Remnants of colonial laws impede development develop me

IT is over six decades since African countries started to become independent. Colonial independence meant many things; the undoing of colonialism — a process by which former colonies established their sovereignty and become members of the regional and international community of nations.

The process involves dismantlement of the colonial administration structures, laws, rules and policies with a view to establish independent and sovereign States. Such States are run by governments chosen by the people and enjoy the right to exercise freely the full range of powers a State possesses under international law.

But the case of Africa seems to be one of arrested independence because such sovereignty only exist on paper. The role of or the impact of colonial laws or their remnants in holding back poor countries’ development remains and tends to be a thorny issue because it hides the underlying exploitative relationship between the former colonial administrations and former colonies.

In several papers, this relationship has been packaged as trade agreements or bilateral arrangements whose role is to ensure access by the former to resources is not interrupted.

There several reasons this subject tends to be sensitive. One of the reasons is that some African countries’ independence came as a result of tradeoffs and negotiations. On the part of the colonial powers, these were mainly driven by the desire to be politically correct in a context where the winds of political change were becoming invertible across the continent.

Former colonial administration were forced to cut deals which allowed them to hand over political power to black leadership while retaining economic control. For the freedom fighters, some were aware that they could not effectively win the war due to limited resources. Therefore, trade-offs were a better compromise for both.

To ensure long-term sustainability of this relationship, economic controls were embedded in some of the colonial laws which were carried over to the independence era. The biggest and perhaps most controversial one is that of the Francophone countries that are still paying taxes to France, amounting to around $500 billion each year.

These huge financial deposits are meant to maintain and sustain the franc currency used by several former French African colonies. The franc is then pegged to the euro.

Five hundred billion dollars is a huge amount of money to pay just to keep a currency afloat and at par with the euro. This money could be used for investment purposes, to develop and spawn economic growth for those countries. During the colonial era, those countries were required to deposit all their financial reserves in the French treasury.

This was reduced years later, with only half of their foreign reserves being kept at the bank of France since 2005. Part of the reasons the leaders of these African countries have not bothered to reverse this exploitative arrangement is that France has allowed them unhindered access to its comfort including investments.

There are several of these laws. The Lancaster House agreement which gave birth to our own independence had a clause prohibiting the government from implementing land reform until after 1990. In a recent interview, the former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono lamented the excessive powers of the President over the central bank through the Reserve Bank Act which was another piece of law borrowed from the colonial period.

In Malawi, only one company had a near-total monopoly to produce clear beer with the rest of the brands imported making them comparatively more expensive. In some African countries, certain Western countries still enjoy the legal monopoly to exploit raw materials. In South Africa, the constitution, praised as one of the best in the world, cements the historical economic imbalances by protecting property rights before addressing them.

Democracy and civil rights have also suffered. Some of the British laws prohibiting criticism of political leaders and the royal families have been adopted and retained in postindependence era and have played a significant role in stifling development and democracy.

Such laws now serve African dictators. This is why some African countries are stuck in political stalemates because some of the law that were borrowed or inherited from the colonial era tend to protect the non-performing politicians by criminalising dissent and protests.

In all these scenarios, the people — the Africans — are the biggest loser. Where laws were passed to protect economic interests of the former colonial powers, economic growth has been perpetually crippled subjecting the masses to poverty even when there is abundance of resources. In situations where draconian colonial laws were retained and adapted into the independence era, they have only served to oppress the people.

Rwanda is generally viewed as a confusing example. This is because of its dark history, its transformed present and a promising future. However, what is at the centre of Rwanda’s transformation is a desire to self-define and determine — a process that included cutting old ties with former colonial powers and forge new ones. In addition, Rwanda has demonstrated that it is possible to reform its laws and policies and take control of its national affairs by freeing itself from colonial laws.

The official languages, alongside French are now English and Swahili and it is in the process of reforming its entire legal system to the common law system. That is the definition of freedom and sovereignty.

Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa. He writes here in his person capacity.