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AFRICAN NEWS

• Business

African firms losing sales due 

to power outages

December 17, 2015

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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
African companies are losing millions of dollars in lost sales as a result of the persistent power outages that have been affecting most countries on the continent, experts say. The electricity shortages, which have hit Southern Africa the hardest, has in turn diminished the competitiveness of businesses in the region.

As blackouts continue, many companies in the region and beyond have started to feel the impact and true cost that power blackouts have on their operations.

Speaking at a Zimtrade exporters’ conference in Harare recently, international trade expert Dr Jacky Charbonneau said African companies have had to substitute for lack of efficiencies and this has been costing them more.

“The cost of power outage as a percentage of lost sales ranges between 2-3 percent and 9-12 percent which can be quite massive. For those of you who invest in production, you have to invest in generators instead of new machinery or productive machinery. You now have a competitiveness handicap because you have to substitute for the deficiencies of infrastructure and you have to invest capital for those deficiencies,” he said.

He said companies that face such a situation do not have a minimum level of compliance to doing business and cannot remain competitive.
With nearly one billion people, Africa accounts for over a sixth of the world’s population, but generates only 4 percent of the global electricity.

Three quarters of that is used by South Africa, Egypt and a few other North African countries where only 30 percent of the population has access to power.

In some countries, power utilities have been accused of mismanagement and poor oversight while others have not maintained the power stations.

In the case of Zimbabwe, antiquated equipment at most of the country’s power stations have meant the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) failed to meet the 2 200 MW of electricity needed to sustain the country, producing about 1200 MW instead. That figure has been further diminished by the low water levels in Kariba Dam that has forced Zimbabwe and Zambia to cut power generation by at almost 50 percent.

Electricity is one of the key enablers in the economy and its unavailability has had telling effects on all sectors of the economy.

The country’s industry has already been groaning under a series of challenges that included high cost of power, water and an expensive doing business environment which has reduced capacity utilisation for most companies to between 30 and 36 percent.

Production has declined significantly leaving local producers struggling to compete with the cheap commodities that are imported from other countries to cover the deficit.

The increased power outages are bound to put a death nail on these companies.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Busisa Moyo was recently quoted in the media saying load-shedding would push the few industries that are still to cut back on expansion projects that can create employment.

“We have not computed the cost of the power shortage, but we have seen that the load-shedding schedule has not spared industrial areas like Workington, Southerton and Msasa in Harare, Belmont, Donnington and Kelvin in Bulawayo and Bata in Gweru,” he said.

“The lack of assurance of power will also see more companies laying off workers as they cannot carry a fixed cost without production.”

And the Minister of Energy’s announcement last week that mining companies should cut energy use by 25 percent could have far reaching consequences that could results in another incidence of job losses.

The crisis has also affected the small-to-medium enterprises which account for over 70 percent of employment in Zimbabwe.

Analysts say this could seriously affect the country’s economic growth prospects, which have already been revised downwards to 1,5 percent from 3,1 percent.
The power crisis is not confined to Zimbabwe and Zambia only.

South Africa, which used to be one of the few countries on the continent where most people had reliable access to electricity, has been affected as well.

Experts say a lack of maintenance and investment pushed state-run power provider Eskom Holdings into a crisis where it struggles to meet demand.

These blackouts have threatened to drive Africa’s second-largest economy off a cliff, as mines and factories lose output and foreign investors pull back. As a result, the country’s economic growth has been projected to slow down to 1,5 percent.

The southern African region was, however, warned more than two decades ago that there would be a power deficit. It is the failure to plan ahead for the crisis by governments that has been blamed for the resulting impact.
Dr Charbonneau, however, said the Zimbabwean economy can recover despite the fundamental challenges.

“Zimbabwe is not fundamentally different to many other sub Saharan countries. There are economies who are in a similar geographic environment but are actually doing relatively well, you can take for instance Mauritius, Namibia and Zambia.

“We can argue that we have a dollarised economy, we are dependent on a few export destinations, we are an extraction export business, but still, the fundamentals are pretty much the same. You should talk about common issue like the financial support, infrastructure, governance issues and corruption,” he said.

He said Zimbabwe can leverage on its resources, both human and extractive to counter the effects of reduced competitiveness brought on by problems such as power shortages.

SOURCE: SOUTHERN AFRICAN NEWS

AFRICAN NEWS

• Politics

Writing the Struggle – 

Africa’s instability – look further

 than tribes

March 19, 2013

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What are the root causes of Africa’s instability today? Is it the tribal, cultural or regional differences? Do African intellectuals fully understand the nature of Africa’s problems or they are like Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s character, Waiyaki, in “The River Between”, who went to learn the ways of the coloniser and never returned to his people?

