AU self-funding antidote to neo-colonialism
THIS weekend, African leaders, President Mnangagwa among them, will converge on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the 35th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly (Heads of State and Government), with the continent smarting from a litany of challenges brought about by the global Covid-19 pandemic.
The summit, which will be held under the theme; “Building Resilience in Nutrition on the African Continent: Accelerate the Human Capital, Social and Economic Development”, comes in the year that the AU turns 20.
It also comes as the continent reels from impacts of climate change, renewed desire by Malians to unshackle themselves from colonial manacles, and insurgence in Mozambique.
True to this year’s theme, President Mnangagwa has poised Zimbabwe on the path to prosperity.
The climate- proofed Presidential Inputs Programme (Pfumvudza/Intwasa), launched in 2020 saw more than 1,9 million farmers, 1 050 479 of them women, being trained in November 2021 to ensure food and nutrition security for citizens, particularly those in vulnerable communities.
The Government of Zimbabwe remains committed to crafting political guarantees and an enabling policy environment to mitigate the impact of climate change and Covid-19 through broad-based partnerships.
Although there is really a lot to celebrate in terms of meeting the objectives for which the AU was established, chief among them being to empower African countries and guarantee social, economic and political development for the benefit of all Africans, funding gaps have exposed the continent to power mongers.
The Covid-19 contagion, for example, laid bare the power politics that the continent has to grapple with in its efforts to prepare, contain and respond to pandemics and other disasters.
The issue of vaccines also saw the gap between rich and poor nations widening.
Africa, indeed, was exposed in terms of healthcare systems as well as economic and social development imperatives.
Self-funding has always been touted as the Holy Grail that Africa needs to redeem herself from being a punch bag in global power politics.
Rich in natural resources and blessed with spirited human capital, the continent can establish itself as a force to reckon with in the way world affairs are run, instead of finding comfort in detachment, and waiting for alms.
It is disturbing that 72 percent of the AU budget is sponsored by co-operating partners, with the United States and its cronies contributing 60 percent, leaving African member states to meet the remaining 28 percent.
Such a situation is unsustainable, and smacks in the face of independent ideologies as it robs Africans of their sovereignty, thus gagging their voices.
An unenviable predicament like that creates acrimony among Africans through regime change agendas disguised as democracy.
That is the quandary which Africa finds herself in; where the tune is determined by he who pays the piper, and the dance floor is a mirage that shifts with every step taken.
Reading into the quicksand that the continent is trapped in, President Mnangagwa told his counterparts at the 32nd Ordinary
Session of the AU Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February 2019 that:
“Funding remains a major constraint that we face as a Union, which must be a priority in the reform process.
“It is imperative that member states share the financial burden of our Union through the timeous payment of dues. Let us wean ourselves from the donor dependency syndrome and strive to fund our own agenda, programmes and activities in line with the decision taken in June in Johannesburg, South Africa.”
President Mnangagwa highlighted then, that Zimbabwe was committed to play her part by paying her dues on time.
“I wish to encourage others to do the same. Our commitment and sacrifices for the sustenance of the Union should be matched by the effective and efficient management of resources by the African Union Commission (AUC) and other organs of the Union,” he added.
True, commitment and encouragement are prerequisite in effective management of resources for the common good of the peoples of Africa.
At the Summit in Rwanda in 2016, the AU’s 2017 draft budget was tabled as US$781 million, of which amount US$569 million was expected from foreign donors, while the 54 African countries were to contribute US$212 million, translating to about US$4 million per country.
There are some countries in Africa whose budgets are donor-funded, which compromise the wishes of citizens.
This hypocrisy on the part of the empire confines the post-colonial African state in the intensive care unit as it loses more than it gains through plunder disguised as aid.
There really is no innocent aid. There are always strings attached.
Through dependence on the empire’s aid, Africa remains burdened and appended to Europe and the US, without the wherewithal to map her own destiny going forward.
The former colonial power remains influential in the former colony, which places a wedge between African countries.
They will not speak with one voice, seeing as they clandestinely co-operate with the West.
It is in its nature for the West to renege on promises.
For instance, the British government reneged on their promise pertaining to the land issue in independent Zimbabwe as spelt out in the Lancaster House Agree
ment.
They had the audacity to call the agreement a mere piece of paper, yet there are a lot of such pieces of paper the deceitful hypocrites want Africa to respect.
The Colonial Pact between France and the 14 Francophone African countries immediately comes to the fore.
The atrocious pact, in existence since the 1960s, requires that African countries formerly colonised by France deposit 65 percent (plus another 20 percent for financial liabilities) of their foreign currency reserves in the French treasury in Paris.
The former colonies have to do with only 15 percent for national development. Because they are always short of funds, the 14 Francophone countries have to borrow their own money from the French Treasury at commercial rates.
The hard to accept fact that these countries have no individual monetary policies, as everything is pinned onto the CFA franc, points to the baneful nature of neo-colonialism, which the continent should collectively condemn.
Mali has recently taken the lead towards that end; aiming to sever ties with her former coloniser, France.
Africa must speak with one voice against its detractors and refuse to be robbed.
As President Mnangagwa pointed out, the continent should realise the true value of its resources. Notwithstanding the predicament of scoffing at glossed aid, African Heads of State should find means to steer the ship to glory, and central to that is self-funding of the AU budget.
It is this that President Mnangagwa advocates by reminding his fellow African leaders that the continent’s destiny is in its hands.
The West may vilify him, demonise him, or crucify him, and rubbish whatever he stands for, but he remains an astute statesman and visionary.
His actions, desires and words are reflective of what the continent yearns for, but have long pretended not to; for fear of irking Big Brother, seeing he holds the carrot stick.
That Africa is endowed with vast mineral resources is as true as the fact that the colonial world was developed through their pillage.
Sadly, the continent remains poor and lies prostrate on the ground as erstwhile colonisers rape her.
Western hegemony that seeks to continue the subjugation of the once physically and
emotionally colonised should be seen as it is — a poisoned chalice.
Africa has come of age, and gone are the days she is given multiple voices to represent her. The exportation of raw minerals or any other resources should be done away with. Value addition and beneficiation should be the new norm.
Whoever wants to trade with Africa should be prepared to meet the continent’s terms, because there is no freedom without ownership of the means of production, especially the land.
Impoverished democracy is not what is yearned for, but a better standard of living for the majority in a world where all animals are equal, to borrow from George Orwell.
No race is superior to the other when it comes to diseases and how to combat them. Every human being should be given a chance at life regardless of race, creed or nationality in a global village free of thieving gangsters.
Also, wars should not be manufactured to create anarchy and chaos as a way of plundering others’ ancestral resources, or generate blood-stained money through the sale of weapons.
Africans, like all other citizens across the globe, yearn for a world where the power of might is checked to ungag the voices of the feeble and vulnerable; mutilated, displaced and molested in full view of the world through generations of stoic submission; where the word “terrorism” is not used selectively, and where every soul’s dreams are respected.
Such a world is what Africa needs as is manifest in President Mnangagwa’s words when he called for self-reliance, accountability and prudent use of the Motherland’s resources at the 32nd AU Assembly in 2019.
Therefore, the momentum should be maintained at the 35th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly (Heads of State and Government) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this weekend.
Africa should be given a chance to carry the huge basket of its children’s dreams and hopes in her own way.
Such a stance should not only be respected by a progressive world, but will function as a milestone that goes a long way in redefining the continent’s aspirations.
Time, indeed, is now for Africa to glow in the limelight of global economic and political phenomena, as she redeems herself from the world’s punch bag and free-for-all tag.