AFRICA CHINA PARTNERSHIPS

A PEEP ON AFRICA

Africa-China partnerships

I remember vividly my teacher explaining the use of historical financial data of a company: “The past is not a precise forecast of the future. But we can use it to assist in making future decisions,” said my financial accounting lecturer Mrs. Mungai. This was in light of a class discussion on how we can use historical data in our day to day decisions.

Investment analysts make great use of this data to come up with theories, projections and trends to pick the right investment decisions. Some decisions made today or tomorrow may yield similar results if those decisions are made for similar or different occasions. In legal circles they call them precedents. They put that similar court decisions should be made if the case has similar material facts.

Based on this decisions of past cases may be used to decide a case. Where past decisions create a law for judges to refer back to for guidance in future cases. Precedent is based upon the principle of stare decisis et non quieta movere, more commonly referred to as ‘stare decisis', meaning to “stand by decided matters”.

We can learn from some activities and decisions made in the 19^th century during the colonization of Africa by Europeans before we commit our resources to foreigners. Today, Africa is a destination of foreign investments in all forms. You will hear acquisitions of local companies by multinationals, contract agreements between Africans governments and  multinationals for resources or you will hear of private public partnerships for heavy capital investment projects in infrastructure.

I know Africa needs heavy capital investments to exploit her potential. This should not be a reason for our leaders to rush to sign these deals as proposed.

During the scramble for Africa in the late19th century, there were two distinct reasons for partnerships between Europeans and Africans. Europeans had ambitions to achieve (describe what they intended o achieve) and were willing to use both legal and illegal means to achieve this. On the African side, tribal chiefs viewed getting a deal with a powerful foreigner as a means to beat neighboring tribe or kingdom. Look at the excerpts from Wanyiri Kihoro’s book The Price of Freedom:

 Dagoretti Chief Waiyaki wa Hinga welcomed Captain Lugard  to his chiefdom. By 1892 an ‘agreement’ was entered into with Hinga under which Hingas subject s in the area would supply food to the company officials for payment. In the IBEAC report of court of directors to the founders of the company dated June 1,1889 and quoted below  report was made that the company had introduced its own copper coinage in Kenya. An experiment shipment of one ton of coins which bore the name “Imperial British East Africa Company” has been made at Mombasa and coins:

……..were penetrating into the interior [and] a telegraph has been received requesting a further supply to be sent out immediately and contract has been made for the delivery of ten tons. The advantages to be gained by a coinage are now under consideration

This shows two set of visions; one African with the shallow and small gains while the other looked at  future gains with a hidden motive in the agreement.

Compare that Africa and Africa in the 21^st century Africa. A lot has happened but the problems facing Africans have persisted long after the Europeans left. We are more educated and advanced yet our priorities, visions and decisions are in line with foreigners.

This can also be witnessed by our absence in investments we are able to do like stock exchanges, patent registrations, legislations and manufacturing. Why do we have so many foreign participations in the NSE than local investors? Investment analysts make a great use of this data to come up with theories, projections and trends to pick the right investment decisions. Some decisions made today or tomorrow may yield similar results if those decisions are made for similar or different occasions. In legal circles they call it case bojectia. They put that a similar court decisions should be made if the case has similar material facts. Based on this decisions of past cases may be used to decide a case.

We can learn from some activities and decisions made in the 19^th century during colonization of Africa by Europeans before we commit our resources to foreigners. Today Africa is destination of foreign investments in all forms. You will hear acquisitions of local companies by multinationals, contract agreements between African governments with multinationals for resources usually mining or you will hear private public partnerships for heavy capital investments projects in infrastructure. I know Africa need heavy capital investments to exploit its potential and achieve her goals which local governments and investors may not be able to rise. This should not a reason for our leaders to rush to sign these deals as proposed.

Compare Africa that time and Africa in this century. A lot has happened  but the problems of Africans have persisted long time after Europeans left. We are more educated and advanced yet our priorities, visions and decisions are in line with foreigners. This can also be displayed by our absence in investments we are able to do like stock exchanges, patent registrations, legislations and manufacturing. Why do we have so many foreign participations in NSE than local investors? This is was one of the reasons European colonized Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism", was also attractive to Europe's ruling elites for economic and racial reasons. During a time when Britain's balance of tradeshowed a growing deficit, with shrinking and increasingly protectionist continental markets due to the Long Depression (1873–96), Africa offered Britain, Germany, France, and other countries an open market that would garner them a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the colonial power than it sold overall.^[3] Britain, like most other industrial countries, had long since begun to run an unfavourable balance of trade (which was increasingly offset, however, by the income from overseas investments). en.wikipedia.org

Compare that with what is happening in the European Union and a renewed interest of Africa by foreigners including China, is there any similarity?

Before we commit our oil, land, people, minerals and other African resources, there must be a very close scrutiny on the deals, their benefits and their long time impact of future generations. The effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism have taken a great deal to resolve and we don’t need to get into new mix. Africa is rich with resources and it is about to take off so we don’t need anything that will hamper that.