Page 27 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 21

Economy

The Grand Inga Dam, Democratic Republic of Congo.

to be exchanged at every corner of 2063 will fail because of a lack of to create a trillion dollars within a
Afrika. They will accept because of finances. It’s a question of time and decade after we have built these in-
their comparative advantage. If you we’re in trouble we just have to act frastructures with continental taxes.
have flowers in Kenya, you have because we will be having 3 billion
got bananas in Uganda, you have people in the next 30 years ahead so I agree that the resources that
got beans in Burundi, you have got we don’t have a choice here, it’s an Afrika needs are actually in the
potatoes in Rwanda, obviously you emergency. That’s why our organiza- hands of Afrikans or in the land
want the market. You want this to tion is calling all Pan-Afrikanists and of Afrika and I do know that we
reach Gabon in less than one hour, Afrikan people that every African have much more than we are
you want this to reach Ethiopia in Union General Assembly we go saying. As you have described it,
less than one day, you want this to there and impose this idea of cre- we have enough capacity to feed
reach South Afrika in less than two ating our own finances and then we ourselves, to look after ourselves,
days but now it takes weeks. will be able to create these continen- if we actually focus on ourselves.
Even this trade agreement that we tal infrastructures and electrify our I am still uncomfortable with the
signed cannot be successful without capital cities as early as possible. idea of a tax, maybe we don’t call
this integrated high-speed railway it a tax and maybe we don’t look
looking at the size of this continent. It is not that we just want to devel- at it as a tax but we look at it the
It is the same as having Congo op; it is a problem at our door we way Afrikan communities would
DRC, their provinces are far enough have to act and no one will help do it, it is a pool of resources,
from each other and they don’t us we have seen it with Covid 19, a communal fund for Afrika’s
share their goods with each other, the way they collected money for growth, an Afrika growth fund
there is no barrier there. They don’t their own for Covid 19 we must that people would contribute
share these goods because there is a do it ourselves we must collect our to voluntarily. But there would
lack of infrastructure. We are happy money. We have enough money to have to be a lot of transparency
that we have got this trade agree- have IMF and World Bank assets around how it is collected and
ment but it will fail and this Agenda combined ourselves. We are able how it is being spent. How do

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