"I am an African.
I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.
My body has frozen in our frosts and in our latter day snows. It has thawed in the warmth of our sunshine and melted in the heat of the midday sun. The crack and the rumble of the summer thunders, lashed by startling lightening, have been a cause both of trembling and of hope.
The fragrances of nature have been as pleasant to us as the sight of the wild blooms of the citizens of the veld.
The dramatic shapes of the Drakensberg, the soil-coloured waters of the Lekoa, iGqili noThukela, and the sands of the Kgalagadi, have all been panels of the set on the natural stage on which we act out the foolish deeds of the theatre of our day.
At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito.
A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say - I am an African!
I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the beautiful Cape - they who fell victim to the most merciless genocide our native land has ever seen, they who were the first to lose their lives in the struggle to defend our freedom and dependence and they who, as a people, perished in the result.
Today, as a country, we keep an audible silence about these ancestors of the generations that live, fearful to admit the horror of a former deed, seeking to obliterate from our memories a cruel occurrence which, in its remembering, should teach us not and never to be inhuman again.
I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me.
In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done.
I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom.
My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are the jewels in our African crown, the victories we earned from Isandhlwana to Khartoum, as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana, as the Berbers of the desert.
I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St Helena and the Bahamas, who sees in the mind`s eye and suffers the suffering of a simple peasant folk, death, concentration camps, destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins.
I am the child of Nongqause. I am he who made it possible to trade in the world markets in diamonds, in gold, in the same food for which my stomach yearns.
I come of those who were transported from India and China, whose being resided in the fact, solely, that they were able to provide physical labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a necessary condition for that human existence.
Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare contest that assertion, I shall claim that - I am an African.
I have seen our country torn asunder as these, all of whom are my people, engaged one another in a titanic battle, the one redress a wrong that had been caused by one to another and the other, to defend the indefensible.
I have seen what happens when one person has superiority of force over another, when the stronger appropriate to themselves the prerogative even to annul the injunction that God created all men and women in His image.
I know what if signifies when race and colour are used to determine who is human and who, sub-human.
I have seen the destruction of all sense of self-esteem, the consequent striving to be what one is not, simply to acquire some of the benefits which those who had improved themselves as masters had ensured that they enjoy.
I have experience of the situation in which race and colour is used to enrich some and impoverish the rest.
I have seen the corruption of minds and souls as (word not readable) of the pursuit of an ignoble effort to perpetrate a veritable crime against humanity.
I have seen concrete expression of the denial of the dignity of a human being emanating from the conscious, systemic and systematic oppressive and repressive activities of other human beings.
There the victims parade with no mask to hide the brutish reality - the beggars, the prostitutes, the street children, those who seek solace in substance abuse, those who have to steal to assuage hunger, those who have to lose their sanity because to be sane is to invite pain.
Perhaps the worst among these, who are my people, are those who have learnt to kill for a wage. To these the extent of death is directly proportional to their personal welfare.
And so, like pawns in the service of demented souls, they kill in furtherance of the political violence in KwaZulu-Natal. They murder the innocent in the taxi wars.
They kill slowly or quickly in order to make profits from the illegal trade in narcotics. They are available for hire when husband wants to murder wife and wife, husband.
Among us prowl the products of our immoral and amoral past - killers who have no sense of the worth of human life, rapists who have absolute disdain for the women of our country, animals who would seek to benefit from the vulnerability of the children, the disabled and the old, the rapacious who brook no obstacle in their quest for self-enrichment.
All this I know and know to be true because I am an African!
Because of that, I am also able to state this fundamental truth that I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines.
I am born of a people who would not tolerate oppression.
I am of a nation that would not allow that fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution should result in the perpetuation of injustice.
The great masses who are our mother and father will not permit that the behaviour of the few results in the description of our country and people as barbaric.
Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines.
Whatever the circumstances they have lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for themselves who they are and who they should be.
We are assembled here today to mark their victory in acquiring and exercising their right to formulate their own definition of what it means to be African.
The constitution whose adoption we celebrate constitutes and unequivocal statement that we refuse to accept that our Africanness shall be defined by our race, colour, gender of historical origins.
It is a firm assertion made by ourselves that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
It gives concrete expression to the sentiment we share as Africans, and will defend to the death, that the people shall govern.
It recognises the fact that the dignity of the individual is both an objective which society must pursue, and is a goal which cannot be separated from the material well-being of that individual.
It seeks to create the situation in which all our people shall be free from fear, including the fear of the oppression of one national group by another, the fear of the disempowerment of one social echelon by another, the fear of the use of state power to deny anybody their fundamental human rights and the fear of tyranny.
It aims to open the doors so that those who were disadvantaged can assume their place in society as equals with their fellow human beings without regard to colour, race, gender, age or geographic dispersal.
It provides the opportunity to enable each one and all to state their views, promote them, strive for their implementation in the process of governance without fear that a contrary view will be met with repression.
It creates a law-governed society which shall be inimical to arbitrary rule.
It enables the resolution of conflicts by peaceful means rather than resort to force.
It rejoices in the diversity of our people and creates the space for all of us voluntarily to define ourselves as one people.
As an African, this is an achievement of which I am proud, proud without reservation and proud without any feeling of conceit.
Our sense of elevation at this moment also derives from the fact that this magnificent product is the unique creation of African hands and African minds.
Bit it is also constitutes a tribute to our loss of vanity that we could, despite the temptation to treat ourselves as an exceptional fragment of humanity, draw on the accumulated experience and wisdom of all humankind, to define for ourselves what we want to be.
Together with the best in the world, we too are prone to pettiness, petulance, selfishness and short-sightedness.
But it seems to have happened that we looked at ourselves and said the time had come that we make a super-human effort to be other than human, to respond to the call to create for ourselves a glorious future, to remind ourselves of the Latin saying: Gloria est consequenda - Glory must be sought after!
Today it feels good to be an African. "
Monday, March 23, 2015
Friday, March 20, 2015
Nexus between illicit financial flows and poverty in Africa
Tuesday, 28 January 2014 00:00
Written by Bola Olajuwon
Nigerian Guardian
TO many developmental experts and members of civil societies keen on arresting the devastating outflows of much-needed capital that is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in Nigeria and other African countries, the scheduled Seventh Joint African Union (AU) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development coming up on March 27 to April 1, 2014 in Abuja will be pivotal. Ostensibly, the joint meeting with the theme, “Industrialisation for Sustainable and Inclusive Development in Africa,” aims basically to provide a platform for policy-makers to articulate concrete proposals to catalyse implementation of the Accelerated Industrial Development of Africa (AIDA) and increase commitment and actions to advance Africa’s industrial development agenda.
The conference is being organised by the ECA and the African Union Commission (AUC) in collaboration with the Nigerian government and will bring together African ministers responsible for finance, economy and economic development as well as governors of Central Banks and key leaders from the private sector.
Laudable as the aims of the forthcoming industrialisation parley sound, developmental experts and members of civil societies are more interested in the submission of a report by former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa’s High Level Panel (HLP) on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) from Africa initially estimated at $50 billion yearly.
The Mbeki panel, which includes nine other members, was established by the Joint AU and ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and inaugurated in February 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa with the aim of determining the nature and patterns of illicit financial outflows; establishing the level of such outflows from the continent; assessing the complex and long-term implications of IFF, consulting and sensitising African governments and other stakeholders, including development partners, on the scale of the issue and finally, proposing policies and mobilising support for practices that would reverse these outflows. The panel’s inauguration was further strengthened on a report from Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy organisation, that Africa lost about $854 billion in illicit financial outflows from 1970 through 2008.
Aside the GFI report claiming that $854 billion was pilfered away, it also claims that total illicit outflows may be as high as $1.8 trillion. Of this, sub-Saharan African countries experienced the bulk of illicit financial outflows with the West and Central African region posting the largest outflow number. Nigeria tops four other countries with $89.5 billion as the highest outflow, follows by Egypt ($70.5 billion), Algeria ($25.7 billion), Morocco ($25 billion), and South Africa ($24.9 billion). The GFI report also asserted that such outflows from the entire region outpaced official development assistance going into the region at a ratio of at least 2 to 1; and growing at an average rate of 11.9 per cent per year.
GFI director, Raymond Baker, emphasised the import of the statistics, saying: “The amount of money that has been drained out of Africa - hundreds of billions decade after decade - is far in excess of the official development assistance going into African countries… Staunching this devastating outflow of much-needed capital is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in these countries.” Continuing, Baker added: “As long as these countries are losing massive amounts of money to illicit financial outflows, economic development and prosperity will remain elusive.”
Technically, IFF is money illegally earned, transferred or used. At origin or during movement or use, the flow of money has broken laws and is thus considered illicit. It is different from capital flight, which is understood as the movement of funds abroad to secure better returns, often as a response to an unfavourable business climate in the country of origin. IFF comprises three major components and these are: Theft, bribery and other forms of corruption by government officials; criminal activities including drug trafficking and funds money laundering, racketeering and counterfeiting as well as international commercial transactions, including tax evasion, trade mis-pricing, over-invoicing, involving mostly multinational corporations. But it excludes smuggling.
However, at the conclusion of its continental-wide consultation with stakeholders which ended with participants from West and Central African countries in Ghana recently, Mbeki himself joined others in seeking concerted and broad-based actions through continental-wide political will, participation of every citizen, global partnership and cooperation among others in fighting the menace of IFF.
Mbeki, while addressing delegates from the two regional groups at the end of a two-day consultative forum, asserted that curtailing the illicit financial flows would allow the continent to address its developmental challenges and retain such funds that illegally evade the continent each year to the developed and developing countries. “Being able to stem illicit financial flows would for instance help Africa bridge the infrastructure gap and address its huge development challenges,” he said.
According to him, the financial loss has had detrimental effects on African countries, a situation that has made them to be unable to garner the domestic resources needed to address their developmental needs. He reasoned that illicit financial flow is an African problem with a global solution and therefore, “solutions need to be found at the origin and destinations of funds.”
The assertion by the former president is not far from the truth, according to members of the civil societies at the consultation. They contended that while African countries, which are “origins of IFF”, must come up with interventions to stop the menace, western economies, which are the “destinations and beneficiaries of funnelling funds through back-doors that are deliberately opened to attract those funds,” must stop paying lip service. They reasoned that international commercial transactions, including tax evasion, trade mis-pricing, over-invoicing, involve mostly multinational corporations from western countries take the largest percentage of IFFs from Africa. In actual fact, multinational companies are responsible for 60 per cent of the IFFs and they are from western countries lampooning the state of underdevelopment in Africa. Essentially, United States (U.S.), Europe, Canada, Japan, Korea, China and India are said to be major destinations of IFFs.
In an interview with The Guardian, a participant put the culpability of western countries in perspective. He said: “Look at the issue of loots by General Sani Abacha from Nigeria. The illegal funds entered accounts in Switzerland, Britain, United States, Germany and other western countries while financial regulators looked the other way. Money stolen by corrupt officeholders in Nigeria ended up in British banks. Abacha alone reportedly laundered more than $4 billion looted from Nigeria and traced to London offices of 15 banks. About £1.5 billion looted from the Nigeria is allegedly currently sitting in British banks. More are still being looted everyday and going into real estates among others in those countries.”
Also commenting on the IFF, Acting Director, International Cooperation Department of Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Alex Ekeanyanwu, submitted that it was very unfortunate that Nigeria is afflicted by this cankerworm.
According to him, “a major consequence of the above scenario is that funds that should have been used to create wealth, develop infrastructure, provide social amenities, develop human capital and create employment are lost. Rather the beneficiaries are the already developed countries where this illicit money is domiciled.
“A number of reasons can be identified as to why Nigeria suffers from illicit financial flows. One is weak regulatory financial framework. Even though the Central Bank of Nigeria keeps improving on its responsibilities in this regard, it appears that those involved are some of the time a step ahead with insider connivance. The number of bank officials reportedly involved in financial crimes on a yearly basis has reached a disturbing proportion. The CBN should work in concert with the management of banks to check such abuses. Another reason is the Human Factor.There have been reported cases of seizures of large sums of money in hard currency from some intending travellers attempting to carry out Nigeria hard currencies through the international gateways. These are cases where the officials on duty at the international airports have integrity. But an observant frequent traveller through the airports will realise that some of the officers can be easily compromised.”
Ekeanyanwu advised that the judicial system should be reformed and the laws with respect to illicit financial flows reviewed periodically to meet the challenges innovations in financial crimes have brought about.
Meanwhile, the participants at the Accra consultative meeting were concerned about what becomes of the report of Mbeki panel after the submission of its report to the Seventh Joint AU and ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, in view of the slow pace and bureaucracy through which AU takes its decisions. It is reasoned that after the submission of the report, the joint meeting will deliberate on it and pass its decision to AU secretariat. And for African leaders to deliberate on it, it must first pass through the continent’s Permanent Representatives Council and the Executive Council. They reasoned that time is against African governments and people to end the menace.
However, the South Africa’s ex-president noted that political will at the level of AU was important and that his members would ensure interventions by African heads of states through protocols, conventions among others. He said it is also necessary to mobilise the youths, civil societies, women to ensure mass ownership of the reports and implementation of the final decisions.
But with yet lack of proper policies in place to reverse the IFF, delegates from the 17 African countries that attended the IFFs consultation in Accra asserted that the levels of inequality and poverty have continued to rise while Africa’s vibrant economic growth continues to benefit very few people. They observed that Africa’s transformation calls for accountable and transparent leadership, and that the time has come for the continent to act together, to fight IFFs.
Tuesday, 28 January 2014 00:00
Written by Bola Olajuwon
Nigerian Guardian
TO many developmental experts and members of civil societies keen on arresting the devastating outflows of much-needed capital that is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in Nigeria and other African countries, the scheduled Seventh Joint African Union (AU) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development coming up on March 27 to April 1, 2014 in Abuja will be pivotal. Ostensibly, the joint meeting with the theme, “Industrialisation for Sustainable and Inclusive Development in Africa,” aims basically to provide a platform for policy-makers to articulate concrete proposals to catalyse implementation of the Accelerated Industrial Development of Africa (AIDA) and increase commitment and actions to advance Africa’s industrial development agenda.
The conference is being organised by the ECA and the African Union Commission (AUC) in collaboration with the Nigerian government and will bring together African ministers responsible for finance, economy and economic development as well as governors of Central Banks and key leaders from the private sector.
Laudable as the aims of the forthcoming industrialisation parley sound, developmental experts and members of civil societies are more interested in the submission of a report by former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa’s High Level Panel (HLP) on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) from Africa initially estimated at $50 billion yearly.
The Mbeki panel, which includes nine other members, was established by the Joint AU and ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and inaugurated in February 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa with the aim of determining the nature and patterns of illicit financial outflows; establishing the level of such outflows from the continent; assessing the complex and long-term implications of IFF, consulting and sensitising African governments and other stakeholders, including development partners, on the scale of the issue and finally, proposing policies and mobilising support for practices that would reverse these outflows. The panel’s inauguration was further strengthened on a report from Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy organisation, that Africa lost about $854 billion in illicit financial outflows from 1970 through 2008.
Aside the GFI report claiming that $854 billion was pilfered away, it also claims that total illicit outflows may be as high as $1.8 trillion. Of this, sub-Saharan African countries experienced the bulk of illicit financial outflows with the West and Central African region posting the largest outflow number. Nigeria tops four other countries with $89.5 billion as the highest outflow, follows by Egypt ($70.5 billion), Algeria ($25.7 billion), Morocco ($25 billion), and South Africa ($24.9 billion). The GFI report also asserted that such outflows from the entire region outpaced official development assistance going into the region at a ratio of at least 2 to 1; and growing at an average rate of 11.9 per cent per year.
GFI director, Raymond Baker, emphasised the import of the statistics, saying: “The amount of money that has been drained out of Africa - hundreds of billions decade after decade - is far in excess of the official development assistance going into African countries… Staunching this devastating outflow of much-needed capital is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in these countries.” Continuing, Baker added: “As long as these countries are losing massive amounts of money to illicit financial outflows, economic development and prosperity will remain elusive.”
Technically, IFF is money illegally earned, transferred or used. At origin or during movement or use, the flow of money has broken laws and is thus considered illicit. It is different from capital flight, which is understood as the movement of funds abroad to secure better returns, often as a response to an unfavourable business climate in the country of origin. IFF comprises three major components and these are: Theft, bribery and other forms of corruption by government officials; criminal activities including drug trafficking and funds money laundering, racketeering and counterfeiting as well as international commercial transactions, including tax evasion, trade mis-pricing, over-invoicing, involving mostly multinational corporations. But it excludes smuggling.
However, at the conclusion of its continental-wide consultation with stakeholders which ended with participants from West and Central African countries in Ghana recently, Mbeki himself joined others in seeking concerted and broad-based actions through continental-wide political will, participation of every citizen, global partnership and cooperation among others in fighting the menace of IFF.
Mbeki, while addressing delegates from the two regional groups at the end of a two-day consultative forum, asserted that curtailing the illicit financial flows would allow the continent to address its developmental challenges and retain such funds that illegally evade the continent each year to the developed and developing countries. “Being able to stem illicit financial flows would for instance help Africa bridge the infrastructure gap and address its huge development challenges,” he said.
According to him, the financial loss has had detrimental effects on African countries, a situation that has made them to be unable to garner the domestic resources needed to address their developmental needs. He reasoned that illicit financial flow is an African problem with a global solution and therefore, “solutions need to be found at the origin and destinations of funds.”
The assertion by the former president is not far from the truth, according to members of the civil societies at the consultation. They contended that while African countries, which are “origins of IFF”, must come up with interventions to stop the menace, western economies, which are the “destinations and beneficiaries of funnelling funds through back-doors that are deliberately opened to attract those funds,” must stop paying lip service. They reasoned that international commercial transactions, including tax evasion, trade mis-pricing, over-invoicing, involve mostly multinational corporations from western countries take the largest percentage of IFFs from Africa. In actual fact, multinational companies are responsible for 60 per cent of the IFFs and they are from western countries lampooning the state of underdevelopment in Africa. Essentially, United States (U.S.), Europe, Canada, Japan, Korea, China and India are said to be major destinations of IFFs.
In an interview with The Guardian, a participant put the culpability of western countries in perspective. He said: “Look at the issue of loots by General Sani Abacha from Nigeria. The illegal funds entered accounts in Switzerland, Britain, United States, Germany and other western countries while financial regulators looked the other way. Money stolen by corrupt officeholders in Nigeria ended up in British banks. Abacha alone reportedly laundered more than $4 billion looted from Nigeria and traced to London offices of 15 banks. About £1.5 billion looted from the Nigeria is allegedly currently sitting in British banks. More are still being looted everyday and going into real estates among others in those countries.”
Also commenting on the IFF, Acting Director, International Cooperation Department of Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Alex Ekeanyanwu, submitted that it was very unfortunate that Nigeria is afflicted by this cankerworm.
According to him, “a major consequence of the above scenario is that funds that should have been used to create wealth, develop infrastructure, provide social amenities, develop human capital and create employment are lost. Rather the beneficiaries are the already developed countries where this illicit money is domiciled.
“A number of reasons can be identified as to why Nigeria suffers from illicit financial flows. One is weak regulatory financial framework. Even though the Central Bank of Nigeria keeps improving on its responsibilities in this regard, it appears that those involved are some of the time a step ahead with insider connivance. The number of bank officials reportedly involved in financial crimes on a yearly basis has reached a disturbing proportion. The CBN should work in concert with the management of banks to check such abuses. Another reason is the Human Factor.There have been reported cases of seizures of large sums of money in hard currency from some intending travellers attempting to carry out Nigeria hard currencies through the international gateways. These are cases where the officials on duty at the international airports have integrity. But an observant frequent traveller through the airports will realise that some of the officers can be easily compromised.”
Ekeanyanwu advised that the judicial system should be reformed and the laws with respect to illicit financial flows reviewed periodically to meet the challenges innovations in financial crimes have brought about.
Meanwhile, the participants at the Accra consultative meeting were concerned about what becomes of the report of Mbeki panel after the submission of its report to the Seventh Joint AU and ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, in view of the slow pace and bureaucracy through which AU takes its decisions. It is reasoned that after the submission of the report, the joint meeting will deliberate on it and pass its decision to AU secretariat. And for African leaders to deliberate on it, it must first pass through the continent’s Permanent Representatives Council and the Executive Council. They reasoned that time is against African governments and people to end the menace.
However, the South Africa’s ex-president noted that political will at the level of AU was important and that his members would ensure interventions by African heads of states through protocols, conventions among others. He said it is also necessary to mobilise the youths, civil societies, women to ensure mass ownership of the reports and implementation of the final decisions.
But with yet lack of proper policies in place to reverse the IFF, delegates from the 17 African countries that attended the IFFs consultation in Accra asserted that the levels of inequality and poverty have continued to rise while Africa’s vibrant economic growth continues to benefit very few people. They observed that Africa’s transformation calls for accountable and transparent leadership, and that the time has come for the continent to act together, to fight IFFs.
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