Language defines a culture, a people, a nation and a history.

Yet at the centre of Africa’s demise lies the death of vernacular languages.
The irony today is that while we fight for a return to ourselves, we still use the language of the coloniser. And for Africa, the continent is clearly divided into Francophone and Anglophone zones marking out who speaks what language.

Of course, there has been talk that in order to defeat the enemy, one has to know and understand them. This is what old man Chege in Ngugi wa Thio’ngo’s book “The River Between” tells his son, Waiyaki.

“… Mugo often said you could not cut the butterflies with a panga. You could not spear them until you learnt and knew their ways and movement. Then you could trap, you could fight back… Go to the Mission place. Learn all the wisdom and all the secrets of the white man. But do not follow his vices. Be true to your people and the ancient rites.” p. 20.

For Ngugi, however, and for Africa, most of those who learn the language of the coloniser (including me) have not been able to use it in the struggle and emancipation of their cultures.

Instead, that eagerness to suck up everything led most of us to a point of no return. When we look back at ourselves, we see ignorance, hence, this tight embrace of foreign cultures and languages.

Waiyaki went to Siriana Mission to learn so that he could trap and fight back, but he was trapped and could not fight back.

In sucking up foreign languages and cultures, Africa has not been able to really understand the causes of its instability. Those like Waiyaki never really bother to go deeper into the problems wrecking the continent today. They would rather listen to the colonisers for answers, which they accept without scrutiny.

Take the Congolese problems, for example, which has been blamed on tribal wars. But is it real about tribes? Isn’t there something more sinister at play which the Waiyakis fail to see and understand?

In a chapter in his book “Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature”, Ngugi writes: “The study of the African realities has for too long been seen in terms of tribes. Whatever happens in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi is because of Tribe A versus Tribe B. Whatever erupts in Zaire, Nigeria, Liberia, Zambia is because of the traditional enmity between Tribe D and Tribe C.

“A variation of the same stock interpretation is Moslem versus Christian or Catholic versus Protestant where a people does not easily fall into ‘tribes’.

“Even literature is sometimes evaluated in terms of the ‘tribal’ origins of the authors or the ‘tribal’ origins and composition of the characters in a given novel or play.

This misleading stock interpretation of the African realities has been popularised by the Western media, which likes to deflect people from seeing that imperialism is still the root cause of many problems in Africa. Unfortunately some African intellectuals have fallen victims — a few incurably so — to that scheme and they are unable to see the divide-and-rule colonial origins of explaining any differences of intellectual outlook or any political clashes in terms of the ethnic origins of the actors . . .”
No wonder why, even when the most educated African leader takes over Government, they end up parroting their former master’s language without making real change that benefit the people.

For some reason, it appears as though the Waiyakis do not fully comprehend the nature and extent of the culture of imperialism. (To be continued)

SOURCE: SOUTHERN AFRICAN NEWS

AFRICAN NEWS

• Politics

Today just as it was yesterday

November 6, 2012

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When Libya fell and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi murdered, most African leaders spoke about how the continent should have saved the situation instead of allowing it to deteriorate.

There is no doubt that even today with the chaos and the ongoing uncertainty in Libya, Africa is looking back in regret over what should have been resolved the African way.

Over the years, this has been one of Africa’s greatest weaknesses – disunity.

In an informal sequel to his narrative, “Two Thousand Seasons” – “Healers”, Ayi Lwei Armah illustrates how it is easy for Africa to be divided and ruled; to be turned against each other and be controlled; to be lulled into false security and be cheated; and to be made to waste precious time engaged in useless issues while those who control them are busy exploited.

“Healers” is a simple story that unfolds in the nineteenth century when colonialism came to Africa.

Struggles for the control of land break out between the colonialists and the locals in general but it’s the story about Densu in particular.

The war is between the Asantes and the colonialists as well as the Fantes. It’s a war over land.

There is also a parallel story where Densu is framed for the murder of the heir apparent to the Essuano throne.

Ababio does the framing after he fails to push Densu fight for the crown.

Densu does not act according to Ababio’s orders because his eyes are set on becoming a healer as Damfo, the healer’s intern.

Damfo and his daughter, Ajo, live in the Eastern Forest. The healers are seen as protectors.

While all this is going on, at the Cape Coast, the colonialists are using unscrupulous chiefs whom they sweet-talk into surrendering young men as conscripts for the war against the Asantes.

