Natural resources-rich Africa will remain poor and dependent on other regions unless countries learn from Botswana’s openness in the handling of its affairs when it comes to the management and marketing of its minerals, an analyst said on Tuesday.
Harare-based analyst Donald Porusingazi said the bulk of economic and political problems faced by most African countries – both those facing armed conflicts and those experiencing some form of stability – could be traced back to “inadequacies in the management of the family heirloom.”
“Most of the conflicts across Africa are over the poor management or distribution of the vast natural resources endowments that most countries have been fortunate enough to have, but out of which only a few well-connected people are benefitting while the rest suffer,” Porusingazi said.
He added: “We can say the same about Africa’s economic woes. Most African countries are economically poor mostly because of the poor management of the natural resources.”
He noted that although other factors such as an unfavourable global political and economic architecture play a part, the bulk of Africa’s problems are self-inflicted.
He drew parallels between the transparency exhibited by the Botswana government in the management of the country’s diamonds and the opaque nature of the marketing of Zimbabwe’s diamonds, gold, platinum, uranium and other minerals.
“The recent exposé by Al Jazeera about the Zimbabwe gold mafia is symptomatic of a disease that most of Africa suffers from. There are so many leakages out of the continent being caused by greedy political leaders working with unscrupulous businesspersons from Europe, United States or Middle East,” the analyst said.
In the first of a four-part series broadcast last week, Al Jazeera recorded a Zimbabwean diplomat and his colleagues telling undercover journalists that he could facilitate the smuggling of gold and the laundering of dirty money brought into from Hong Kong.
According to the diplomat – who is close to Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa – he was able to facilitate smuggle billions of dollars of gold and no one would check his bag at the airport.
The revelations came as Zimbabwe is struggling with 20-hour power blackouts, an extensively potholed road network and lack of medicines in public hospitals.
“What all this shows is that Zimbabwe and many other African countries are not as poor as our leaders want us to believe. It’s a just a question of poor governance systems that result in a lack of checks and balances,” Porusingazi said.
On the other hand, Botswana continues to lead the way in terms of how things are done.
On Monday President Mokgweetsi Masisi announced that Botswana would acquire a 24 percent stake in Belgian diamond company HB Antwerp.
Officially opening HB Antwerp’s cutting and polishing plant in Gaborone, Masisi said Botswana must gain more from its diamond resources, for the “simple reason that the returns that come with having control to sell our diamonds with value addition, are much, much, higher than the returns on the sales of rough diamond stones.”
To that end, Masisi said that, “It is time for Botswana to participate not only in the process of extracting diamonds and selling them as rough stones without having processed them into value-added commodities across the diamond trade value chain.”
The deal comes amid uncertainty over Botswana’s long-standing sales agreement with industry giant De Beers.
Last month, Masisi indicated his unhappiness with a 54-year-old sales deal with De Beers, in which Botswana is allocated 25 percent of rough diamonds mined under a joint venture. That deal is due to expire June 30.
By contrast to Zimbabwe, Botswana has had a surplus foreign exchange balance for decade, has good road infrastructure, functioning hospitals and does not experience daily power cuts.
JN/APA