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| Nii Osah Mills, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources |
By Christian Kpesese
Two ministers, the Attorney General and Minster of Justice
and the minister for Lands and Natural Resources together with the Lands
Commission have been dragged before the Supreme Court for breach of constitutional
provisions on Ghana’s land administration processes.
The ministers have been sued because of their respective
mandates as principal Legal Advisor to the Government and direct supervisory
authority respectively over the Lands Commission.
In a writ of summons, the Licensed Surveyors Association of
Ghana and its President Kwame Tenadu Snr, are seeking the court to among others
declare as unconstitutional the establishment of the Lands Commission by
Parliament pursuant to the Lands Commission Act, 2008, (Act767) whose functions
contradicts the 1992 Constitution.
It argued that the current functions of the lands commission totally violate what the
1992 constitution envisaged.
Quoting relevant portions of the 1992 constitution including
article 257 (1) to support the claim, the plaintiffs noted that, the Lands
Commission instead of coordinating with other constitutionally recognized
independent bodies including the Survey Department, Land Valuation Board and
the Land Title Registry that existed prior to the promulgation of the
constitution; it has rather taken over their functions.
According to the statement of claim, the various provisions
of the Lands Commission Act, 2008 (Act767) are inconsistent with and in
contravention with the 1992 Constitution.
The Lands Commission Act, 1994 (Act 483) was established in
pursuant to the 1992 Constitution but in 2008 Parliament purportedly repealed
the Act and enacted the Lands Commission Act, 2008 (Act 767) to integrate
subject to the provisions of the constitution operations of public service land
institutions under one Commission .
The plaintiffs maintained that the 1992 constitution never
stipulated that all public service land institutions be subsumed and their
assets, obligations and rights transferred to the Lands Commission as purported
in the new Act.
The statement of
claim revealed that, the plaintiffs at various stages of the enactment of the
Bill prompted parliament, petitioned the
presidency and submitted several memoranda and letters to authorities involved
to preserve the sanctity of the constitution but were all ignored and the bill
passed into law.
The plaintiffs are therefore asking the Supreme Court to
restore all independent government institutions to operate under their
respective laws as they were before the Lands Commission Act, 2008 (Act 767).
They are also praying the court to direct the Lands
Commission to resort to its constitutional mandate of coordinating the relevant
state institutions after the restoration.
Editorial
A DANGEROUS LIE
From the 1980’s all Ghanaian governments have lied about how
they arrive at petroleum prices.
For example the ex-refinery price of petrol is not the true
cost of importing and refining crude oil but an assumed price which may be far
away from the true cost.
All governments have also given the impression that they buy
crude oil at world market spot prices when Ghana has always bought its oil at
negotiated prices.
Invariably negotiated prices are usually well below world
market spot prices.
The problem is that sometimes prices which are negotiated
over very long periods may become more expensive when the world market spot
prices fall dramatically and this may be the case now.
Over the last two years or more crude oil spot prices have
dropped from more than US $100 per barrel to about US $ 75 per barrel.
Based on the assumption that petroleum prices are based on
world market spot prices, the people are now calling for drastic reductions in
the prices of petroleum products.
How is government going to deal with this without exposing
its own lies?
SFG ON CORRUPTION
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| President John Dramani Mahama |
The Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) has joined the current
debate on corruption in a statement issued in Accra yesterday.
It called on the working people of Ghana to intensify the
fight against privilege and elitism and to dismantle the neo-colonial order of
lop sided power relations.
According to the SFG “in the end only a truly democratic,
decentralised and egalitarian society can fight corruption in all its
manifestations”
The full text of the statement is published below;
The Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) has noted that over the
last few months the middle class and especially right wing establishment that
dominates the corporate media has made political corruption a central
issue. This is not difficult given the
truly shocking revelations concerning GYEEDA, NSS, SADA, Auditor-General's
reports, Judgement Debts and Black Stars' Commissions of Enquiry. Pro-NPP
forces seek to convince the public that not only are all our woes the result of
political corruption but further that there has been a sudden surge in corrupt
practices under the current national leadership. Pro-NDC forces are fighting
back with their own allegations of sordid conduct by their opponents when they
were last in power. Generally, the public
is increasingly disgusted with our middle class and our public leadership.
Corruption is an important issue that working people and all
those struggling for a more just and productive society must pay attention
to. The truth is that the scandals that
have surfaced in the media represent only the tip of the iceberg. A proper
investigation into state management of public resources would lead to massive
civil unrest. Workers and the
marginalised in society must struggle to understand this phenomenon scientifically
in order to end corruption and all other forms of exploitation decisively and
to build the just, productive and free society we want.