Eleven chiefs ‑ Dahomey, Hausas, Ada, Ga, Aneho, Akim, Ekuapem, Kru, Temne, Mande and Sussu – all give men who fight and defeat the Asantes.

These chiefs are bribed with clothes, whiskey, sugar, wine and various other non-essential stuff to cause disunity among themselves and sell their own.

This also makes Africans aware of the tribal differences among themselves thereby exacerbating conflicts on the continent while foreigners are busy looting.

When the Asantes are defeated, they turn their anger against the healers, accusing them of betrayal.

So rewind to 2012, and ask yourself whether there has been any change in the modus operandi of the colonialists.

Let’s go to Malawi.

Joyce Banda plays against the whole African team for what she says is for the benefit of her nation.

She is not the first one though regarding Malawi.

The mighty Kamuzu Banda too never had anything to do with southern Africa, opting to work with apartheid South Africa when that regime was under sanctions.

While other leaders were helping free the region, Banda was busy shutting his borders to people running away from wars in the region.

Although colonialists no longer use cheap non-essential stuff, they promise aid money.

The Asante queen mother sums up the situation then and now: “The wisdom of a king lay in knowing at all times what to do to remain a king.

“If what should be done now was to yield a bit to the whites, better that than lose all power to an upstart general,” (Page 331).

In short, Armah says Africa is not united today because of greedy leaders who look at Europe for help; leaders who have no strategy to empower their people and choose to rely on handouts and because of leaders who are scared of upsetting their erstwhile masters.

But Armah says all is not lost. There are leaders like former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, who see beyond the US dollar, who are talking about the African renaissance.

There are leaders such as President Robert Mugabe who believe in black empowerment.

These are the healers Africa needs at this moment in time to restore the continent’s lost integrity.

But such ‘healers’ are hated by those ‘kings’ who still believe in the power and magic of the ‘colonialists’.

In conclusion, people like Mbeki and Mugabe will not be appreciated now; but future generations will certainly turn back and ask why such healers were not heeded.

SOURCE: SOUTHERN AFRICAN NEWS

AFRICAN NEWS

• Politics

How Africa helps maim, kill herself

October 29, 2012

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Every African season is either bloody or deadly. There is never a time when Africa enjoys a peaceful season. The end of one war has heralded the beginning of another.

Examples of this abound. Look at the so-called Arab Spring and its after-effects. Look at the endless Congolese blood-letting. Look at the suicidal Somalia. In all these cases, we lead in our own destruction while foreigners follow.

We create our own two thousand seasons of self-hate, self-annihilation and self-exploitation.

And Ghanaian author Ayi Kwei Armah sums this up well in his narrative “Two Thousand Seasons”, an epic story of how Africa has contributed to her suffering and exploitation saying:
“Woe the race, too generous in the giving of itself, that finds a highway not of regeneration but a highway to its own extinction.”
The narrative is set in a nameless African country and starts with the coming of the “predators” who are harbingers of the country’s ruin.

There are Arabs first followed by Europeans and always they link up with weak Africans who easily and generously give themselves.

The pioneer predators come as beggars attracting pity and sympathy from locals but they cunningly use their religion to mislead and hold hostage the locals who, in turn, are used against their own.

Gradually, the locals are stripped of any character thereby becoming zombies or what Armah calls “white desert-men’s dogs”.

Turning the locals against their religion and culture, Armah says, is capturing the mind and the body into a slavery that lasts more and forever than the mere capture of the bodies.

Once the mind and the body have been captured, the African is left with no means of fighting back and the only solution is running away hoping “that new places, new circumstances might bring us back to reciprocity, might bring us closer to our way, the way”.

In the event where a few, yet to be captured, Africans resist, the predators retreat into the desert only to return stronger and in greater numbers.

The locals’ situation is no better because of lack of leadership, which is greedy and ready to give in in exchange of crumbs.

One such king in the narrative is Koranche who is described as, “The quietest king, the gentlest leader of the mystified, is criminal beyond the exercise of any comparison.”

After the Arabs – predators – come the destroyers from Europe.

Unlike the Arabs, the white men is armed and determined to have their way. They have no time for negotiation or listening to the locals.

“There is nothing white men will not do to satisfy their greed,” Armah notes adding: “Monstrous is the greed of the white destroyers, infinite their avarice.”

Of course, as part of the destroyers is the missionary with a different kind of religion, which will further poison and subdue the locals who, in turn, will destroy their societies.

Armah writes despite ‘the treachery of chiefs and leaders, of the greed of parasites that had pushed us so far into the whiteness of death’ all is not lost.

Once in a while, a voice of sanity emerges in the calm chaos of silent destruction. For Armah, that voice is Isanusi, the old man who is mocked and called mad because he still clings to the African way. He is imprisoned when he speaks against the destroyers.

Nobody listens to him when he warns the people of the greedy king’s intention of selling them off to slave traders. Only those who escaped from the slave ship live to recall Isanusi’s words but it was too late to return.

That we are still wasting our two thousand seasons wandering in the maze of our confusion as the narrative says is of no doubt.

Look at Africa today and see leaders who are leading their people the wrong path.
They are encouraged and urged by their benefactors – the Arabs and the Europeans.
In the eyes of these benefactors, such leaders are rewarded and praised while those who stand by their people and call for a return of African lands and culture are called despots.

The narrative also sums up what is happening in ‘liberated’ countries where whites still enjoy the fruits of the stolen lands and wealth.

Below is what Isanusi tells people: “. . . These white men, they do not want to be part of us. But here they have come claiming they have crossed the sea from wherever it is they come from just to do us good. They are pretenders. They are liars.
We have asked them for nothing. We should not have let them come among us. They have no desire to live with us. They will live against us.” (153-154)

SOURCE: SOUTHERN AFRICAN NEWS

AFRICAN NEWS

• Politics

Africa needs real men of the people

November 19, 2012

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African politics, in most cases is a dick-measuring exercise, which is usually done to settle scores either between the two contestants or some disgruntled people behind one of the contestants.

In analysing Chinua Achebe’s narrative ‘A Man of the People’, this observation proves very correct.

In short, former teacher Chief Nanga, who becomes a politician, meets his former student, Odili.

Chief Nanga is now the minister of culture whose responsibility is to preserve traditions and norms ‑ a critical position that should be held by an honest and reliable man. Instead, Chief Nanga is a corrupt, dishonesty and cheating bastard who can even betray those closest to him.

When Chief Nanga invites his former student, Odili into politics, he has no idea how this move would impact his future and life.

His belief is that since he has invited Odili, the young man will kowtow and lick his feet for survival.

But three things ‑ lifestyle, cultural beliefs and political issues ‑ bring the two into conflict.

These three can be underlined by the age gap between the two, with Odili Samalu representing the young while Chief Nanga symbolising the ageing class.

Odili learns about how Chief Nanga creates his wealth by being close to him and how such acts do not make him think twice about other people.

 Slowly but surely, Odili becomes disillusioned with politics until when Chief Nanga laid his girlfriend, Elsie, who has been taken by the glitter of the chief’s wealth.

He then goes into politics with vengeance just to take down his former teacher and political mentor thereby making it a dick-measuring exercise.

After failing to get revenge by laying Chief Nanga’s girlfriends, Odili takes him on in his constituency as well as courting Edna, Chief Nanga’s girlfriend.

But without money and experience, Odili is defeated at the polls; is brutally savaged by Chief Nanga’s thugs and his lawyer friend, Maxwell Kulamo is murdered.
While it appears set that Chief Nangas would be in charge of the country and continue stealing, a coup takes place, which overthrows the government and ends the corrupt regime’s rule.

It is only after the coup that Odili gets to have his take on politics, and even succeeds in marrying Edna.

Written in 1966 when most of the African countries that had gained self-rule had fallen to coups, ‘A Man of the People’ captures the struggle that characterises the continent ‑ corruption, ruthlessness, insensitivity, run-away theft, anger, violence and intolerance.

It also puts forward the generational gap issue which characterises present-day African politics where the youths are restless and impatient with old people still in power.

The narrative also questions whether some politicians practise for their concern for the people or it has more to do with their own selfish ends. Can there be a real man of the people? But most of all, ‘A Man of the People’ clearly underlines how newly-independent African states lose out on the economy where governments still have to rely on companies owned by erstwhile masters.

It also outlines that the fight for Africa’s soul is no longer being done by foreign powers but by those who fought to liberate the continent.

In addition, the narrative states how Africa is still being dragged backwards by personality cults, which put mostly corrupt politicians at par with God.

This is done even when such men have destroyed the spirit of nationalism is their quest for self-enrichment.

This narrative does not only talk about Nigeria but Africa where there were coups and elections are always violent and questionable. Such ‑ the absence of men of the people ‑ is the struggle for Africa. 

SOURCE: SOUTHERN AFRICAN NEWS

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SOUTH AFRICAN NEWS

national 26.1.2016 10:14 am

Tito Mboweni takes on Mbeki

Austil Mathebula

Former Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. (File Photo by Gallo Images / Foto24 / Lertao Maduna)

“This really gets under my skin.”

Former Governor of the South African Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni took to his Facebook account to challenge former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s use of the phrase “ruling party” to refer to the ANC.

This comes after Mbeki wrote a letter titled Yet another myth: Mbeki and the monopolisation of power, published on his Facebook account.

“It has therefore been stated as a fact that I centralised this power in the government presidency, the Union Buildings, and therefore government in general, marginalised the ANC itself from discharging its responsibilities as a democratically mandated ruling party, and created the possibility for problems emanating from the phenomenon of ‘two centres of power’,” wrote Mbeki on a letter in which he referred to the ANC as a “ruling party” seven times.

In a bid to correct what Mboweni sees as an incorrect description of what political parties are in South Africa, he said contrary to popular belief, the ANC is not a “ruling party” but a “governing party”.

According to Mboweni, only monarchs are rulers, because unlike political parties who get elected to power by the people, monarchs inherit their leadership positions.

“Political parties, by their nature, cannot ‘rule’, but ‘govern’ based on the will of the people. They are voted into power. They can be removed by the voters, the people,” Mboweni explained.

“Rulers on the other hand are not voted into power but inherit their positions from their forebears. kings, queens, etc. King Moswati, Letsie, Queen Modjadji, etc are ‘rulers’, monarchs for life. They are not voted into power,” wrote Mboweni.

Mboweni lashed out at the ANC and Mbeki, saying the tendency of seeing the ANC as a “ruling party” was  “the usual error that ANC people make”.

“In volume three (3) of the Thabo Mbeki letters, the President makes the usual error that ANC people make. This really gets under my skin. Sorry Sir!” lashed out Mboweni.

“Failure to comprehend this distinction can have severe ‘politico-psychological’ implications where people think they will ‘rule’ forever=one party states.”

SOURCE: The Citizen

SOUTH AFRICAN NEWS

Mbeki denies axing Zuma as ANC deputy president

2016-01-25 18:31

Mpho Raborife, News24

Johannesburg - Former president Thabo Mbeki did not fire Jacob Zuma as the deputy president of the ANC in 2005.

Zuma stepped down, Mbeki insisted in a letter published on the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute's Facebook page on Monday.

It was in response to a 2007 article in UK newspaper, The Guardian, in which Chris McGreal critiqued Mbeki's leadership during his tenure as president.

In the letter, Mbeki said the story that delegates at the national general council (NGC) in July 2005 had defeated a national executive committee (NEC) decision to remove Zuma from his position as the ANC deputy president, after Mbeki himself had removed him from his position as deputy president of the Republic, was pure fabrication.

Mbeki had announced on June 14 2005 that he was releasing Zuma from his responsibilities as deputy president of the country. He made the announcement during a special joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament.

Zuma stood down

Mbeki's announcement came almost two weeks after Zuma was implicated in corruption during the Durban High Court trial of businessman Schabir Shaik, who had acted as his financial adviser.

In the letter, Mbeki said the party's NEC did not make the decision to remove Zuma as the deputy of the party.

"The truth, as I can recollect, is that Comrade Zuma had decided to stand down as deputy president of the ANC – at least for a while – to give him(self) a chance to focus on the case against him. And the NEC had reluctantly accepted his chosen path after a long meeting which went into the early hours."

Mbeki said the public was made to believe the NEC had taken a decision to suspend Zuma behind the scenes at the NGC. 

"This in itself had been dramatic. There was intense controversy.

"This event was of course rolling out at a time when Zuma was under tremendous pressure because of the legal action being taken or threatened against him. Yet the reality, as it was presented to me, is not quite the same as that (public) report," Mbeki said.

Disgusted

He said he recalled one of his colleagues expressing his disgust at their fellow comrades and the level to which they had lowered themselves.

"Apparently another meeting had been held at which it was agreed to reinforce a lie that the NEC had suspended or removed Zuma from his [ANC] position. Meanwhile, they knew very well that this was not the case.

"And so it happened that, also by agreement, one of [the delegates] would take the platform and call for Zuma’s reinstatement. The expectation was that he would then be asked to respond and accept their plea.

"My comrade said to me: 'Watch it and you will see this being played out.'

"And it did. It was like a choreographed show, and regrettably not a single member of the NEC was bold enough to stand up and stop the lie. It felt as if everyone froze on stage," Mbeki said.