Opinion - The ongoing plunder of Africa's natural resources drained by capital flight is holding it back yet again. More African nations face protracted recessions amid mounting debt distress, rubbing salt into deep wounds from the past.
Dakar and Kuala Lumpur — The ongoing plunder of Africa's natural resources drained by capital flight is holding it back yet again. More African nations face protracted recessions amid mounting debt distress, rubbing salt into deep wounds from the past.
According to the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, the continent was losing over $50 billion annually. This was mainly due to 'trade mis-invoicing' - under-invoicing exports and over-invoicing imports - and fraudulent commercial arrangements. Over the same period, Angola lost $103 billion. Its poverty rate rose from 34% to 52% over the past decade, as the poor more than doubled from 7.5 to 16 million.
Fiscal austerity has slowed job growth and poverty reduction in 'the most unequal country in the world'. In SA, the richest 10% own over half the nation's wealth, while the poorest 10% have under 1%!With this pattern of plunder, resource-rich African countries - that could have accelerated development during the commodity boom - now face debt distress, depreciating currencies and imported inflation, as interest rates are pushed up.
For the IMF, World Bank and 'creditor nations', debt 'restructuring' is conditional on continuing such plunder! African countries' worsening foreign indebtedness is partly due to lack of control over export earnings controlled by TNCs, with African elite support.
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