By Willias Madzimure
It is just two days away from the 2017 Africa Day commemorations; the People’s Democratic Party is pleased to join other African citizens in celebrating our great continent.
We are however quick to remind fellow countrymen and the rest of the continent of the challenges we face, the need to introspect and act. We also make the point that the challenges we face if not attended and acted on will have catastrophic ramifications in the future.
The temptation to stay in denial is always there; yesterday Mnangagwa demonstrated this by claiming that ZANU PF has created more than 2.2 million jobs in a country where over 90% of the people are jobless. The African people must get rid of leaders of this kind for progress’ sake.
Our concern is the failure to respond to the demands of the evolving state owing to the widening leadership deficit in Africa. Most African countries have failed to allow free and fair elections in the process denying the African citizen the chance to elect the best available leadership.
As a result the continent is manned by an aging leadership which lacks the dynamism needed in transforming the African economy leveraging on the existence of resources on the continent both Human and Natural.
Instead the continent has been bogged by illicit flows resulting from corrupt deals negotiated in a shady way with no transparency mechanisms in place. In the absence of credible elections the citizen’s capacity to hold the leadership accountable has been taken away.
We lament the fact that most liberation movements who did the excellent work to liberate the continent from colonial rule failed to transform themselves from military wings to proper modern civilian governments capable of driving the economic transformation agenda on the African continent.
The continent has a serious infrastructure deficit in the midst of a growing population. In places like Luanda, Kinshasa and Monrovia, millions of people are living in these cities with infrastructure designed to support a few hundreds of thousands.
In Zimbabwe the Metropolitan Area of Harare has more than 3 million people supported by water, electricity and transport infrastructure designed for just 800 thousand individuals as a result outbreaks of diseases like cholera and typhoid continue to haunt the residents. Electricity blackouts are always an issue and traffic congestion a daily issue.
In this time of introspection, we urge the African policy maker to be aware of the fact that they cannot avoid thinking about transforming the current infrastructure challenges. The estimates are to the effect that 56% of the African citizen will be staying in urban centres by 2050 which is a call for action.
An extra 1,2 billion people will also be on the African by 2050 due to population growth which means African Governments have to create an extra 150 million jobs per annum to absorb these new citizens.
Failure to do so will result in serious challenges with millions of unemployed young techno savvy people who are highly connected flooding the cities.
The African continent is also faced with the challenge of climate, food security has already suffered a serious blow due to erratic rains and the energy sector has also suffered dealing a serious blow to industry for instance the Zimbabwean and Zambian mining sector was highly affected by the depletion of water levels in Kariba Dam in 2016.
Africans continue to live in poverty owing to the leadership’s failure to transform from the Stone Age extractive economies.
A plethora of other structural challenges arrest the continent, issues include corruption, contested elections, ineffective states, fragility and state failure. In some instances there are even armed conflicts which have resulted in many people losing their lives many African countries risk sliding into this category.
The PDP is of the view that as Africa Day gets closer, these problems must be at the fore of the African Policy maker’s introspection.
We are of the view that the African policy maker must to do the following:
- Create a holistic climate change adaptation program.
- Explore alternative energy sources especially solar and gas.
- Collaborate in projects which can benefit the whole continent like the great Inga Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Transform the African Union and create a dynamic vehicle promoting trade within the continent.
- Adopt modern production economic strategies shifting from the traditional extractive style; this will create fiscal buffers protecting the African economy from the shocks of the global commodity prices.
- The AU must also strengthen the use of International Law which has been on retreat on the continent since the times of independence.
- African governments must stop the bleeding by tightening all the illicit financial leakages.
- The Continent must also combat corruption and improve contract negotiation especially with Transnational Corporations.
Willias Madzimure
PDP International Relations Secretary