Corruption is the abuse of a public power or privilege for
personal gain. Corruption is by definition a perversion of the privileged –
those who have power. It is not just a
moral aberration. In Ghana, corruption is an organic and integral part of the
neo-colonial state whose sole agenda is to facilitate the exploitation of our
labour and resources by transnational capital. Corruption is a time-honoured
method through which members of the middle classes attempt to ascend into the
ruling capitalist class. Of course, as socio-political conditions deteriorate
and as the conduct of the elite becomes more and more apparent the practice
spread down so that even the lower echelons of the bureaucracy are immersed in
corruption. From a social perspective
however the entire bureaucracy still represents a tiny minority in society. For
the most part the capitalist class tolerates, encourages and drives official
corruption as a means of lowering the cost to them of social exploitation. However, as exploitation intensifies and the
masses become restless big business leaders, donor agencies, international NGOs
and other agents of transnational capitalism quickly mount hypocritical high
moral horses and seek to claim leadership of the fight against corruption.
Corruption’s true victims are the working poor who depend on
public services to maintain the most basic standards of living. The absence of social housing, the poor
state of public health and education services the massive, destruction of our
youth through unemployment, and the growing depravity of our society evident in
increasing incidents of child abuse can all be at least partially traced to
corruption in so far as it diverts vital resources from economically and
socially beneficial projects. Again, as
the level of intensity of exploitation grows larger sections of the middle class
find their living standards threatened and questioning practices that have
founded their class privilege.
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| Nana Akufo Addo, Opposition Leader |
The loud indignant moralization about political corruption
obscures the problem and its roots. In reducing corruption to either a “moral”
or “partisan” issue these forces are consciously or unconsciously engaged in
diversionary tactics. They are diverting
working peoples’ focus away from the exploitation and repression of the working
poor by the capitalist class. They are
channeling working peoples’ righteous anger at our increasingly brutal living
circumstances against their middle class rivals for power. The truth is that all Ghana’s political
parties represent the same class interests.
All of them in office promote the same policies and programmes and
conduct themselves in the exact same disrespectful and corrupt manner. And when it comes to opportunities to enrich
themselves as individuals they are absolutely united.
SFG supports the calls for greater transparency and
accountability. We demand that State
institutions and political leadership go beyond the charade that currently
takes place around corruption. We demand
the establishment of the Financial Tribunal to deal with issues arising out of
the deliberations of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.
Ultimately however, SFG believes that nothing short of a
full-blown attack on privilege and elitism and the neo-colonial political
system that sustains them can uproot corruption and restore integrity to public
life. This requires that working people
organise to defend their interests.
Working people must abandon their allegiance to pro-capitalist parties
and build their own political parties to fight for a society that protects and
promotes working class interests. In the end only a truly democratic,
decentralized and egalitarian society can fight corruption in all its
manifestations.
D.N.A Tagoe
For Convener.
 |
| German Vice Chancellor, Angela Merkel |
Dr. Gary K. Busch
During the last three years the European continent has been
in a fairly rapid stage of decline; economic, political and military. Its
political systems have grown far more undemocratic and distant from its
electorate as a narrow group of elite politicians have plunged the continent
into a pursuit of a federalism which the people of Europe do not want and
cannot afford. Many nations of the European super state have been compelled to
perform a series of competitive devaluations of living standards as austerity
methods were introduced in pursuit of the chimera of the Euro and the Eurozone.
This has been sustained by a willing suspension of disbelief that somehow the
constraints of fitting ill-matched parts of the European economy into the
Procrustean bed of austerity would resolve the conflict between runaway debt
and bank capabilities. The system has been sustained by maintaining the fiction
that turning private debt into Europe-wide public debt would resolve the
problem for the European states. It is a fantasy, a self-delusion and has
proved disastrous for the European populace.
There has also been a concomitant decline in the
capabilities and the willingness of the Europeans to protect themselves from
attacks against the sovereignty and security of their states. National
militaries are underfunded; equipment and manpower strengths have diminished
and the Europeans ability to sustain them unaided has become a polite
embarrassment. For years, after 1947, the Europeans were part of a military
system which provided a safety umbrella. One half of Europe was occupied by the
U.S. and the other half by the Soviet Union. There were more polite
delineations made for the public relations of this relationship but the fact
was that the leaders of NATO and the Warsaw Pact pretty much determined what
took place in European security.
With the end of the Cold War the Europeans have refused to
take on the burden of their own defence. They believe that safety and security
is somehow an anterior right which they enjoy and that, as under the Cold War
rigours, they only have to make a token contribution to their self- defence.
They have never accepted the maxim of Thomas Jefferson that “The tree of
liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and
tyrants”, preferring to delay, obfuscate and seek private advantage from any
conflict. There is an overweening moral arrogance in Europe which believes that
somehow performing the nasty bits of self-defence like bombing, killing and
destroying is too immoral for their citizens and that other, less edified
countries should take on those tasks on behalf of the Europeans.
The efforts of the Europeans to infect their neighbours with
the poison of continent-wide integration were a precipitating factor in the
current crisis in the Ukraine. Just as the Germans, under Genscher,
precipitated the breakup of the fragile unity of Yugoslavia and thus the
subsequent Balkan wars, the efforts by the European Union to integrate the
Ukraine more closely into its system led to the conflict with Russia and the
loss of Crimea. The Europeans did this without regard to how any credible
defence of these actions could be undertaken by them, even if it were they who
stood to lose the most. Then they each tried to make their own private deals
with the Russians and refused to give full support to the U.S. in its policies
of direct economic sanctions in support of the Ukraine.
However, the fact that Europe is going broke, unable to
adjust its disastrous economic, social and military programs while slipping
down the table of important world powers is more than just a matter of interest
to the rest of the nations of the world. For the African Continent, the
feckless Europeans now pose a severe challenge to their well-being and future.
The Paradigm Role of France:
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| French President, Francois Hollande |
The paradigm case in this tale of decline is that of France.
Because of it colonial and post-colonial history in Africa and is policy of franćafrique France has been
intimately involved in the governance of many francophone nations on the
continent and especially in the economic stability of these former colonies.
The creation and maintenance of the French domination of the francophone African
economies is the product of a long period of French colonialism and the learned
dependence of the African states. The key to all this was the agreement signed
between France and its newly-liberated African colonies which locked these
colonies into the economic and military embrace of France after colonialism was
officially ended. This Colonial Pact not only created the institution of the
CFA franc, it created a legal mechanism under which France obtained a special
place in the political and economic life of its colonies. The problem for franćafrique is that France is
holding its money and now cannot pay the money back to its owners.
There are actually two separate CFA francs in circulation.
The first is that of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) which
comprises eight West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau,
Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The second is that of the Central
African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) which comprises six Central
African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad,
Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon), This division corresponds to
the pre-colonial AOF (Afrique Occidentale Française) and the AEF (Afrique
Équatoriale Française), with the exception that Guinea-Bissau was formerly
Portuguese and Equatorial Guinea Spanish).
The WAEMU CFA franc is issued by the BCEAO (Banque Centrale
des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest and the Bank of the Central African States
(BEAC) controls the CEMAC CFA franc. This currencies were originally pegged at
100 CFA for each French franc but, after France joined the European Community’s
Euro zone at a fixed rate of 6.65957 French francs to one Euro, the CFA rate to
the Euro was fixed at CFA 665,957 to each Euro, maintaining the 100 to 1 ratio.
It is important to note that it is the responsibility of the French Treasury to
guarantee the convertibility of the CFA to the Euro.
The monetary policy governing such a diverse aggregation of
countries is uncomplicated because it is, in fact, operated by the French
Treasury, without reference to the central fiscal authorities of any of the
African states. Under the terms of the agreement which set up these banks and
the CFA the Central Bank of each African country is obliged to keep at least 65%
of its foreign exchange reserves in an “operations account” held at the French
Treasury, as well as another 20% to cover financial liabilities.
The CFA central banks also impose a cap on credit extended
to each member country equivalent to 20% of that country’s public revenue in
the preceding year. Even though the BCEAO and the BEAC have an overdraft
facility with the French Treasury, the drawdowns on that overdraft facility are
subject to the consent of the French Treasury. The final say is that of the French
Treasury which has invested the foreign reserves of the African countries in
its own name on the Paris Bourse.
The central banks of these two zones – the Central Bank of
West African States (BCEAO) for WAEMU and the Bank of the Central African
States (BEAC) for CEMAC – have supranational status. For each zone, the
reserves of member states are pooled; members have no independent monetary
policy and no possibility of undermining the central bank’s independence or
monetising public deficits.
This fixed exchange rate regime draws its credibility from
monetary agreements with France. In short, more than 80% of the foreign
reserves of these African countries are deposited in the “operations accounts”
controlled by the French Treasury. The two CFA banks are African in name, but
have no monetary policies of their own. The countries themselves do not know,
nor are they told, how much of the pool of foreign reserves held by the French
Treasury belongs to them as a group or individually. The earnings of the investment
of these funds in the French Treasury pool are supposed to be added to the pool
but no accounting is given to either the banks or the countries of the details
of any such changes. The limited group of high officials in the French
Treasury who have knowledge of the amounts in the “operations accounts”, where
these funds are invested; whether there is a profit on these investments; are
prohibited from disclosing any of this information to the CFA banks or the
central banks of the African states.
Many of the goods produced in the CFA zone are priced in CFA francs. As
the Euro is constantly burdened by the policies of bail-outs and decline in
real value, the purchasing power of the CFA declines along with it as it is
pegged to the Euro. However, many products like oil and fuels are priced in
dollars. African countries will get fewer dollars for their sales of their
commodities at the same time as having to pay even more for their dollar-priced
goods. Even if they sold their goods for dollars they would have to deposit
over 80% of these earnings in the French Treasury. Their reserves are propping
up the French economy and they have no recourse to them as individual nations.
Still less do they know how much of these reserves are theirs. It is a trap in
which they are caught.
France has been undergoing rapid economic decline. In an effort to
resolve French problems the French have hypothecated via the French Treasury
much of the African reserves held in the name of the Treasury. France has run
out of money. It just announced an error in its accounts where €14 billion less
in income actually was received by the government because of poor growth. It
has massive public and bank debt. It has the largest exposure to both Greek and
Italian debt (among others) and has embarked upon yet another austerity plan.
Its credit rating is at risk again and the stress tests on the European banks
by the ECB have shown serious and risky undercapitalisation among the French
banks. It vast expenditures in pursuing its wars in Libya, Mali and the Central
African Republic have exhausted most of
its defence budget. The reason it has been able to sustain itself so far
is because it has had the cushion of the cash deposited with the French
Treasury by the African states since 1960. Much of this is held in both stocks
in the name of the French Treasury and in bonds whose values have been offset
and used to collateralise a substantial amount of French gilts
The francophone African states are only reluctantly becoming aware that
they may never see their accumulated assets again as these have been pledged by
the French Treasury against the French contribution to the several European
bailouts. French Treasury officials reckon that if France changes it
relationship to the Euro it will have the effect of releasing around 40% of the
French debt exposure and will extend a lifeline to the French Treasury. It has
not calculated what will happen to the CFA francs.
However, a change in France’s relations with the Euro will have a
devastating effect on francophone Africa whose currencies are pegged to the
Euro and notionally supported by the French who may be planning on leaving the
Euro. This is a particular problem after the recent elections in which the
Front Nationale came first and has pledged a strong anti EU program. By
insisting on an expansion in the domestic economy to promote jobs and to stop
immigration the French focus has turned against expanding it African
connections.
It is not surprising that the FN and the other nationalist or
Eurosceptic parties of Europe have paid no attention to the consequences for
Africa of a “Frexit”. With a core of racist, anti-immigrant ideologies at their
centre they spend very little of their time worrying about Africa.
France has always believed that its relations with Africa have given it
a higher status in world affairs as the francophone states provide a convenient
echo for French votes in international fora. It wields a level of influence in
sub-Saharan Africa that it cannot command anywhere else in the world. In crisis
situations, it is still seen as a key source of diplomatic, military or even
financial pressure on or support for the countries in the region. Africa accounts for 3 per cent of France’s
exports and remains an important supplier of oil and metals – uranium from
Niger is particularly strategic for energy security as about one-quarter of
France’s electricity production depends on it.
However, with the rise of the BRICS in African markets, especially
China, France has found itself squeezed out of dominance in many markets.
The Changing Direction of Oil Exports
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| Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan |
These economic problems are not limited to the francophone states. One
of the most important changes in recent years is the major reduction of U.S.
consumption of the sweet crude oils of Africa. The U.S. used to be the world’s
biggest consumer of African oil, importing about a quarter of the continent’s
total exports. Now it’s barely taking any at all. Since 2010 the U.S. has cut
the amount of oil it imports from African countries by 90 percent, from an
average of roughly 2 million barrels per day to about 170,000. The shale oil
boom has boosted U.S. production from 5 million barrels a day in 2008 to more
than 8 million. The Energy Information Administration predicts that by 2019
that number will rise to 9.6 million barrels per day. Almost all of that new
U.S. oil is light, sweet crude—the same kind American refiners used to import
from West Africa. Now, instead of shipping it across the Atlantic, U.S.
refiners are piping and railing it across the country. That’s pushed African
oil to Asia (China now gets a third of its oil from Africa) and helped keep the
world oil markets stable and well supplied amid large amounts of chaos and
outages.
Nigeria has seen its exports to the U.S. tumble the most, from more than
a million barrels a day in 2011 to about 38,000 as of February. There are many
new streams of oil coming on to the market from Mozambique, Tanzania, Somalia,
Kenya and Uganda and the world’s last great consuming nation, China, is awash
with offers of long-term supplies of oil from its neighbour, Russia, whose
markets in Europe are gradually disappearing. What then will generate the
revenues from Africa to replace the sales of oil?
The role of the Chinese in Africa should not be overlooked. In late May
2014 Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China’s
central bank, announced a readjustment of Chinese policy towards Africa.
China-Africa trade has surged over the past decade, reaching $200bn last year,
up from $10bn in 2000 and $1bn in 1980, according to customs data. About 2,500
Chinese companies have established themselves in Africa over the last two
decades. However, China is now facing serious problems with domestic debt, an
uncontrolled housing boom and a retraction of the free credit of its ‘shadow
banks’. The Chinese expansion of its
international commodity boom is diminishing and it is Africa which will pay the
price of reduced exports.
The Common Agricultural Policy
One of the most deleterious effects of the decline in Europe on Africa
has arisen from the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (‘CAP’). There
are several trade distorting effects which have seriously damaged African
agriculture and African economies. In the beginning the CAP was made up of
production subsidies, intervention buying, and export subsidies. Through
several reforms with the aim of creating a more liberalised market, the
production subsidies have been changed to a direct subsidies scheme and
intervention prices have been lowered a bit. The production/direct subsidies
and the intervention buying both create higher prices in the internal EU
market. This means that too much is produced, and most overproduction is sold
at world market prices only through the aid of export subsidies. The EU has
regularly been accused of dumping its agricultural products into the African
markets. In the opposite direction several agreements have been made to ensure
African producers tariff free access to the European market. However, very high
food safety and cosmetic standards have been set along with other non-tariff
barriers, which prevent many African producers from actually exporting to the
EU.
The most fundamental change in the CAP since 1992 has been the gradual
shift from price support for EU agricultural products to income support for EU
farmers. The old system of price support required a highly protective tariff
regime, to prevent third-country agricultural products from flooding the
high-priced EU market. However, the high prices served to stimulate production
in the more efficient agricultural areas of the EU, while at the same time
lowering demand for EU-produced feed products for the livestock and industrial
sectors. This created large ‘surpluses’, which either had to be stored in the
EU at considerable cost, or exported as food aid.
Under this system EU agricultural products would regularly be exported
at highly subsidised prices to African markets, often in ways which disrupted
local production or held back the development of local production. While this
might benefit traders and processors the production effects in what are largely
agrarian economies commonly outweighed these temporary consumer benefits. While
under the CAP reform process EU farmers have largely been insulated from the
income effects of price reductions, African exporters simply had to carry the
income loss. This has served to significantly erode the value of traditional
African trade preferences.
So, if one asks where the ‘Grain
Mountain’ and the ‘Milk Lakes’ of the CAP have gone, the answer is to Africa.
The milk was dumped as cheap foreign aid in West Africa where it collapsed the
production of milk in Mali, Chad and the Central Africa Republic. The grain was
delivered elsewhere, in the Horn of Africa and Sudan, which made it cheaper to
acquire than locally-produced grains. The farmers lost their domestic market
and had no funds to pay back their bank loans; lost their credit and were
unable to plant the next season’s crop because they had no cash. The culture of
aid dependence was fostered and nurtured by the CAP.
According to Oxfam, the £30bn-a-year EU agricultural subsidy regime is
one of the biggest iniquities facing farmers in Africa and other developing
counties. They cannot export their products because they compete with the lower
prices made possible by EU subsidies to European producers. In addition,
European countries dump thousands of tons of subsidised exports in Africa every
year so that local producers cannot even compete on a level playing field in
their own land. Meanwhile, governments of developing countries come under
intense pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to
scrap their own tariffs and subsidies as part of free trade rules.”
World trade talks aimed at reaching agreement on subsidy reform have
stalled because of the EU’s intransigence over its CAP. The CAP costs British
taxpayers £3.9bn a year and also adds £16 a week – £832 a year – to the average
family of four’s food bill. Recently the £1.34bn-a-year EU sugar regime was
ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation and European countries were found
guilty of dumping too much subsidised sugar in developing countries
under-cutting local farmers.
European farmers are guaranteed a price for their sugar three times
higher than the world price and there are restrictions on foreign imports –
backed up by import tariffs of 324 per cent. Export subsidies, meanwhile, allow
surplus EU sugar to be dumped at bargain prices in African countries.
Mozambique loses more than £70m a year – equivalent to its entire
national budget for agriculture and rural development – because of the trade
distortions and South Africa also loses £31m a year. While chicken producers in
Europe do not receive direct payments, the grain that feeds the birds is
subsidised, substantially reducing the cost of farming. Kenya, Nigeria and
Senegal have been hit by cheap, subsidised imports from Europe while the £30
paid to British farmers for every tonne of wheat they produce inflates the
price of breakfast cereals, bread and other goods in Britain to British
consumers. European preference for chicken breasts and legs means that thighs
and wings are often frozen and exported to Africa where they are sold for
rock-bottom prices. Chicken farmers in Senegal and Ghana used to supply most of
the country’s demand – now their market share has shrunk to 11 per cent because
subsidised imports are 50 per cent cheaper.
The Sale of African Land
One of the growing trends in African agriculture has been the sale of African
land to foreigners who invest in large-scale modern farms for export of
foodstuffs and biofuel-producing crops to their own countries. This has had a
profound effect on African farming and a devastating effect on the availability
of scarce water supplies.
Leading the rush into African land are international agribusinesses,
investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds as
well as UK pension funds, foundations and individuals attracted by some of the
world’s cheapest land.
Together they are scouring Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi,
Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and
elsewhere for land. Ethiopia alone has approved 870 foreign-financed
agricultural projects since 2007. Any land there, which investors have not been
able to buy, is being leased for approximately $1 per year per hectare.
Saudi Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern
emirate states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the
biggest buyer. In 2008 the Saudi government, which was one of the Middle East’s
largest wheat-growers, announced it was to reduce its domestic cereal
production by 12% a year to conserve its water. It earmarked US$ 5bn to provide
loans at preferential rates to Saudi companies which wanted to invest in
countries with a strong agricultural potential.
For example, the Saudi investment company Foras, backed by the Islamic
Development Bank and wealthy Saudi investors, plans to spend $1bn buying land
and growing 7m tonnes of rice for the Saudi market within seven years. The
company says it is investigating buying land in Mali, Senegal, Sudan and
Uganda. By turning to Africa to grow its staple crops, Saudi Arabia is not just
acquiring Africa’s land but is securing itself the equivalent of hundreds of
millions of gallons of scarce water a year. Water, says the UN, will be the
defining resource of the next 100 years.
Food cannot be grown without water. In Africa, one in three people
endure water scarcity and climate change will make things worse. Building on
Africa’s highly sophisticated indigenous water management systems could help
resolve this growing crisis, but these very systems are being destroyed by
large-scale land grabs amidst claims that Africa’s water is abundant,
under-utilised and ready to be harnessed for export-oriented agriculture. The
current scramble for land in Africa reveals a global struggle for what is
increasingly seen as a commodity more precious than gold or oil – water.
The aquifers across the Indian sub-continent have been depleted by
decades of unsustainable irrigation. The only way to feed India’s growing
population, the claim is made, is by sourcing food production overseas, where
water is more available.
All of the land deals in Africa involve large-scale, industrial
agriculture operations that will consume massive amounts of water. Nearly all
of them are located in major river basins with access to irrigation. They
occupy fertile and fragile wetlands, or are located in more arid areas that can
draw water from major rivers. In some cases the farms directly access ground
water by pumping it up. These water resources are lifelines for local farmers,
pastoralists and other rural communities. Many already lack sufficient access to
water for their livelihoods. If there is anything to be learnt from the past,
it is that such mega-irrigation schemes can not only put the livelihoods of
millions of rural communities at risk, they can threaten the freshwater sources
of entire regions.
The reality is that a third of Africans already live in water-scarce
environments and climate change is likely to increase these numbers
significantly. Massive land deals could rob millions of people of their access
to water and risk the depletion of the continent’s most precious fresh water
sources
It is almost impossible to know just how much of Africa has been sold or
leased out in the past two years because the deals are shrouded in secrecy and
happening at a great pace.
More than US$100 billion has been mobilised in the past two years for
investing in land, the trick being, according to one analyst “not to harvest
food but to harvest money”. There are estimates that in this period, 30 million
hectares (an area the size of Senegal and Benin together) have been grabbed, in
at least 28 countries in Africa.
African Wars
By far the most direct impediment to African growth and development is
the profusion of wars on the African continent. An enormous portion of the
national revenue is diverted from civil projects to pay for a large standing
army. A substantial part of the national revenue stream is diverted for this
purpose. Indeed, many African states have known little else than military rule
where the military have seized power for themselves and operated their nations
under military rules and using military justice as a guide.
African wars have displaced millions from their land and killed many
others. As long as the wars continue, farming is diminished, transport is
diverted, and resources stolen and provide no public revenue Perhaps the best
examples are the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (‘DRC’) and the Ivory
Coast. Between August 1998 and April 2004 some 3.8 million people died violent
deaths in the DRC. Since 2004 this number has almost trebled. Many of these
deaths were due to starvation or disease that resulted from the war, as well as
from summary executions and capture by one or more of a group of irregular
marauding bands. Millions more had become internally displaced or had sought
asylum in neighbouring countries. Rape was endemic; insecurity was the rule;
and impunity the remedy.
In the Ivory Coast, once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa
was riven by a rebellion in 2000. The country was divided between North and
South and their dividing line was patrolled by the French Army (Force Licorne)
and the UN peacekeepers. Above the line, in the Muslim North, the nation was
run by warlords and local despots. The civil servants fled and there was no
more government or schools or services. The citizens who hadn’t fled stopped
paying rents or taxes; they paid for no services or utilities; and they paid no
excise or customs duties on the products they sent out of the country as
exports. These rebels were united under the leadership of Alassane Ouattara,
originally a Burkinabe citizen, and now the French-installed President of the
Ivory Coast. There was no freedom of movement and investment plans were
disrupted and thousands killed.
While these two cases are good examples of the disruptions caused by
wars they are not unique. The other wars in Sudan, in Darfur, in Somalia,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, the Central Africa Republic and
now Niger are recent struggles. The disruption to the economies of these
countries involved cannot be overestimated. Rapes, murder, starvation, child
soldiers, internal displacement and disease are the usual concomitants. Wars
have been a major factor in the lack of development and growth in Africa and,
while often provoked, incited, armed and funded by external nations (notably
France and Libya) they engaged a substantial participation of African leaders.
Now, with the rise of Al Qaida in Northern, Western and Eastern Africa
the creation of organisations like Boko Haram have posed great difficulties for
those who seek to contain them. The Europeans have failed to play a positive
role. The French, who blotted their copy book in their pre-emptive attack on
Libya and their harassment of Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast, have extended
themselves in Mali, Central African Republic and Niger far beyond their means
of paying for their efforts themselves without help. In mid-May 2014 the
defence minister, Le Drian, admitted the French had run out of funds. He
demanded an addition of €500 million
from exceptional receipts for 2014 to be raised by selling the government’s
shareholdings in defence companies. His report set out concerns over military
training, poor state of buildings, paying bills on time, hurting labour and
postponing key equipment orders to 2016. These difficulties would manifest
themselves in their overseas campaigns in Mali and the Central African
Republic.
In addition some €7 billion of equipment contracts planned for 2014 and 2015 would be delayed, which would have “disastrous industrial consequences,” said. Thousands of jobs would be lost at Nexter and Renault Trucks Defence in the land sector, at Concarneau, Cherbourg and Saint-Nazaire shipyards, and the aerospace industry. Know-how would be lost. There would be severe consequences for the military, particularly for the nuclear deterrent, for a planned order of the Airbus A330 multirole tanker and transport plane and for the Army, which would be under-equipped. Intelligence-gathering kit, including a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, Ceres spy satellite and light aircraft, would be delayed, he said.
In addition some €7 billion of equipment contracts planned for 2014 and 2015 would be delayed, which would have “disastrous industrial consequences,” said. Thousands of jobs would be lost at Nexter and Renault Trucks Defence in the land sector, at Concarneau, Cherbourg and Saint-Nazaire shipyards, and the aerospace industry. Know-how would be lost. There would be severe consequences for the military, particularly for the nuclear deterrent, for a planned order of the Airbus A330 multirole tanker and transport plane and for the Army, which would be under-equipped. Intelligence-gathering kit, including a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, Ceres spy satellite and light aircraft, would be delayed, he said.
France has to cut back on its military spending to meet its budget
targets. It has tried to do so by demanding funds from the United Nations by
pretending French troops were ‘peacekeepers’ and worthy of support. France has
tried to lead its EU colleagues into a commitment of funds and materiel but
most have been unwilling. The Europeans and the nations of the African Union
have pledged support in terms of manpower and funds but these are already
delayed and insufficient. The main support for the fight against the terrorists
in Africa has devolved on the U.S. and Canada. However, the price of this
involvement has changed the face of African warfare. It has created a culture
of surrogate armies.
The U.S. At War in
Africa
 |
| USA President Husseine Obama |
The U.S. has been engaged militarily in Africa for a very long time; not
as a principal but as an adjunct to existing forces. While British and the
French fought their wars in Africa as prime actors the U.S. tended to assist
with training, equipment and guidance of an indigenous surrogate military
force. According to a US Congressional
Research Service Study published in November 2010, Washington has dispatched anywhere between hundreds
and several thousand combat troops, dozens of fighter planes and warships to
buttress client dictatorships or to unseat adversarial regimes in dozens of
countries in Africa, almost on a yearly basis. The record shows the US armed
forces intervened in Africa forty-seven times prior to the 2012.
The countries suffering one or more US military intervention include the Congo,
Zaire, Libya, Chad, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia, Central African
Republic, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia,
Djibouti and Eritrea.
Between the mid 1950’s to the end of the 1970’s, only four overt
military operations were recorded, though large scale proxy and clandestine
military operations were pervasive. Under Reagan-Bush Sr. (1980-1991) military
intervention accelerated, rising to eight, not counting the large scale
clandestine ‘special forces’ and proxy wars in Southern Africa. Under the
Clinton regime, US militarized intervention in Africa took off. Between 1992
and 2000, seventeen armed incursions took place, including a large scale
invasion of Somalia and military backing for the Rwanda genocidal regime.
Clinton intervened in Liberia, Gabon, Congo and Sierra Leone to prop up
a long standing troubled regimes. He bombed the Sudan and dispatched military
personnel to Kenya and Ethiopia to back proxy clients assaulting Somalia. Under
Bush Jr. fifteen US military interventions took place, mainly in Central and
East Africa.
Since 1991 the U.S. Defense Department has been running Joint Combined
Exchange Training or JCET programs in which US. Special Forces train local
military forces in areas in which they might one day need to engage in military
activities. These expanded into Africa in 1998 with the first of a continuing
series of Exercise Flintlock where elements of the 1st, 3rd or 5th Special
Forces Group run programs twice a year in Africa. training local soldiers.
These JCET programs are known as Flintlocks and vary from search and rescue
exercises, disaster management, or combat life-saving. Quite often they
introduce sophisticated equipment into the training program.
By 2002 the Bush Administration reconstituted the command structure and
created AFRICOM as the command for activities in Africa in addition to the
Flintlocks. The number of programs under the aegis of AFRICOM is impressive.
These include, inter alia:
·
Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism
Initiative/Partnership (formerly Pan Sahel Initiative) (TSCTI) Targeting threats to US
oil/natural gas operations in the Sahara region Algeria, Chad, Mali,
Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria, and Libya.
·
Africa Contingency Operations
Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA) (formerly African Crisis Response Initiative)
(ACRI)) Part of "Global Peace" Operations Initiative (GPOI) Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali,
Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania,
Uganda, Zambia.
·
International Military Training
and Education (IMET) program
Brings African military officers to US military academies and schools for
indoctrination Top countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,
Senegal, and South Africa.
·
Africa Center for Strategic
Studies (ACSS)
(formerly Africa Center for Security Studies) Part of National Defense
University, Washington. Provides indoctrination for "next generation"
African military officers. This is the "School of the Americas" for
Africa. All of Africa is covered
·
Foreign Military Sales Program Sells US military equipment to
African nations via Defense Security Cooperation Agency Top recipients:
Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa,
Zimbabwe.
·
African Coastal and Border
Security Program Provides
fast patrol boats, vehicles, electronic surveillance equipment, night vision
equipment to littoral states
·
Combined Joint Task Force - Horn
of Africa (CJTF-HOA)
Military command based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti. Aimed at putting down
rebellions in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Somaliland and targets Eritrea. Ethiopia,
Kenya, Djibouti
·
Joint Task Force Aztec Silence
(JTFAS) Targets
terrorism in West and North Africa. Joint effort of EUCOM and Commander Sixth
Fleet (Mediterranean) Based in Sigonella, Sicily and Tamanrasset air base in
southern Algeria Gulf of Guinea Initiative, US Navy Maritime Partnership
Program Trains African militaries in port and off-shore oil platform security
Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sao Tome & Principe, Togo.
·
Tripartite Plus Intelligence
Fusion Cell Based in
Kisangani, DRC to oversee "regional security," i.e. ensuring U.S. and
Israeli access to Congo's gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, and coltan.
Congo-Kinshasa, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, United States
·
Base access for Cooperative
Security Locations (CSLs) and Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) U.S. access to
airbases and other facilities Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia,
Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, Algeria.
·
Africa Command (AFRICOM)
Headquarters
Headquarters for all US military operations in Africa Negotiations with
Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya, and Libya. Only Liberia has said it
would be willing to host AFRICOM HQ.
·
Africa Regional Peacekeeping
(ARP) Liaison
with African "peacekeeping" military commands East Africa Regional
Integration Team: Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar,
Tanzania. North Africa Regional Integration Team: Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, Libya. Central Africa Regional Integration Team: Congo (Kinshasa),
Congo (Brazzaville), Chad.
·
South Africa
Regional Integration Team: South Africa, Zimbabwe,
Angola. West Africa Regional Integration Team: Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Niger, Western Sahara.
·
Africa Partnership Station (APS) Port visits by USS Fort McHenry
and High Speed Vessel (HSV) Swift. Part of US Navy's Global Fleet Station
Initiative. Training and liaison with local military personnel to ensure oil production
security Senegal, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, Sao Tome & Principe
These programs have been
expanded. In August 2103 the US military has awarded Berry Aviation Inc. of the
United States a contract to provide air transport services in support of
operations in Western and Central Africa. The US Army’s Transportation Command
(US-TRANSCOM) earlier this year issued tenders for private flight contractors
to transport commandos from the Joint Special Taskforce Trans-Sahara as they
conduct 'high risk activities' in 31 African countries. The pre-solicitation
notice, said the contractor would need to conduct air drops, fly commandos in
and out of hostile territory and carry out short notice medical evacuation.
Once airborne, the flight contractors should be able to conduct operations from
various “Forward Operating Locations”.
Flight contractors should
"be airborne with an hour of notification" and will fly US Special
Forces missions in nearly all countries in East, West, Central and North
Africa. Services shall be based at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, with services
provided to, but not limited to, the recognized political boundaries of
Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco,
Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda, as dictated
by operational requirements. It is anticipated the most likely additional
locations for missions from the above list would be to: Algeria, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and
Tunisia.
The expansion of US commando
operations is focused on confronting the threat posed by Sahelian and
sub-Saharan terror groups which include Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),
Ansar al Dine and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO),
which operate in nearly all north and north-west African countries. The
operations are also aimed at confronting Al Qaeda inspired Nigerian Islamist
militant groups Boko Haram and its more radical splinter movement Vanguard for
the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa, better known as Ansaru. Now the U.S.
government is seeking to build an analogous service in Niger, along with its
new drone base there. A ground presence already exists in the hunt for Kony in
East Africa.
It was intended that these
operations would be co-ordinated and shared with various, mainly NATO; armed
forces which would help defray the costs and engage their own troops in the
training. This has proved a false hope. The Europeans have been reluctant to
send troops, defray costs, provide equipment and engage in training. This has
meant that many of the African troops (the surrogate armies) are not fully
trained, not fully equipped and badly led. The Europeans are likely to reduce
their engagements even more as the straightjacket of self-imposed austerity is
directed at their own military forces.
Conclusion
An overview of the current
situation in Africa is not very positive. For a number of reasons African
states have relied on the sale of primary resources as the source of their
incomes. Manufacturing and import substitution has lagged behind. Agriculture
has been neglected and the rise of foreign investment in African agriculture by
foreigners has tended to remove the best properties and the critical access to
water. The commodity boom is drying up in the face of worldwide retrenching of
industry and the rise of the U.S. shale oil and gas has diverted the African
petroleum to a more competitive pricing model. The French appear to have
converted francophone assets into French assets unavailable to the African
countries. Wars continue to ravage the continent with widespread refugee
problems arising from the conflicts. Corruption still remains and local people
suffer hunger, disease, rape, pollution and a lack of real opportunity to
escape the cycle of poverty. That which they do grow is undercut by the pricing
structure of the Common Agricultural policy. Now, with the rise of the Far
Right in European politics with the focus on domestic growth and their
inhibition of foreigners benefitting from their systems the road looks bleak
indeed. This is not a good time for Africans.
Credit:www.academia.edu
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