen
