A renowned Tanzanian businessman, Mr Ali Mufuruki, is challenging a prominent narrative on Africa’s development prospects – “Africa is rising,” saying it has been hyped by West to serve their interests.
Mr Mufuruki, the founder of Infotech Investment Group and chairman of CEO Roundtable in Tanzania, said the narrative is riddled with fundamental flaws and does not portray the real picture of growth and development in Africa.
“The enthusiastic embrace of this notion of rising by Africans has been done without examination of the facts, but sadly, this is not the first time we have believed without seeing,” he said in a statement issued ahead of a CEO Roundtable in Dar es Salaamon Tuesday.
He said the enthusiasm associated with the narrative is derived from comparison of Africa’s growth with sluggish growth in Europe, that is recovering from financial crisis which is not a fair comparison.
It was simplistic and unfair to compare Africa’s growth with that of Europe that is recovering from the global financial crisis, he said.
According to him, the economic growth of Africa, a continent with more than one billion people should have been compared with that of China the world’s most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion.
Africa is the second-largest and second most populous continent on earth with an estimated population in 2013 of 1.033 billion people.
“The second flaw is that the exuberance associated with the ‘Africa Rising’ talk is derived almost exclusively from what is considered a relative high rate of GDP growth in Africa in recent years compared to the growth of economies in the West; not a fair comparison in my opinion.”
“Because if China, a country of more than one billion people could grow at 18 per cent at the peak of its own rising, then why is 6-7 per cent GDP growth per annum of economies the size of a mid-size American company being referred to as impressive or even extraordinary?” he queered.
“Unless of course we have accepted a special standard for Africa, a mediocre standard.” It is double standard to say China at eight per cent growth last year was in recession given that the rate was double the growth rate of SSA countries combined, he said.
Mr Mufuruki persist that Africa rising is a fallacy by highlighting problem areas in the continent, some where the continent experience stagnation and others where the continent experience a regression.
He cited an example of electricity saying France with a population of 65 million people was generating four times more electricity than what all the 47 sub-Saharan African countries generate for their 805 million people.
“What that means is that, a French person consumes 50 times more electricity than an African today. So what do you say if a French man told you, your continent is rising?” he asked.
Mr Mufuruki explained that despite initiatives to increase Africa’s share in global trade, doing trade in Africa remained expensive making it hard for local manufacturers to compete in the global level.
Citing an example he said, it costs more to move cargo across African borders than it is to move cargo to African ports. “Moving a ton of fertiliser from a US port to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, which is a 9000 kilometre journey costs $40.
But moving the same ton of fertiliser from Mombasa to Kampala, a thousand kilometres away, costs $120, in all 30 times more expensive to move cargo across African borders than it is to ship to African ports.”
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Proponents of Africa economic growth chided (The Citizen)
By DAILY NEWS Reporter
