<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Latest News]]></title><description><![CDATA[Articles]]></description><link>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/</link><copyright><![CDATA[Copyright Latest News]]></copyright><generator>sNews CMS</generator><item><title><![CDATA[Contact AHS]]></title><description><![CDATA[To become a member of the Society go to www.africaheritage.com
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 08:00:12 +0000</pubDate><link>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/home/contact-ahs/</link><guid>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/home/contact-ahs/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[AHS in 2008]]></title><description><![CDATA[The year in review]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 07:46:53 +0000</pubDate><link>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/home/ahs-in-2008/</link><guid>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/home/ahs-in-2008/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mining in Africa]]></title><description><![CDATA[The fact that Africa is well endowed with mineral resources is not in dispute, but, what seem to be contentious are the role and the share of benefits that should accrue to native Africans in the mining value chain.

The conversation about economic nationalism is not a monopoly of Africans but is a shared concern of mankind.

Many Africans have looked at the state as the vehicle for transformation and yet after 52 years of independence, no African state appears to have significantly altered the inherited ownership structure of the continent's mineral resources.
It is true that minerals in the ground belong to the creator before they are identified by men but who they should belong to be after identification is a contestable issue with no easy answers.

Exploration of minerals requires human and investment capital and it is no secret that Africa is challenged by capital, knowledge and execution gaps to leverage on its resource endowment.

Colonialism was underpinned by access to capital markets by settler capitalists and yet political independence has failed to create its own agenda for capital formation.

The first generation of African capitalists has been to a large extent underpinned by rhetorical nationalism and an under-funded state relying on tax revenues of the former beneficiaries of the colonial state as well as donor support.

The exploitation, processing and beneficiation of minerals call for capital, knowledge and execution capacity.
The post colonial value system and political morality has largely been an extension of the civil rights movement that brought independence without a clear appreciation of what it takes to deliver on the promise of independence.

The conversations that informed the construction phase of the post colonial state were to a large extent premised on creating an alternative economic model without the supporting financial and human architecture.

We are now a free people but acutely conscious that we are collectively freed from the means to be free.

Even the resources in Africa's belly cannot be counted on when Africa's founding fathers appear to have misunderstood the construction of the colonial state that had at its core a capitalist ideology.
Although the colonial state was race-based, it was underpinned by a capitalist protestant ethic with a colonial state playing an enabling role. The engine of the colonial state was located in the individual settler who pursued his/her own interests supported by a colonial and imperial superstructure.

The state relied on the tax revenues derived from economic activities of the settler community and hence the colonial attitude that the state belonged to the people who contributed to it. The rationale for the exclusion of natives from the state was based on the fact that the colonial state was a creation of the settlers and natives had necessarily no interest in it other than selling their time as providers of labour. The colonial business model was supposed to provide residual value to its architects.

Given the historical material relationship between the natives and the colonial state, it is instructive that the founding fathers of post colonial Africa ignored to address the institutional issues necessary for transformation.

Notwithstanding the importance of minerals resources in the transformation of Africa, it is common cause that most of the political parties of Africa are not organised around interests and issues but around personalities.

One would expect to see within African political parties, sub-committees dealing with financial, legal, human, logistics and others issues relevant to mining.

It is not surprising why Cecil Rhodes had to intervene as a politician because he realised that change could not have a life of its own but required the active engagement of those who benefited from it.

Whose minerals are they anyway? What should be the relationship between the natives and God's creation, minerals? Some have argued that Africa belongs to the natives being black people while others have argued that if the continent has to transform, attitudes about citizenship and heritage have to change.

It should ordinarily not matter what colour you are if a market system is in existence underpinned by a democratic state. One of the fundamental principles that underpin a capitalist system is the notion of exchange of value and the role of money in intermediation.

Accepting that gold in the ground has no value unless it has been established and in a form that can be measured and exchanged, it is incumbent upon anyone who believes that the gold in Africa belongs to natives to provide an enabling environment for them to access the resources required to convert the mineral into a form that can be sold.

It must be accepted that part of the proceeds from any economic endeavour must accrue to supply chain providers including the providers of capital.

Without the rule of law and respect for property rights, the prospect for progressive change in Africa is limited. Mineral rights are an asset belonging to the holder and as such it may well be the case that the founder of such rights may not be the same as the holder of the surface rights where the minerals may be situated. In such a case, anyone who wants to access such rights must pay the price otherwise there may be no incentive for anyone engaging in exploration activities.

Even if the mineral resources are established, it still takes a lot to extract them and deliver them to market. The capitalist system has its own rules and in as much as it can be argued that the state can be trusted to deliver value to citizens, I have yet to see a successful civilization premised on the state thinking and producing for citizens.

As one of many Africans who have chosen to be involved in business, I have come to accept that profit is not cash. In fact, being a business owner is the loneliest vocation anyone can wish for. You have the burden of organising the production effort and marshalling resources and yet you are at the basement of the revenue stream.

Workers are superior shareholders in an enterprise for they have a contractual claim on the enterprise unlike owners who have no such legal claim. In fact, workers and the state without providing any risk capital have a preference on the earnings of a company unlike shareholders.
If this is the case, it occurs to me that we ought to think seriously about the rich and poor debates that inform policies targeted at indigenisation in a vacuum of a serious ideological debate about what kind of Africa we want to see.

Some have rhetorically maintained that land is the economy and the economy is the land failing to acknowledge that some of the progressive nations of the world are island states with limited or no natural resources at their disposal. Converting land into cash requires a business model and we must accept that many Africans are found wanting in conceptualising a model that can leverage the majority out of poverty.

Surely, if natives want to control their resources, financial literacy must be the starting point and not any populist rhetoric. We must accept that there are no rights without obligations.

It would be foolhardy to expect your enemy to invest in your progress. If a worker wants to be a capitalist then he/she must subordinate his interests to the company including the right to income.
Even those who are critical of capitalists must accept that economic progress cannot be an accident of history but a result of the efforts of determined individuals who like any general must fight the battle before committing soldiers to fight.]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 03 May 2008 08:18:13 +0000</pubDate><link>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/home/mining-in-africa/</link><guid>http://africaheritagetv.com/news/home/mining-in-africa/</guid></item></channel></rss>